Last week the Raleigh City Council came up with only four votes to renew its 8-year-old red-light camera program - one vote short of the five needed for approval. The contract expires Friday, and the cameras will be shut down at that point unless the council reconsiders. (See the NewsObserver.com story.)

The problem for camera opponents is that City Councilman Eugene Weeks said Tuesday he would drop his opposition to the program - a reversal that would provide the one additional vote needed to keep the cameras on.

The law of the land in North Carolina is that ninety percent of the fine revenue collected by automated enforcement systems must be handed over to the school system for use in educational programs; the cities using cameras actually lose at least $30 for every $50 citation issued. (See TheNewspaper.com story.) So Raleigh's decision will test the oft-repeated claim that cameras are "all about safety."

The National Motorists Association is categorically opposed to red-light cameras, whether they make money for the locality or not. Here are many of the reasons why.

The Raleigh City Council will meet again on Tuesday to reconsider the camera issue. We encourage Raleigh residents to attend the meeting if possible and express disapproval of the cameras and the desire for the contract to be terminated. You can also contact council members immediately to voice your opinion. If you have family or friends in Raleigh, forward this message to them so that they may weigh in.

Finally, think about querying future council candidates to make sure they share your viewpoint before you vote for them.

With the steady advance of technology, automotive safety and efficiency have clearly improved significantly. Are twentieth-century safety inspection and emissions test requirements still appropriate? Some North Carolina lawmakers think not.

Fifteen senators have co-sponsored a bipartisan bill this year, S123, that would do away with the annual safety inspection program first created in the 1940's and scrutinize emissions testing performed in 48 largely Piedmont or urban counties to meet federal clean air regulations. (See this Star News Online article from March 14th.)

Better technology and equipment on new cars and smoother roads mean vehicles operate safely for longer stretches of time, said Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Davidson. The safety inspection, which costs $13.60 alone or $30 when combined with emissions testing, is less necessary today, he said.

Interest in doing away with the inspection program grew following a December 2008 study by the Legislature's Program Evaluation Division. It determined North Carolina motorists may not be getting a satisfactory return on the $141 million they spend annually on inspection fees and said oversight of the safety and emissions programs by the Division of Motor Vehicles was lacking.

Fifteen states, including South Carolina, have no safety or emissions testing requirements.

But similar bills failed to get traction in North Carolina in 2009. Agencies and outside groups argue that the safety inspection program prevents accidents by forcing repairs before they become dangerous problems, and generates money for the state and local garage owners.

The money generated seems clear. However, studies done by the federal government and state agencies have shown that safety inspection programs have had no effect on accidents caused by equipment failures. The percentage of equipment failure accidents is no different in states with or without safety inspection programs. The more common characteristics of mandatory safety inspection programs include corruption and consumer exploitation.

Interested North Carolina citizens may find and contact their legislators here in order to express their view on this pending legislation.

North Carolina motorists for some time have suffered under the yoke of red-light cameras; fortunately for them, speed cameras have not yet been authorized.

Now some legislators want to expand automated traffic enforcement technology to include speed cameras. Representative Rick Glazier, a Democrat from Cumberland County, has introduced House Bill 145, which would put enforcement cameras or sensors — otherwise known as electronic speed-measuring systems, into school zones and highway work zones on state roads. (See this Sun Journal article from March 9th.)

We agree with the Sun Journal that "tracking drivers with automated doo-dads is a little too much government back-seat driving..." (You can read all our discussions of speed cameras here.) More importantly, in all of our years of following the issue of photo enforcement, we have never seen a study or any other evidence that its use in work construction or school zones has resulted in reduced accident, injury or fatality rates.

We encourage like-minded North Carolina citizens to contact their House Representatives, particularly those in the House Standing Transportation Committee, to voice your displeasure with HB145 and its misguided effort to impose further technological oppression on state motorists.