Red-light cameras: A better way to purge ‘em

Two things this week.

First, I’ll offer my two cents’ worth regarding red-light cameras.

I don’t like them.

I don’t like them because they’re one more thing whittling away at whatever privacy we think we still have.

I don’t like them because I’m tired of government looking for another way into my pocket.

I don’t like them because they aren’t human and, when I do some dumb thing while driving, I’d much rather have a patrol officer walk up to my window and ask “Sir, do you know why I just pulled you over?” Then, at least, I’d have a chance to explain myself to a human being who might cut me a break.

As an example, there was this incident several years ago when I made a kind of half-hearted effort to come to a stop at a completely deserted intersection. Completely deserted, that is, except for me and a patrol car that I finally saw just as I rolled through the “Stop” sign.

Knowing what was coming, I had already started pulling over at about the same instant that he hit the light bar and began rolling.

When he walked up to my window, I had both hands on the wheel, a sheepish look on my face and, before he could ask the above mentioned question, I told him that “The name ‘Dumbass’ is spelled with a capital ‘D’ and a small ‘a,’ officer.”

It took a second but, when I looked, I noticed that he was trying hard not to laugh. This while closing his ticket book, waving me away, and telling me to be more careful in the future.

Try having that exchange with a camera.

So, I don’t like them. But here’s the thing.

I’m not going to demand that they be pulled out of Lynnwood, nor would I have been terribly angry had they been put up in Mukilteo. That’s because I think that they’re subtle behavior modifiers. I’ll grant you that statistics may be a toss-up on this, but I think they have an effect.

Granted, the effect may be that some individuals avoid the areas where they’re installed, but it may also be that others pay a little more attention while driving. Here, I’d offer that it wouldn’t take very many high dollar tickets to get my attention and cause some modifications to my driving behavior.

Having people — if only out of paranoia — stop and really look while making free turns is a good thing. Just ask any motorcycle rider.

Further, not having someone blow through a red light at more than 50 mph and clip the front of a pickup truck would also be a good thing. I know this because I can show you the front bumper of my truck. Had I been a few more feet into the intersection, I would’ve been introduced to his grill at about the midpoint of my driver’s side door.

Still, I don’t really like these cameras, and a good way to get them removed is pretty clear even to my ever more cloudy brain.

We just make them unproductive. And we accomplish this by doing the right things. Slowing down. Not running lights. Stopping before we make the free turn.

If enough of us did this, the cameras would take fewer pictures. Fewer pictures would mean less revenue. Less revenue would mean cutbacks. Cutbacks could mean that these obnoxious gizmos might be gone and we’d simply be left with — for a while, at least — better driving habits.

And that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it?

Second thing:

Since I have a few words to spare here, I’ll spend them on another annoyance that’s, thankfully, been resolved.

Colton Harris-Moore — punk, not hero — has been captured. That he was caught before anyone got hurt makes things even better because, as sure as the sun rises in the east, had this continued, sooner or later someone would’ve gotten hurt.

Now, I’m hoping that he receives a well-earned lesson on the subject of accountability for his actions.

My wish (and there’s probably some legal precedent that precludes it), is that he’d be tried for every crime that he allegedly committed in every municipality in which he committed them and, if convicted, serve every sentence, consecutively.

I believe he’d find it tough to smirk about that.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Send comments to larrysim@clearwire.net.