This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

3 people hurt - Old Country Rd and South Broadway - major car accident.

This is a photo enforced (red light camera) intersection located in Nassau county.  How is this possible?  Because the no matter what you are being told the cameras are there to make money for cash strapped counties not to prevent accidents.

The cameras are making a lot of money on  people making right turns on red without coming to a full stop where RTOR is permitted, which statistically are not anywhere near the major cause of intersection accidents (see NHTSA RTOR accident stats).  If you believe this baloney you also believe parking meters are about keeping  parking occupancy moving and not about generating revenue. 

I'm all for making our roads safer, but lets get are heads out of the sand.

Don't be fooled into believing these cameras are a very effective tool.  We must force municipalities to re-engineer the more dangerous and confusing intersections. 

If you see a red light camera go up in combination with a revamping of intersection control systems don't be fooled for a minute that the camera made the difference .  Those camera are only filling the pockets of a county that doesn't know how to control its pocketbook.  The real safety payback came from the re-engineering.

The only way to really reduce accidents is through sound traffic engineering principals and facing the fact of life that there will also be people who are distracted enough (from whatever cause, drugs, stupidity, illness, etc) to not see the red light.

Putting up a camera doesn't make the boogeyman go away, but the companies that contract (sell out service) the red light camera will attempt to sell you a whole different set of goods.  And when they mention how much money the county will make people on  both ends sweep the inconvenient truth under the rug.

Class action suits are mounting and it will be interesting to see how this pans out. 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?