Some towns promote good citizenship even though it doesn’t pay off.
Dallas discovered this when the traffic light cameras monitoring its busiest intersections worked so well that the city had to decommission more than one-fourth of them.
Dallas had anticipated an annual $14.8 million for red-light-running fines, money essential to keeping the cameras running — before people stopped running lights and reduced violations more than 50 percent at some locations.
Due to sudden lack of funding, the city council is considering scaling back its camera expansion program or idling certain cameras on a rotating basis.
Maybe Dallas should look into Taiwan’s traffic solution — it’s probably cheaper, though not as safe.
(Hat tip: James Comstock.)
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Do you know if this happening in other cities? I would outraged if I knew they took camera down because they stopped making money off of traffic violations. You have got to be kidding me. Is this legal??? That is just nuts!
Rachel
The baked blogger
http://bakedblog.com
People whine the city isn’t spending enough money to protect them, but they refuse to pay the taxes required to fund that protection.
simple solution alert- just install fake cameras
I am surprised that many of you are outraged. When your city administrators come out with a straight face and tell you something isn’t about the money, rather its for safety…please understand they tell themselves that as a way they get to sleep at night.
Folks its ALWAYS about the money. Which government departments are quick and efficient? The ones that extract money from you. (i.e. Department of revenue, traffic enforcement, parking enforcement, etc. )
Which ones are slow, plodding and inneffective? The ones that provide services at little or no cost. (i.e. Traffic Court appeals, unemployment offices, child support and DCFS, animal control etc.)
Expect less and the worst from your public officials like we do in Chicago and life will be easier…if not cheaper.
simple solution alert- just install fake cameras
- Posted by frankenduf
For safety…yes I agree totally. However, how would they then extract money? Its a catch-22 for the cities…but you are correct. Not all need to be active cameras. Sensible idea for safety – not so much for the department of revenue.
This type of story raises another Freakonomics concept: the price elasticity of demand for traffic violations. Do cities keep the fines for traffic violations below the societal costs in order to keep a steady revenue stream? I would argue that the answer is yes.
For example, the cost to society for red light runners is surely higher than the $100 or so fines that are charged.
Shouldn’t the fine equal the cost to society? The cost to society could be derived by the economic value place on the deaths plus any repair costs.
Post #11 has a useful insight, but I would make one modification. Fake cameras would be figured out, however you could have only a few of the cameras online at a time. Humans a inherently afraid of uncertainty.
more info:
“Dallas pays ACS [the camera provider] a guaranteed $3,799 per month for each operational camera, and just a fraction of that to maintain inoperative cameras.”
-Dallas News
I could’nt find it to cite it, but there was an experement done in which:
Subjects where given the goal of blindly reaching into a berral and acquiring a white ball.
They where given a choice between two barrels; one with fifty red balls and fifty white balls, and another berrel with and undisclosed amount of both (adding up to one hundred).
As you may have guessed, a subject given this choice is far more likely to chose the known 50/50 chance, than to take an unknown risk (statistically a 50/50 as well).
This shows that a person fears an unknown risk more than a known one.
From this I would think the least red light running would result from cameras that are: real, nonfuctional, or fake. Announce this, and than change and not disclose which are which.
I theorise that people would fear the POSSIBLE ticket more than the CERTAIN one. Hahahaha!
A number of cities wrestle with this kind of thing, and they’re often not exactly forthcoming with their records when it comes to the revenue side of things. A guy in Columbus, Ohio has been pursuing these records as part of his Ethical Revenue project:
http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/02/08/ann08.ART_ART_02-08-08_B1_LU99T9O.html?sid=101