|
Red Light Cameras - Kicking Citizens while they are down.
| Save & Share This |
|
What is this?
You can use the social bookmarking links below to annotate and save a bookmark to this article and share and discover new web sites.
|
|
By
A concerned resident, shelbster66@yahoo.com
Monday,
July 5, 2010
Margate City Hall decides to take advantage of the stricken economy and deplorable infrastructure in our community by installing red light cameras to further penalize cash strapped citizens instead of addressing the real problem.
Truly remarkable decision Margate has made to spend more of our tax dollars on red light cameras while the real problem lies in the outdated and outmoded infrastructure that is plagued by light timers that are inoperable and ridiculous traffic light timing schemes that work against he average citizen on his or her way to work.
This is in light of the fact that Pembroke Pines and other Broward Cities have now dismantled or placed a moratorium on installing any more of these devices due to reliability issues and false readings that erroneously target folks for simply turning right on red.
Some communities in Florida such as Pensacola have outright banned the use of these devices, but our uneducated and provincial City Council Members have decided to ignore the other problems in surrounding communities and go for the quick revenue. Red Light Cameras have ended up costing cities much more in the long run because it created a brand new bureaucracy which is overwhelmed by disputed tickets and false positives.
By taking advantage of our crumbling and decrepit traffic infrastructure and utilizing traffic studies that were more accurate 50 years ago, they have decided to treat the symptom and not the actual problem.
When my wife and I moved here from California 8 years ago we were shocked at how bad the traffic light patterns were and seemed to contribute to the traffic problems, such as left turn lane signals that only stay green for 3 or 4 cars at time, when there is actually 10 or 12 cars waiting to turn.
This is not only frustrating for a citizen that is now contemplating turning on the yellow light in order not to waste an additional 5 minutes at the light, but it creates unnecessary fuel waste and added carbon emissions.
Traffic sensors in the ground obviously do not work, because those same citizens waiting to turn left have a view of a cross street with NO approaching cars or traffic.
Instead of buying into this gimmick, why doesn't Margate address the real issues. Instead of targeting it's own citizens, why don't they implement a $1000 fine for littering? Crazy? not really, California has had strict littering fines in place for decades which has contributed millions to the states highway revenue.
The only thing that is more frustrating than uneducated decisions made by people in power, is someone visiting from out of state using our roads and environment as a mobile landfill.
This, among many other bad decisions Margate has made is why this citizen will be doing everything possible to get out of this town.
Maybe Pembroke Pines would have been a better choice.
- concerned resident Shelbster
__________________________________________
| 
del.icio.us
Reddit
Google
Newsvine
Spurl.net
Digg
Yahoo!
Stumble
Facebook
Slashdot
