Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

This past week, Councilmember David Crowley attended a community forum at Christ Church Cathedral to defend red-light cameras.  He actually said the red-light cameras were a public safety issue.  I guess City Council hopes we forget this whole concept was initially introduced in Finance Committee—a pretty strange place to talk about safety issues.  The reality, of course, is that Cincinnati has already included potential revenues from these cameras in their budget planning processes.  That’s why they are so frantic right now:  the successful NAACP petition drive has delayed the installation of the cameras, screwing up a backwards budget process that has put profit before people, with red-light cameras and their representatives pretending the issue is something else.  But we will not forget!  We are not as dumb as you may think, Councilmember Crowley!

Naturally, the City of Cincinnati has not announced which intersections will receive these cameras—but if we are to believe this is a safety issue, then I suppose there must be some pretty deadly intersections.  Surely something would show up in stats about citations and wrecks at area intersections, right?

According to my sources, the following stats were gathered for 2007 traffic citations:

*In 2007, Red Light Violations accounted for only 3% of citations issued by the Cincinnati Police Department.

*Total citations in all of 2007 for red light violations that resulted in crashes—538 of more than 17,000 collisions.

These two items seem pretty compelling.  Red-light cameras are not being implemented to address a significant public safety crisis.  Instead, this is just a way for the City to make money.  Politicians like David Crowley need to stop telling blatant lies at political forums.  Treating the public so poorly is not only an insult, but a mark against the reputation of both his reputation and character.

Since we all know this is about money, politicians like Crowley should just say so—then, we could at least engage an honest discussion about what challenges face our City.

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.