Speed cameras depart, a few more Arizona brain cells disappear

Speed cameras are a brilliant tool.

They keep the roads safer. They allow cops to spend time pursuing violent criminals. And they raise money for the government.

They aren’t taxes. No one’s forcing you to speed! And if you find the yoke of speed-camera oppression on a particular route onerous, why then you can roar up or down another street!

The argument against speed cameras make no sense.

“I want to drive recklessly and don’t want the state to use technological means to catch me.”

So the opponents created a new one: “The state is using the cameras to raise money.”

This became a rallying cry, and actually found traction in this surprisingly dumb state.

That’s a good aspect of the cameras. Dopes who drive fast—they have to pay!

It’s a disincentive to control dangerous behavior. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing. All that’s really happened is that the state is a little less safe. And a little poorer.

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Anyway, the cameras the state has placed around Arizona go dark at midnight tonight.

Of the stories in the local press about the occasion, the EVT’s is by far the best.

It notes that the cameras will remain in Tempe, Mesa and Chandler. Those cities will continue to reap their budget benefits.

And the safer streets:

During the first year, there were nearly 5,000 fewer collisions along the state’s highways than the previous year, according to Shoba Vaitheeswaran, a Redflex spokeswoman

The Daily Show visits Phoenix—again

The show’s newest correspondent, Olivia Munn, asks doltish state Rep. Carl Seel why speed cameras are unconstitutional but SB 1070 isn’t.

Arizona's Photo Radar

www.thedailyshow.com

Speed camera nuttiness in the Republic

Many parts of the Arizona Republic are competently written and edited. Other times… you feel like a bunch of drunk lemurs are randomly throwing paragraphs together and putting them into the paper.

Today’s story on speed cameras begins:

New DPS chief criticizes speed cameras

The Department of Public Safety’s newly appointed director this week joined a growing chorus of powerful voices speaking out against the state’s photo-enforcement system.

In interviews this week, Robert Halliday said that the system should be restructured if it’s not scrapped.

You could be forgiven for reading that and thinking … Halliday is opposed to speed cameras.

He doesn’t seem to be.

Halliday’s actual quotes are sort of nonsensical at first, but a few grafs down it’s clear he’s trying to tip-toe through the overheated politicization of the cameras. (The yahoo vote in Arizona think it’s their right to barrel down the 51 in their SUVs at whatever speed they want.)

The "restructuring?

To Halliday, who had a 35-year career with DPS before retiring in 2008, restructuring would include reassessing where units are placed and installing some penalty to keep drivers from ignoring photo-enforcement notices when they arrive in the mail.

“This program costs a lot of money to put into place. You have a lot of revenue that is not being captured,” he said.

That doesn’t sound like a guy who is joining a growing chorus against the cameras.

The story then veers into an anti-camera talking point—that Janet Napolitano claimed they would bring in $90 milllion a year. In fact, they bring in $27 million, but it’s still $27 million in free money, right? That’s not an argument against the cameras in any case.

And as Halliday was explaining, the real issue is that the soft-on-crime anti-camera brigade in the legislature drew up the law in a way to make it easy for scofflaws to outmanuever the cameras.

The story today says that only 30 percent of the fines are being paid. Hmmm … what is 30 percent of $90 million?

Finally, the story buries the lede:

A vote could turn out to be photo enforcement’s saving grace, Halliday said, something that came as a surprise to the new DPS director as he made rounds at the Legislature this week. Halliday thought the public had lost confidence in the program, a notion some lawmakers tried to dispel.

“People are telling me that a good portion of the population believes in photo enforcement and wants to have it,” he said. “I’m being told . . . it’s kind of a 50-50 thing.”

That’s an impression you don’t get from the rabid anti-camera coverage.

To complete the story’s clumsy handing of the issue, it ends with Halliday trying to appease the anti-camera nuts:

On his return [from a trip to California], Halliday said, he saw three California troopers between his fishing spot and the Arizona border. Between the Arizona border and the Valley he saw five fixed and mobile photo-enforcement units, and no DPS officers.

“My preference is to have more patrolmen on the ground,” he said. “I would much rather have people stopping and talking to people.”

But that of course is the point: Arizona is out of money and can’t afford more patrolmen. The speed cameras control speeds and generate money for the state. And even if the state had more money, the patrolmen who are out should be spending their time doing more than passing out speeding tickets.

And in any case the entire discussion is moot because the state is in such dire financial straits that in just about any other urisdiction outside of the deep south it would be inthinkable for legislators even to conpemplate removing a 427 million-a-year income stream when they are facing bankruptcy.