National City New Toy
What rights do we have as residents when traffic cameras are pumping out traffic tickets instead of sworn police officers? I do not agree with the processing of evidence by photos and video by a contractor hired by the city instead of law enforcement. I feel that this is violating my rights as a tax payer, voter and citizen. These cameras are not part of our law enforcement but hired outside agencies brought in to make money. There is the possibility that these cameras are illegally obtaining evidence for use in prosecution in any government body.
What happens if these cameras take a picture of us crossing and intersection and we are sent a traffic citation? How are we expected to contest this in a court of law when it wasn’t even an officer who issued the citation? How are they going to be able to uphold this in court? If we do not pay, are they going to put points on our driving record or are they going to send us to a credit bureau? It is aster all an outside agency giving us the citation. How accurate are these machines in the first place? What happens if the camera cannot identify the driver? The law states that you must be able to identify the driver. Eventually people will and have found ways around this.
National City is planning on installing these cameras in our city when we have other cities all over the country having problems with these traffic light cameras and the companies that run them. Citizens in San Diego, Houston, Dallas and San Francisco, among other cities are having problems in courts regarding citations given out by these cameras. Citizens are fighting these tickets issued by cameras and winning out in court.
Why then is National City even thinking about putting these in our city when they are not effective? They don’t work and the feeling is that they are unconstitutional and illegal. Why can’t our city find better ways to spend our money?
The City appears to be installing these cameras as a means of making money. Have they even researched the effectiveness of these cameras? In a study in Houston, it showed that accidents more then doubles in intersections that had installed red light cameras. Why pay over 30,000 dollars per cameras when we could be spending this money on other things that are going to help our city. The citizens of this National City already have to contend with the fact that we pay the highest taxes among all our cities. This city is full of citizens that are barely making it financially.
People in this city are losing their houses and jobs and now the city is trying to find more ways of taxing us more. We are in the middle of a recession and monies are tight for all cities. I would hate to see our city spend thousands of dollars on machines that do not work. Why not spend this money on more law enforcement? The city needs to find better ways of bringing in revenue and reduce waste less spending.
Diane Salinas
National City