Posted on 02/24/2014 8:20:35 PM PST by Army Air Corps
LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) -
Traffic cameras have watched Lubbock streets before, but within six months, they were gone.
That was five years ago, but the option may be back on the table. This time, it could be speeding cameras throughout Lubbock County.
Recently, Lubbock County was approached by American Traffic Solutions about installing speeding cameras in the county's school zones. That's the same company that put up Lubbock's controversial red light cameras in 2008.
But before the option is even considered, Precinct One commissioner Bill McCay tells us they're weighing every option.
"If there's something broken that needs to be fixed, then great, if its something that's not broken, then why try to fix it," McCay said.
McCay believes the first step is meeting with each district to decide if this is needed.
"We need to know and understand what each particular school district situation is," McCay said.
According to American Traffic Solutions, these cameras would come at no cost to the county. It could actually mean nearly $18 million in revenue for Lubbock County after they split ticket revenue with the company 50/50.
"It's too early to tell. I don't know. It's not about revenue, it's about public safety," Precinct Two commissioner Mark Heinrich said.
While Heinrich says it's supposed to be about safety, his opponent in the Republican Primary has questions.
"What are the motives are behind this? Whether it's really about safety, or if it's about profit for this company," John David Bruegel said.
But for now, McCay says any decision is a long way off.
"It may be great, but we're a long ways from that," McCay said.
Marked for appropriate emphasis...Follow the money!!
The motive is $$$ not safety!
$100 per traffic light. $100,000 per drone.
$36 million/year in revenue left on the table in Lubbock County? Sounds like the ciizens have way too much extra money laying around.
Any place that puts these up becomes a money grubbing hell hole. The writer of this apparently loves traffic taxes and shakedowns.
I just moved from a camera happy liberal city to a town where they coordinate the traffic lights and don’t have cameras.
My bet is that “what’s broken” is Lubbock County’s budget, and these bastards are not man (or woman as the case may be) enough to tell the people that they’ve pi$$ed away all the tax money and now need a “new source of revenue.” I guess Texas isn’t really as “different” as Texans would like the rest of us to believe. I mean they DO have Wendy Davis running for Governor.
Lubbock went through this crap with Red Light Cameras a few years ago and citizen outrage resulted in the damned things being removed. Now, the city is toying with this crap. As with the Red Light Cameras, I smell a kickback in a city official’s pocket.
OK, before the whine-a-thon begins over this download the free Waze app on your phone and it will warn you of all upcoming traffic cams as well as police traps and traffic jams.
We have had traffic fine cameras (red light and speed) here all over this area for many years and they never got me.
And I am no Sunday School driver,
She is running, but her support is about 35%.
Our City Councils like to spend money on stuff like a soccer field that is rarely used for playing soccer. Oh, we just HAD to have it...for the children!
The Enforcement Class loves this type of revenue.
I would much rather the City or County not spend any money on this crap.
And you have Jerry Brown as your governor. Not as a trailing badly in the polls candidate.
Yep, there's a difference. We don't suck as bad as you guys do.
How about laying off the Texas bashing, and I'll ease up on pointing out how California is a liberal hell-hole?
/johnny
A friend of mine got a ticket in the mail from Chicago from a red light camera. That was last year. He hasn’t been there in 15 years. They got the wrong car and he had to prove his innocence. He was pissed off and fought it. He won through the mail, but it was wrong to begin with.
They get the wrong car sometimes.
They are turning traffic fines into taxes.
Fines are supposed to be a means of deterring and punishing traffic offenses in the interests of public safety. They are not supposed to be taxes, and public officials are certainly not supposed to use tax money to maximize this revenue stream.
This is misprision in office. Indict them, try them, jail them.
> The motive is $$$ not safety!
Definitely. I participated in a study several years ago and came to that conclusion with another group after looking at a significant number of safety problems caused by them, the revenue they were generating, the politics of how they came to be installed at the various locations-nd the lobbyist groups relationships with the red light camera systems. It has not one iota to do with safety and everything to do with money. The donations being paid to the politicians by the administrator / manufacturers was very significant and we observed a direct correlation between the city council members who proposed and promoted the installation and usage of the cameras to the donations they received. Pure politics. Many of them also use left wing style media relations companies that they pay to hype any accidents involving children that their technology “could have saved” as well as other tactics like distorting auto accident figures or any number of methods such as TV ads to garner public sympathy.
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> Lubbock went through this crap with Red Light Cameras a few years ago and citizen outrage resulted in the damned things being removed. Now, the city is toying with this crap. As with the Red Light Cameras, I smell a kickback in a city official’s pocket.
You better believe it will be a kickback and a donation on top of that. If the city has a lot of excess revenue laying around it sounds like someone in the city government is already laying plans on rediverting some of that back into their pockets by investing the money into the speeding cameras so they can get a “consulting fee” kickback plus find a way to redivert some of the speeding camera’s revenue into their own pockets.
ATS, the company peddling these speed cameras, also peddled the red light cameras a few years back. The citizens learned of some peculiar dealings between the city’s honcho for the traffic office and ATS.
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