For those of us who drive, we've all done it. Driven through red lights, exceeded the speed limit, made right turns on red without coming to a complete stop, and even zoomed through that yellow light to beat the red. Many of us have at one time been stopped by a police officer and given a ticket for one or more of these infractions of the law. But is police enforcement enough? Some would like for you to believe that it isn't. Are we actually safe on our roads? Some would have you believe that you aren't safe at all, unless you are protected under the vigilant unwavering eye of technology.
Companies like Redflex, ATC, and others have been campaigning for installation of their surveillance systems on intersections and in mobile photograph speed capturing units(speed vans)all over the United States for the past 14 years, succeeding in doing business in around 250 cities in the U.S., and countless others around the world, where freedom doesn't exist the way it does here. In England, the cameras are at almost every intersection, watching your every move inside your vehicle, and they can stick you with almost any violation they want, and most often, they do.
These companies do business under the guise of a government agency, when in reality, they are nothing more than a private enterprise, who pushes contracts for business upon the government they wish to do business within. A private enterprise, for those of you who don't know, is simply a business. Businesses are designed to make money, so throughout this blog, keep that in mind.
In the city I live in, Redflex has had cameras and speed vans in operation since late 2007, beginning operation without a vote by the public, without warning the public, and truthfully without any notification TO the public as to what these big boxes near certain intersections are. The public had to just wonder about it while the government kept its mouth shut. I first learned about this when my father spoke to me about it; as he had heard about it from a colleague of his, who happened to be one of the first people in my city to receive one of the photo enforcement notices. Since then, my father and I have been part of the tip of the spear in bringing this illegitimate giant of a business to its knees. We attended council meetings and voiced our opinions over 2 administrations, we have spoken publicly to several political groups in hopes to draw support from all parties - liberal, conservative, and libertarian, and we've participated in numerous internet comment threads under articles surrounding reports of the progress/troubles of the red light cameras in many news sources around America, in some cases, drawing national attention. We have been doing this for about 2 and a half years now, and we've made significant impacts on a number of different interest groups.
So what's the big deal? Why make a fuss over these things? Because they have a grip on our wallets ALL over the United States, and they are getting away with it. Why are they getting away with it? Because they are counting on the majority of the American people to be too ignorant to either do anything about it or even care. It's easy to fork over $25 whenever one of these notices are found in the mail, it's ONLY $25! But if you get another one, it's more than that, and on and on. This blog is going to focus on facts, figures, and most importantly, the process. Over the course of reading this, I hope to inform you, the reader, enough to the point where you either change your mind about the validity of these systems or learn enough to reinforce your own opinion about them, and tell a friend about it(including this blog!) Bookmark this blog now, because you may want to come to it later.
How do we prove that a company that claims it's reputable, and does business in the name of safety, is exactly the opposite? Simple. We break down the information they feed us and compare it with facts from other sources that haven't been bought by the company. We also dissect the process by which a company makes money. If it can be determined that any of these are accomplished through illegitimate means, then that should prove that the company should not be allowed to do business.
Let's look at some facts: In a recent article/blog published by Greg LaRose in the New Orleans City Business Newsblog, which can be read here we see that a comparison of tickets issued in November of 2007 were far greater(11,000 to be exact)than tickets issued in August of 2008, which only reached 9,000. Seems like big numbers going to smaller numbers, right? Wrong. This is a "RedFLAKES" fact, a fact designed by the company handed out to news sources in order to make the company look like it's improving the quality of life through the implication of its system. I can't stress enough how ILLEGITIMATE this practice is. When we look at a fact like this, we can learn two things: 1) There are only 2 figures of data represented over a period of 8 months, only showing the beginning and end periods, where the end period is lower than the beginning; which means that between November and July the numbers could have always been higher than 20,000, which would contradict the idea that they are making roads safer. 2) The only way numbers like that could be reached in an area that is as populated as the greater New Orleans area is, is by getting numbers from only 1 intersection, over the period of one month. We have no way of knowing if these numbers were taken from a high-traffic intersection and then a low-traffic intersection, or from the same one! Also, look at the months when these numbers were taken! November is a huge holiday month, and August is back to school! There are two schools in the New Orleans area that are known throughout the U.S.: Loyola, and UNO(there are national community colleges, but that's besides the point.) There are no reports of cameras installed at any intersections within short driving distance from those schools.
Anyone that accepts this data as fact is at best ignorant. There is no way possible for an area populated by nearly 1.5 million people to have only 20,000 to 9,000 people breaking the law with regards to traffic infringements. If we take the latest data(9,000)and do some math on it, and give RedFLAKES the benefit of the doubt, we can safely assume that it's only 1 intersection they are getting this data from. In the New Orleans area there are 11 cameras scattered around the city. So if we are to understand that 9,000 is roughly an average of infringements for the month for that 1 intersection, it's safe to assume that it's the average for all 11 intersections. I mean we want to be fair, right? We want to give them the benefit of the doubt, right? So, let's do the math: 9,000 x 11 = 99,000. That's STILL less than 10% of the affected area's native population. So we are led to believe that less than 10% of the people of New Orleans are such unsafe drivers that all 1.5 million people are to suffer because of them? Don't make me laugh.
In government, the saying "The good must suffer for the bad" doesn't exist(at least until this CURRENT administration, but that's another story), but in this case, do we know if "For the greater good" exists? In this case, no, it doesn't. In this case, the good DO suffer for the bad.
What about the one thing everyone loves to say? "If you don't speed, you have nothing to worry about!" This makes a lot of sense on the surface, but we aren't always speeding, but we are always under the scrutiny of what has been proven to be faulty implements of speed analysis. It's been proven that cars with bigger, non factory tires may have speedometers that show the driver is driving under or at the speed limit, but may actually be exceeding it, causing the cameras to snap a picture. More than one vehicle may be travelling through an intersection when a photo is snapped, but both vehicles may receive notices even though only one vehicle may be speeding. Making right turns on red is completely legal, and has always been legal, in the United States. Why, then, are cameras snapping pictures of people making right turns on red, assuming that they ran the red light? Stopping for three seconds makes no difference to these cameras, because they aren't programmed to be aware of a motorist stopping, counting to three, then making the right turn on red upon ensuring the coast is clear. Even people coming to a stop, while breaching the intersection and backing up, have been issued these notices.
These notices are called 'notices of violation' when in reality they are 'notices of extortion.' Extortion is defined as follows:
1) The act or an instance of extorting.
2) Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.
3) An excessive or exorbitant charge.
If we are to look at these notices of extortion, and we understand the process behind these notices of extortion, we can safely come to the conclusion that this system isn't anything BUT extortion. But how does one begin to understand the process behind this system? To do this, we must first understand constitutional process regarding criminal infraction.
When we break the law and are caught by the police, we are given a ticket, and we have to go to court to face our accuser(ticketing officer.) This is a right we are all afforded under the constitution - the right to DUE PROCESS. In the process behind RedFLAKES, there is no due process, because there is no accuser. You are presumed guilty from the moment that camera takes your photo, then you are sent a letter demanding payment from a company that never would have known you existed if that camera never took your picture, and if you decide to give in to their game, and pay them, will forget about you until you get photographed again. In fact, there isn't even a court proceeding. You can contest these notices of extortion, and attend an adjudication, but what happens next is far FAR from related to due process. You are called - not served a summons from an officer of the court - but called by a secretary working in the office asking you when you can attend an adjudication hearing, which sounds fair, but when you get there, a representative of the company(usually a city lawyer, which is a conflict of interest)shoves a laptop in your face from across the conference table and points at the picture of you in the photo(pretty gestapo). He asks you"Is that you?"and if you say yes, you are willfully incriminating yourself. Plain and simple. If you say no, then they charge that you were the registered owner of the car at the time the car was photographed speeding, and THEN you're guilty. Either way, YOU'RE GUILTY.
But wait - we don't even have to go THAT far into the process to show you how illegitimate this process really is. Photo enforcement through the mail - a system of enforcing 'laws' through the U.S. Mail service, which is borderline mail fraud, does not constitute a valid system of law enforcement, as it abridges police power. If you ran a red light at a camera intersection, and a police officer witnessed it, and pulled you over, do you think you're going to get away from RedFLAKES scott free? You'd be mistaken if you thought so. No, in fact, 100% of notices issued that were also caught by police have been approved, the world over, the difference is, the police officer is human, and the camera isn't. The difference is, the police have to go through due process, the camera doesn't. The laws that police enforce fall under the umbrella of law enforcement, EXTORTION doesn't.
A bit of history: Around ten years ago, our police force tried to establish a system of photo enforcement in an effort to alleviate the(at the time)already thinly spread police force. The city council denied the police department their request, under a ruling that it abridges police power, and because it does so, it runs against state law. We must ask ourselves, then, why are we allowing a private enterprise to do EXACTLY what we wouldn't let our own POLICE to do ten years ago? The system hasn't changed, it still abridges police power, because it does their job FOR them. And when a police stops you AND you get a red light notice of extortion, then who takes priority? The law, or a company that wants you to pay them for having bad driving habits?
RedFLAKES is going to tell you until you believe it that this is all about the safety. If this is true, and their system works, why do they only have around 200 accounts after 15 years of service? Is their sales team THAT horrible? If I were the CEO of a multinational corporation based out of Australia, cornering the international market in surveillance equipment, and all I could show for my U.S. accounts after being in business 15 years is 200, don't you think that would make me look a bit foolish?
Up there as one of the biggest problems(if not the BIGGEST)is the constant defense of this EXTORTION that government tends to participate in, AFTER they've been suckered into signing on the dotted line. They call it a “law”, and will tell the public “since it’s been voted into law, it’s a LAW, and it must be obeyed.” This is absolutely false. Good new laws don’t conflict with established laws, or arbitrarily change face from civil offenses to criminal offenses and back again, depending on who/what caught you breaking the already established law.
Still need convincing that this is a scam? Look up case history on Redflex regarding legal action against them in Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Redflex has been BANNED from these 15 states, voted unanimously in each case.
Consider this: A few months ago(around June)I did my own little experiment. I, for three months, observed placement of cameras and vans around Lafayette. I recorded locations, roadside placement(which direction it’s facing-north/south, east/west)and the time slot they were managing, if it was a van. I also recorded the highest traffic times in these areas. My data wasn’t to find numbers or contradicting data to REDFLAKE’s data, no. It was simply to prove that REDFLAKES can manipulate the results by collecting data from low traffic times, low traffic areas, and when they want to show it’s working(which they can and have)they simply use data from low traffic times, areas, and vans in those areas. When they want to show that it’s a problem, they use data from high traffic areas/high accident areas.
At great time and expense on my own part, I proved this with PLENTY of data/results. My hypothesis was not only correct, but it was SPOT ON. There were times when I sat near vans in PARKING LOTS. There were times when I sat near vans in neighborhood’s where in the four hours it was assigned to that spot, only 3 cars passed it. And these were the busiest times of the day! The reason they didn’t capture any pictures is because EVERYONE WAS AT WORK. And this practice is repeated over and over to make sure that their “facts” they give you make them look good.
