FL City Rakes in Big Bucks By Shortening Yellow Lights
A tenth of a second can make a big difference. In St. Petersburg, Florida, the yellow time at intersections was shortened by fractions of a second for thousands of drivers, enabling the red light camera program to generate an extra $259,910 in revenue in 13 months. To the unaided eye, the difference between a 4.3 second yellow and a 4.2 second yellow is too brief to be perceived, but it was enough to boost the number of citations issued by five percent.
The short-changing would have gone completely unnoticed had the StPeteCameras.org website not obtained an unusually comprehensive database of red light camera ticket data from American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona-based company in charge of citations. Matt Florell, the website's proprietor, intends to present his findings to the city council at a meeting this morning.
Source: theNewspaper. Read full article. (link)
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Governments are increasingly just becoming shake down artists. Collecting revenue is their only real purpose.