LETTERS: Longer yellow light more effective than red light cameras

By Staff (89612)

Friday, October 1, 2010
© Copyright 2013 Gwinnett Daily Post

In its stubborn attempt to keep its failed traffic ticket cameras, the city of Duluth is spinning the facts.

Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher says the ticket cameras worked so well at Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road that they will be moved to Sugarloaf Parkway and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, as well as Pleasant Hill Road and North Berkeley Lake Road.

The truth is that the state of Georgia’s required extra second of yellow-light time at ticket camera intersections has reduced red-light running, as well as reduced ticketing and fines, throughout all of Georgia.

This is supported by the fact that most municipalities in Georgia have removed their ticket cameras after this simple traffic engineering fix was done. It is also supported by the fact that Duluth has had to renegotiate its ticket camera contracts twice, first with LaserCraft and then with American Traffic Solutions, due to the fact that the ticket cameras ceased to be profitable and instead were costing the residents of Duluth a significant amount of money.

Additionally, if the ticket cameras were so effective in promoting traffic safety, why were they removed from the intersection of Pleasant Hill Road and North Berkeley Lake Road in the first place?

The respectable residents of Duluth would be better served if its government would end its stubborn and futile pursuit of a profitable ticket camera program, and not be fooled by the slick, canned presentations of ATS and other ticket camera corporations.

Gwinnett Daily Post