Unincorporated Minds

We always hear about how drinking and driving kills right.  Well in 2008, 14,425 of the accidents were alcohol related, with a whole 449 being fatal.  So only 4% of all traffic accidents in Ohio were alcohol related. That represents .00003% of the State population.  However, there is some truth to the rhetoric and propaganda, 2008's numbers again are 1099 fatalities and 449 fatalities alcohol related. Basically 41% of the fatalities involved booze. Sadly, the majority of the total fatal (including alcohol related) crashes happened during dry, clear days (before 8pm) in areas without an intersection where failure to control, failure to yield, and/or speeding as the top reasons for the crash. Sounds like inattentiveness is the real killer. Original Article about low traffic deaths can be found here.

Furthermore, only about .0009% of those accidents (213 Crashes Mont, 99Clark) occur in Clark and Montgomery counties. Of the 1099 fatalities, 60 were cited as running a red light or .054%. Clark had 25 (.75% fatalities/crashes in county) traffic fatalities and Montgomery County had 36 (.2% fatalities/crashes in county). Which is really interesting because Montgomery county is more than two times the size of Clark.  My instincts tell me that is possibly because maybe hospitals are closer in Montgomery county. Without more research I wouldn't know for sure.  However, applying the red light percentage to the Clark and Montgomery fatalities, 3.2 people are statistically likely to die due to running a red light. It's just short of 2 people for Montgomery county. 

That last paragraph was to make this point, the red light camera's are a waste of money.  They are not for your safety. They are for revenue generation, but Dayton is learning the hard way people are smarter than they think.  People obviously understand there is no enforcement method for these tickets and aren't paying as supported by this article.  

This article gives us some of the costs associated with the cameras. We are told that city wide traffic accidents are down 26%, whereas at camera enforced intersections accidents have reduced by 44% total. What they should be saying is that the red lights have reduced accidents by 18%. Using 2008 numbers, the red light cameras have supposedly prevent 57 people from having accidents. So it didn't stop 261 other people from running lights. That boils down to the red light camera's maybe saving 0.36 people. That's not a percentage, that's how many lives I calculate will be saved in Montgomery county by red light cameras... a third of a person.

Dayton spent $204,000 to contract the cameras from Redflex. Each ticket is &85 dollars, with 55 going to Redflex and $30 going to Dayton. Between 2003 and now the cameras have issues 92,900 citations or about 13271 citations per year.  Thats more red light citations per year than traffic accidents in the entire county.  Remember, it was reported that in 2008, only 318 accidents occurred at the intersections. That is a 4172.00% increase in citations. Yes, my decimal is in the correct place. So the cameras attempt to generate $7,896,500 in revenue with 5,109,500 of that going to Redflex. Dayton should be getting $2,787,000, but has only been able to collect half of the citations. So for their $200k investment, they have made $3,948,250; $2554750 for Redflex and $1393500 for Dayton. 

So you go ahead and try and tell me red light cameras are for safety and not revenue. Dayton has conned its citizens of Millions and I'm pretty sure it's obtained illegally. Keep not paying those tickets as long as you can. Fight any process taken to get you to pay these tickets. End the scam.

I took these numbers from the Dayton Daily news article and from the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
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