Outsourced Automated Traffic Tickets Pit Safety Against Profit
And you can bet safety is the more likely loser.
AP says that one out of every five Americans lives in a community that pays a for-profit company to install and operate cameras that record traffic violations. That’s 700 communities in nearly half the states have for-profit deals. USA Today:
Some contracts restrict police from doing things like lengthening the yellow signal and leave taxpayers holding the bag if the contracts are terminated early,
says the report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the federation of state public interest research groups.
“The most problematic contracts require cities to share revenue with the camera vendor on a per-ticket basis or through other formulas as a percentage of revenue,” the group says. “In other words, the more tickets a camera system issues, the more profit the vendor collects.”
“It just creates this really broad incentive to fine as many people as you can,” says Phineas Baxandall, a co-author of the report. “That’s not a good safety model.”
It certainly undermines the claim that the goal is to increase safety through compliance. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety threads the needle:
Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and a proponent of automated enforcement, says cameras “are a highly effective way to reduce red-light running and reduce crashes, especially serious crashes, at intersections. … The most effective program would be one where no tickets would be issued because no one is running a red light.”
for the moment I’m not finding a link to the actual report.
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That’s a problem with a simple solution:
1. Id the camera locations.
2. Show up at night with a bunch of buddies, and shoot at it with paint guns until the camera is blinded.
3. Repeat process until the profit margin goes down to below zero.
The for profit market system works well when the profit motive and the needs of society are closely aligned. Society needs an adequate supply of reasonably priced food. Suppliers make the most profit supplying an adequate supply of reasonably priced food. The result, a successful application of the for profit model.
Where the for profit market system breaks down is when the needs of society and route to the highest profits are different or even opposed. An obvious example is the delivery of health care. Society needs an adequate supply of reasonably priced health care for the sick. For profit insurance companies make the most profit by insuring only healthy people in a market of expensive health care. Diametrically opposed goals resulting in run away medical costs and large numbers of uninsured people, exactly what we have now.
Traffic cameras have much the problem. Society needs traffic safety, many fewer drivers running red lights. The route to the most profits for the company that provides the traffic cameras is to catch high numbers of drivers running red lights. The companies make the most money when the intersections are still not safe. As a practical matter this means that the for profit companies are only interested in the intersections in a community where large numbers of out of town drivers, who don’t realize that the cameras are there, pass through. The modern day equivalent of speed traps.
There have been instances here in Atlanta where the companies have removed successful cameras, ones that markedly reduced accidents, to move them to potentially more profitable locations.
This are the types of problems you have when profits are the only measure of success.
There are some states where Red Light cameras have been tried and due to previous legislation became unprofitable for vendors to install.
Some states require the portion of the ticket that is the “fine” as opposed to the “fee” for court costs and other administrative costs to go to the school district where the ticket was issued or to other agencies supported by traffic fines. In these cases, the vendor could not participate in the number of tickets issued and they back out of the deal and took their equipment to a state where higher profits were available.
This is proof that safety is not in their best interest.
My home city is tearing themm down because they cause too many accidents.
As if our criminal justice system isn’t depersonalizing and profit motivated enough already. QF’s idea has merit I think..