Larry and Ghost, I think we can all agree that safe driving is good for everyone. I don't advocate lawlessness any more than I advocate stupidity. And driving while you're trying to do a bunch of other things, or with a lot of distractions is just plain stupid.

I'm not anti-law enforcement or anti-government. I don't think that the roads should be avenues of lawless chaos like the movie Road Warrior.

My anger at government / law enforcement / city planners / dept's of transportation is how they fail to identify the real problems. They are treating the symptoms and not the disease. They seem to be more interested in profit than in public safety. Traffic tickets should not be a source of revenue that is relied upon. Ticket income should not be a significant impact to the bottom line.

If law enforcement were properly funded from the highest levels on down, I'm sure they wouldn't have to resort to this kind of chicanery. Law enforcement should be funded because it is a basic societal requirement. It shouldn't be funded by the amount of criminals they catch. The purpose of a fine for a summary offense (like running a light or speeding) is to punish the perpetrator (thereby discouraging crime), not to fund the government.

When the DOT or City Planner change a roadway, 9 times out of 10 they slow traffic down. They add traffic lights where they are unnecessary. They reduce speed limits. They add signage and warnings and all sorts of other measures intended to make the road safer. Why do they do this? Because statistics tell them that slower is safer. I say there is a basic flaw in that reasoning. In a microcosm, yes, slower is safer. If two vehicles collide, obviously, the slower they were going the less damage will be done. But when you step back and look at the whole picture, you realize that the longer you keep people on the road, the more likely they are to have an accident. I'm not talking about fatigue here. I'm talking pure statistical nature of driving. Let's say that there is a 1 in 1000 chance of a person being in an accident every hour. Well, if you keep them on the road for 2 hours instead of one, you just doubled your chances of an accident. (Of course, I made those numbers up so they'd be easy to follow, they are not scientific.)

What happens when you slow traffic down? You keep people on the road longer - which causes more accidents. You also give people the feeling that they are wasting their time and could be doing something more productive. That's when they start talking on phones, texting, sending emails, reading papers, etc. etc. etc. That behavior causes a lot more accidents. Even for those that don't multi-task while driving, the longer you keep them on the road and the slower you make them go, the more likely they are to get bored and not pay attention. How many accidents could have been prevented if everyone involved had been paying attention to their driving?

Also, beyond the big picture / little picture debate, I have serious issues with the transformation of law enforcement from people to machines. The red light camera is good example of this. When the law was written there were no red light cameras. There was no intention of having law enforcement monitor every single vehicle through an intersection every time all of the time. One of the great functions that cops perform is a human interface between the letter of the law and the citizen. When a live officer pulls someone over, a human decides whether to give a ticket or not. A lot of that depends on if the office deems that the drivers behavior needs to be punished. The officer saw the whole incident and can make a judgment. With a camera, all the human sees is a few pictures, narrow in scope, and not enough information. For example: a driver sitting at a red light at 4am. There are no other vehicles in sight. Why should he waste his time sitting there waiting for the light to change? He stopped. He looked. The way couldn't get any clearer. If he goes, that camera will give him a ticket when no reasonable law enforcement officer would.

Personally, I advocate a move towards what Denmark is testing out. They taken several key intersections that used to have high accident rates and very long red light cycles, which backed up traffic unbearably during rush hours. They removed the lights. They removed ALL the signage. There's no stop sign, no red light, no yield sign, nothing! Just a busy intersection. If you follow the US DOT's methodology, you would think that this intersection would be a total disaster - grid lock and accidents out the wazoo! But guess what? The accident rate dropped dramatically. The rate of traffic flow through the intersection increased. Traffic backup decreased. And: people were happier!

How do you think that happened? Well, it's quite simple. Without all of the traffic control devices, people had to PAY ATTENTION and drive. It forced them to do what they were supposed to be doing anyway.

Would it work here? I don't know. What I do know is that our system is not working. We need to explore other options. I don't think the Big Brother approach will help us. It will only hinder us more.