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Astroturfing For Speed Cameras

Posted by timothy on from the well-lookie-lookie dept.

New submitter dalosla writes "Chicago's mayor is pushing to change red light cameras near schools and parks into speed cameras. Just about everybody sees it as a cash grab by the city. Today's Chicago Tribune has an article about how the expanded speed camera program would benefit Redflex, the company Greg Goldner, one of the mayor's long time political supporters, lobbies for. This is of merely local interest, but of wider interest in the article would be information about Goldner's astroturfing for Redflex around the country. Redflex is the sole financial supporter for the Traffic Safety Coalition, a 'grassroots' organization to promote more traffic camera usage and fight any attempts to restrict such cameras. Goldner has already successfully facilitated the killing of one anti-camera ballot measure in Texas."

3 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. Chicago? by srussia · · Score: 5, Informative

    Say no more--oh, wait, just one more thing, that "Chicago mayor" is none other than Rahm Emanuel.

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
  2. They tried this here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For years Albuquerque had red light/speeding cameras at a lot of intersections. The public got tired of it, and the city council voted to drop the contract. After a long legal fight, the cameras finally got taken down.

    Think that's the end of it? Hah.

    See, because Redflex is a private citizen (thanks citizens united!), and not a governmental institution, the company couldn't file criminal cases against alleged speeders/red light runners, so any of the charges they brought forward were always civil cases. This also means that you don't have to go to court to fight the charges, pay any settlements, or essentially give a damn because no police officers saw the crime take place.

    Why does this make a difference? Because Redflex was guaranteed something like 40% of the ticket price per incident. Which they're obviously not going to get. So what did they do? They sued the city for $4.5 million.

  3. Re:what's a mob without pitcforks and torches? by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Informative

    The accepted method in the UK is to loop an old tire over the camera, fill it with gasoline, and set fire to it.

    http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm