By Senior Correspondent Desirée Taylor
NJ Today
There are three red light cameras in Edison. The Middlesex County municipality is among 25 participating in a five-year pilot program to determine the effectiveness of the cameras, which take photos of motorists running a red light. To assess their performance, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon requested information about each program. All but one town has responded.
“Edison is the one town of the 25 municipalities in this experiment that has refused to provide what should be basic publicly available information about the record of their program, and that’s a disgrace,” O’Scanlon said. “We’ve given them extension after extension. Now they’re just ignoring us.”
O’Scanlon has taken action. He sent a letter to the DOT commissioner asking him to give Edison one week to comply. If not, the program, which he says has a questionable track record, will be terminated.
“They have already proven that their concern is more about revenue generation than justice or safety. We’ve already seen one woman who proved that her car was several states away the moment of her infraction. And Edison still made her pay. Edison, by the way, admitted they lost her records too, still made her pay,” O’Scanlon said.
Edison’s mayor and police chief were not available for comment today, but motorists we spoke with said they don’t need traffic data to know that the red light cameras do more harm than good.
“I really don’t like them. I think they’re too inconsistent and stuff. They’re really close to causing accidents or have caused accidents,” said Edison resident Carmine Tumminelli.
Highland Park resident Tracy Budd called the red light cameras a revenue stream for the townships.
But DOT data shows there has been a decrease in the number of accidents at intersections where the red light cameras have been in place for two years in Newark. However, accidents are up slightly in communities that have had the cameras for one year. One example is Lawrenceville.
“They had a 50 percent increase in accidents in their first year,” said Director of Government and Public Affairs for the New Jersey chapter of the National Motorists Association Steve Carrellas.
Carrellas is a vocal opponent of New Jersey’s pilot program, which he points out was suspended temporarily last year over concerns the yellow traffic lights were too short at 63 intersections.
“If you had the proper yellow light timing you wouldn’t get the kind of violation numbers and therefore you also wouldn’t have the number of people running lights,” Carrellas said.
But those who do get violations — which typically cost $80 or more — rarely get a second ticket, which may show motorists driving habits are improving, according to data from camera operator ATS. New Jersey’s pilot program is set to expire in 2014 unless the legislature takes action.