Houston Mayor Fumbles Red-Light Cam Issue

In an editorial by The Houston Chronicle, Mayor Annise Parker is applauded for her decision last week to continue the use of red-light traffic cameras. While the issue might seem like it deserves a mere "agree" or "disagree" in passing conversation from Houstonians, let's examine how the issue came to be.

Houston signed a red-light camera contract with American Traffic Solutions back in 2004, which would not expire until 2014. Since Bill White was the then-current mayor, and putting personal opinions aside for now, Parker had no wrongdoing here. Although the city had a written contract with American Traffic Solutions, Parker decided to hold a referendum so that the citizens of Houston could decide whether or not to continue with the use of the red-light cameras (potentially not fulfilling a contract - strike 1). Although the referendum had been ruled illegal by a federal judge, Parker decided to continue with the election (strike 2). After the election results came out against the cameras, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled the election invalid (wasting voters' valuable time - strike 3).

And it doesn't stop there. The city of Houston is now pursuing an appeal of Judge Hughes's ruling, potentially wasting more time, and definitely wasting more tax dollars. After all this, the editors at the Houston Chronicle still applaud Parker for "making the right decision" (a "decision" she was really forced into). Unfortunately, that only bodes well for critics of the cameras. No one at the Chronicle took into account the big picture: if Parker can't handle what I would consider a simple issue, how can anyone expect her to handle a city crisis? I suppose their line of reasoning is that the ends justify the means, as long as the ends are the results the editors wanted.

Although sometimes conceived as a good measure for preventing collisions, red-light cameras have several shortcomings. In the event of a citation, there is no human to testify as to what really happened and what circumstances were present at the time of the alleged violation. In addition, they open the door to "no cop...no problem" rule violations.

Whatever the right decision is, Houstonians are unfortunately past that stage, thanks to the poor leadership of Annise Parker. As a native Houstonian, I think Parker should drop the issue before she makes it any worse.

Source: chron.com     Author: Houston Chronicle editors     July 10, 2011