Thanks, Seth.  Wholeheartedly agree with you.  There are ample means to assure public safety without inviting Big Brother to run the town.

John,

When driving west on Holly St at N. Forest I often observe red light runners.  I don’t mean yellow light runners, but true T-bone Terrors.  There must be something psychologically disruptive to drivers about that particular downhill run.  Something like “Ooh, ignore the light, ignore the light! I can make it, I can do this!” must run through what’s left of their obviously diminished cognitive ability.  In my observations, speed appears to be a contributor to this very dangerous behavior as well. 

I am all for safety.  Once not long ago I was a proponent of these cameras, but now I am not.  Like Seth, I believe that our government tends to add unnecessary layers of oversimplified solutions to our society.  And I think an automated response resulting in a parking level fine avoids the real issue.

In my book, intentionally running a red light, t-boning someone and possibly killing them is a felonious act.  I’m not a lawyer and I haven’t researched Washington law on this.  This is the way that I feel about it. 

I think the proper response of the city is to randomly place a police officer with radar downhill from the intersection and monitor for speeders and red light runners.  I will bet that on any given morning at least a half dozen violators will be caught.  The violators may not like to think of themselves in this way, but they are in fact potential killers or maimers.  They don’t deserve a parking ticket for their indiscretions, they deserve the full fines that hurt. 

I suspect that occasional random appearances during the week by the police will significantly reduce the problem and save aome lives.

I would also like to thank Seth, not necessarily for voting against the safety camera ordinance, but for admitting publicly that Councilmembers did not handle the process very well when they voted to limit public input.

Many believe that publicly admitting an error is a sign of weakness.  I couldn?t disagree more.  By your admission, Seth, my respect for you has increased immensely.

No one expects perfection from elected officials.  What we do expect is honesty.  Cover ups, sticking your head in the sand, and avoiding open dialogue with citizens only exacerbates the problem.  Unfortunately, we have experienced much too much of that.

So thank you Seth - for being honest and for admitting you?re human.  You have taught us all a valuable lesson.

Ham, the reason the intersections along Holly Street through downtown feel so dangerous is that the lights are set to 3 second yellow—fully one second less than studies have shown is safe and two seconds less than has been shown to reduce red light running. 

So, maybe John is right and maybe he’s not.  John’s argument pivots on motive, which is a difficult thing to pin down and all to easy to assume in order to prove a point.

I’ll vote for lazy, stupid, arrogant and incompetent as motives if you want to pick some out of thin air.  The next step will be to put the facts out in public and watch how the desk jockeys in public works react.

It seems a simple thing to go out and time the intersections and see if the yellow time is to short for safety in more intersections.  Then show up at council and read out the findings during public comment period.  It might make a good civics project for some middle school students.