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New Jersey Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon, who championed the crusade against red-light cameras in New Jersey.

(Star-Ledger File Photo)



I nearly fell out of my booth laughing.



I was sitting in a diner in Cherry Hill with Rick Short, one of two public-spirited citizens who did the research that helped end New Jersey's five-year experiment with red-light cameras last December.



The politicians and the industry are fighting back, however. Their campaign to revive the program includes a video titled "Bring Back New Jersey Traffic Safety Cameras." It was put out by the "Traffic Safety Coalition," a fake "citizens" group that just happens to be funded by the camera companies.



When I called it up on my laptop, I saw a bunch of the usual suspects warning of the carnage that would ensue now that the cameras went dark. Interspersed were videos of cars running red lights and getting into horrific crashes.



It certainly looked like all hell had broken loose in the four months since those cameras were turned off. And that's what I thought - for a few seconds. But Short and his partner George Ford spend hours and hours examining these videos as well as all the other propaganda cranked out by the industry.



"Look at those flashes," he told me.





Sure enough, the cameras were still in operation when those crashes occurred. Or in other words, the video was proof the cameras don't achieve their goal of stopping crashes.



That's when I nearly spit out my apple pie laughing. It's as if an aircraft manufacturer circulated a video showing its planes dropping out of the sky. Who the heck would buy that plane?



The video also showed the usual bunch of political insiders pretending their sole motive for wanting the cameras back was traffic safety.



"It changes driver behavior," said Bill Dressel of the state League of Municipalities. "Put aside all the other nonsense you hear. Take a look at the facts."



The fact is that they're only in it for the money. Short soon found another video showing the rest of Dressel's spiel. Once he got safety out of the way, Dressel got to the real motive for restoring the cameras.



"The municipalities are in dire straits," he said.



Or in other words, it's all about money. That was evidenced as well in what Short calls "the smoking gun email."



In that 2012 message to East Windsor officials, Charles Cullari of the camera company American Traffic Solutions urged them to install the cameras at two locations on Route 130 because "I believe wholeheartedly there is sufficient ROR (right on red) volume to sustain consistent profitability.



Profitability for whom? Towns are non-profit operations. And why didn't he mention safety?



When I put those questions by ATS spokesman Charles Territo, he would only say that all of the money comes from drivers who get caught by the cameras. As to why his man cited profitability instead of safety, Territo had no reply.



But then safety has never been the goal. If it were, the towns would be increasing yellow-light times. Federal officials say a one-second increase in yellow-light times is associated with a 40 percent decrease in crashes. (Here's a good piece by reporter Larry Higgs on a bill that would mandate realistic yellow-light times in New Jersey.)



The yellow-light intervals were originally too short and it took a couple of class-action lawsuits before they were lengthened, said Short.



Furthermore, when Short and Ford checked the dates of those crashes shown in the videos, they found many had not been reported, further distorting the statistics. They have documented countless other distortions in the propaganda for the cameras.



Right-angle crashes have not dropped as claimed, said Short, but rear-end collisions rose, as would be expected when drivers hit the brakes at the last minute to avoid getting a ticket.



And then there were pedestrian injuries. Statewide pedestrian accidents almost doubled in the years the cameras were in operation, Short said. He blamed it on "tunnel vision" of drivers determined to beat the cameras at all costs.



"They don't care about pedestrians," he said of the cameras' backers. "No one ever would have known about the pedestrian if we didn't do this."



That was certainly the case as regards New Jersey last year. But in January we got definitive proof that there is no basis for claim that the cameras increase safety. That came when three University of South Florida researchers provided the definitive proof that they are a scam.

(Below: Another video of the red-light industries' greatest hits. Note that all of the collisions shown below were shot while the cameras were working - and failing to prevent red-light running.)

"What the larger studies at the time showed was quite the opposite of what we all thought," professor Etienne Pracht said in announcing the results. "These red-light cameras are actually associated with higher risks of crashes, particularly rear-end collisions." Pracht went on to say that "The objective of these cameras is to generate revenue. " If you go to YouTube, you can see the results for yourself. Make sure you're in a comfortable chair. Otherwise you might fall on the floor laughing.

ADD: The prime opponent of the cameras, Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon (pictured above), told me that the industry is trying to sneak them in through the back door - of a school bus, that is.

A bill that recently passed a legislative committee would permit the use of the cameras on school buses to catch drivers passing them when they are stopped.

There's just one problem, O'Scanlon said. Very few drivers pass school buses when they're stopped. That means the camera operators would come up with some scam such as rigging the cameras to go off whenever a car came anywhere near the bus, regardless of any danger

So watch out for that.

ALSO: I was doing some Googling on this subject when I came upon an excellent New Jersey Monthly article dating to the beginning of the red-light program.

It turns out these cameras were debunked long before our politicians sold their souls to the camera companies:

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