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State Representative Paul Thissen
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-5375
For more information contact: Sandy Connolly 651-296-8877
Column/LTE
"Photo-cop" legislation saves lives
Thank you for reprinting the Duluth News-Tribune editorial on automated traffic light enforcement. It allows me the chance to clarify several misperceptions about the so-called "Photo-Cop" legislation.
Above all, installing cameras at dangerous intersections saves lives and avoids injuries. As this paper noted last year when it endorsed the photo-cop legislation, our roads can be deadly. I have heard so many stories of lives fundamentally and tragically changed due to brain injury, paralysis or death as a result of red light runners. We should use the reasonable tools at our disposal to make our roads less dangerous.
Red light cameras are effective public safety tools. During the several months that Minneapolis operated red light cameras, accidents were reduced by over 30% and T-bone crashes -- the most dangerous kind of intersection accidents -- dropped nearly in half. Cities across the country have seen similar reductions.
Second, we will not see red light cameras installed at every intersection across the state. Local city councils must choose to install the cameras. Further, the legislation limits cameras to those intersections where an engineer has determined that a serious safety problem exists and alternative safety improvement measures would be not be effective to solve the problem.
Third, unlike other surveillance cameras that surround us every day as we go to the bank, the local convenience store -- or the State Capitol which has dozens of video cameras operating every day -- red light cameras are only triggered when a driver enters an intersection after a light has turned red. The only time your car license would be photographed is after you break the law. And the photos are inspected by a licensed police officer before any citation is issued.
Critically, there are several ways that a person receiving a ticket can challenge it on the ground that he was not the driver. He can prove the car was stolen, leased or sold. More importantly, he can testify in court that someone else was driving and ran the red light.
The new law will not run afoul of the constitution. The Minnesota Supreme Court struck down the Minneapolis ordinance because the ordinance conflicted with state law. That is not allowed under the so-called "uniformity" clause in the state constitution.
But the Court did not determine -- and, because running a red light is a petty misdemeanor under the bill, would not determine -- that a state law authorizing cities to use automatic traffic light enforcement to ticket cars running a red light violates due process rights. In fact, Minnesota has other laws like the prohibition on passing a school bus when the stop arm is out that allows cars instead of drivers to be ticketed. Minnesota appellate courts have upheld those laws.
The bottom line is that red light cameras have made and will make our roads safer. We should welcome that possibility rather than fear it.
Rep. Thissen is the Chair of the House Health and Human Services Policy Committee and is author of the "Photo-Cop" legislation.
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