Fight Back
My apologies to those of you nationally; this is for all my readers in Georgia today, but the rest of you should take note.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution is reporting lobbyists for speed cameras in the state have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Georgia Republicans in their pockets.
RedSpeed Georgia, which makes video cameras for school systems to crack down on speeding violations, contributed $150,000 each to both [Lt. Governor Burt] Jones’ leadership committee and a PAC tied to the House GOP caucus between September 2023 and October 2024.
Today, in the Georgia House of Representatives, State Representative Dale Washburn will present H.B. 225 to repeal the law for speed cameras.
Supporters say the law protects children and is for school safety. But here is what outside press outlets have discovered about the law:
Many schools that have the cameras do not even have sidewalks and are not visible from the road, negating issues of children walking in front of the schools.
Numerous municipalities have improperly set up the lights to generate tickets outside school zone times.
Teachers are regular victims of the cameras. They leave school after hours, but the cameras are still active and ticketing, often at the reduced school zone speed that is not supposed to be active.
Not a single penny generated by the cameras is designated for school safety despite the claims of their supporters.
That last one is the most damaging. My local county has generated $8 million in fines from the cameras, but only $4 million has been collected, and all of it went into the general fund. A local judge told me that if I ever got a ticket, I should contest it, but the poor and working class did not know how to do it, nor did they have the time.
As the GOP becomes the party of the working class, banning the cameras is the perfect populist position for Republican politicians.
Local Democrat controlled governments are the biggest proponents of keeping the cameras. They know what judges in the state are increasingly vocal about — people are getting tickets from outside the legally allowed times for the cameras and do not know their rights have been violated.
This is abusive government. It is not about saving the lives of kids. It is a back door taxation scheme for local governments.
If you live in Georgia, call your state representative today and tell him to support H.B. 225 to end the speed cameras.
For the record, I have never gotten a ticket from one of the cameras.
Eric: You wrote "Many schools that have the cameras do not even have sidewalks and are not visible from the road..." But, what about those schools that ARE at roadside? I completely agree, Republicans don't need to fall for the disguised and disgusting grift coming from those lobbyists. But getting rid of the cameras to enforce regulations is not necessarily the answer to the original problem of safety enforcement. REWRITING the entire code to, e.g., disallow misuse of funds by municipalities needs to be a major part of the focus, which should be correct and accurate enforcement of existing traffic laws to protect kids. Talk to my friend, Paulette, a rural bus driver in Georgia, about frequent drivers' disregard for safety laws. If it takes cameras to do it, then make the responsible party (the Camera Company) do it right, for example, issue hefty state penalties against them for each occasion they are caught with their cameras working outside the prescribed time frame. Computers are too easy to set up to work within time parameters.
You spelled it wrong. They're "scameras."