Arizona: Police Report Shows Speed Camera Caused Accident
Although independent studies have shown a link between the use of photo enforcement equipment and a statistically significant increase in the number of collisions, opponents of photo radar have produced few concrete examples of these incidents. In Arizona, the group CameraFraud.com has begun using freedom of information laws to get its hands on examples of accidents that would not have happened but for the presence of a speed camera van ( view studies).
At around March 17th at about 4 p.m. a gray 2005 Ford SUV was driving on State Route 202 passing through the city of Gilbert. Traffic was light on the six-lane, 65 MPH freeway on a clear and bright day. When the 32-year-old Ford driver saw a speed camera van up ahead, he slammed on his brakes and slowed to just 35 MPH — a common reaction near cameras as drivers seek to avoid receiving an expensive citation in the mail.
At the same time, a 22-year-old in a red 2008 Pontiac G6 was following behind without speeding, according to police estimates. The Pontiac driver briefly looked away from the car in front of her so that she could change lanes to the right. She did not expect the car ahead to suddenly scrub drop its speed by 30 MPH. As a result, the two cars collided just a few yards from a Redflex speed camera van.
Such incidents are quite common. A 2007 study by Arizona State University concluded that there was a 54-percent increase in rear-end collisions and a 9-percent increase in injuries from rear-end collision on the Loop 101 freeway during the state’s first experiment with automated freeway ticketing. The study’s author, paid by the city of Scottsdale, dismissed the significance of this finding by saying, “Increases in rear-end crashes are traded for reductions in other crash types.”
According to a comprehensive British Medical Journal study published in 2006, that trade-off may not actually be worth making. The report found that police claims of a safety benefit from the use of speed cameras turned out to be false. To the contrary, an examination of actual hospital records showed an increase in the number of patients admitted from road accidents following the widespread introduction of automated ticketing machines in England ( view study).
A copy of the accident report obtained by CameraFraud is available in a 400k PDF file at the link below.
Crash Report 2010-013387 (Arizona Department of Public Safety, 3/24/2010)
[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]
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ONE MORE THING! FIGHT THE PHOTO SCAM! go check out: camerafraud.com www.motorists.org www.banthecams.org Also check facebook, there are a number of sites there opposed to RLC.
It doesn't even take a speed cam to cause this kind of thing here in the Toledo area. On I475/US23, there is a straight shot of roadway that has a slight hill, nothing much, but it makes what's on the other side invisible until you're at the top of it. Several times recently, I've been on the hill, behind cars and trucks, and everything is fine, until the car or truck ahead of me hits the top of that hill and sees an OSP car writing someone up, or maybe just assisting a broken down vehicle, and slams on the brakes for absolutely no reason whatsoever. They weren't speeding at all! The first scary incident I was involved with was when, on a nice sunny day, the guy in front of me slammed his brakes on when he saw two OSP cars helping an ancient Chevy truck that had the rear end collapse from it being insanely overloaded. With the sun so bright, I almost didn't see his brake lights in time, and I got very close to the back end of the idiot who slammed his brakes on. The scariest one was when some guy in a BMW was behind some family in a Caravan in the right lane. I was in the left, thinking I was clear of any problems, since no one was in front of me for at least a half mile. The BMW passed me on the right, and was going to come over into my lane to pass the caravan when the Caravan hit the top of the hill, and saw the OSP car sitting about an eighth of a mile ahead on the right shoulder helping change a tire on an old lady's car. The caravan driver slammed on the brakes, and the BMW driver suddenly closed up and nearly hit the back of the caravan, then shot into my lane, overcorrected several times and came very close to going off the road into one of the water and cattail filled swampy ditches that run along the East side of the road. He finally ended up back behind the caravan, and was very angry. At the next exit, he got out of his car at the light, and yelled at the driver of the caravan, who didn't seem to have any idea what he had almost caused.