Bellevue to Issue Tickets Via Speed Cameras
It appears that on Monday, October 5, 2009, Bellevue will join the growing ranks of Washington cities to use speed cameras in an effort to obtain revenue from unwitting motorists. Lake Forest Park began using the cameras earlier this year.
Bellevue alleges that the cameras are part of a "pilot project to improve traffic safety," according to the Seattle Times. Predictably, Bellevue stands to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. At least Bellevue might be fiscally safer!
Although these cameras will probably do nothing to improve safety, the cameras will have the effect of thousands of tickets being issued (and many if not all of them wrongly) to vehicle owners who receive tickets in the mail.
Here's how it works: You're dropping your child off at school, and a camera attached to a speed measuring device photographs your vehicle. The vehicle's owner (perhaps your spouse) gets a ticket in the mail. Actually, you might even get a few tickets in a day, because it will take time for you to realize that you've even been photographed, traveling, perhaps, 25 mph in a 20 mph zone.
Don't like speed cameras? Sponsor an initiative to ban them, or vote your elected officials out of office.
