The World Around You

The grace period is over for red light runners at the intersections with cameras in Montgomery,

As of mid-afternoon Wednesday, the cameras had captured 1,620 possible vio­lations, and a week-by-week breakdown shows the number of offenses have in­creased significantly since the first week.

The first week 233 warnings were mailed out. Those warnings averaged 429 a week during the past two weeks.

“I’m kind of surprised that they are this high and also not that surprised,” said mayoral assistant Michael Briddell, who has overseen the project.

Briddell said a survey was done about four years ago at the intersection of East Boulevard and Vaughn Road — one of the busiest intersections in the city — and it was determined that on average, 105 peo­ple ran the red light each day.

“To see that they were this high at oth­er intersections is pretty disturbing,” Briddell said, adding that the numbers underline the extent of the problem of red-light running in Montgomery.

Mayor Bobby Bright attributes the high numbers to the fact April was highly publicized as being the grace period. He believes those numbers will drop now that warnings are no longer being issued.

“When they get a ticket that says they owe $50, that will have an effect on their behavior, I’m sure,” Bright said recently.

I certainly agree…that number will decline, but the public will also start getting much more vocal about this policy.

montgomeryadvertiser.com | Red-light camera fines start today

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