{"id":2556,"date":"2014-12-16T05:28:16","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T10:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=2556"},"modified":"2014-12-15T16:01:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T21:01:41","slug":"ducey-state-catches-up-to-brick-on-red-light-cameras-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2014\/12\/ducey-state-catches-up-to-brick-on-red-light-cameras-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducey: State Catches Up to Brick On Red Light Cameras Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A \u201cGood Riddance\u201d sign displayed by Assemblyman Declan O\u2019Scanlon at a Brick Boulevard intersection that formerly was equipped with red light cameras. (Photo: Declan O\u2019Scanlon)<\/p><\/div>\n

New Jersey will be red-light-camera free at midnight, about 10 months after Brick led the way. The statewide pilot program is over, which means drivers no longer have to worry about having their picture snapped and receiving a ticket for numerous offenses the cameras once caught.<\/p>\n

Though initially heralded as a tool to improve safety at dangerous intersections and free up police resources, the cameras began to fall out of favor with New Jersey residents once they were implemented, with motorists coming around to the viewpoint that revenue generation was the prime driver of the program.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Brick Township took in a hefty $813,000 during 2013, but Mayor John Ducey said the profits were not worth the pain for drivers, especially after statistics showed accidents actually increased in one area where the cameras were in use.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy to see the rest of the state catch up to us here in Brick,\u201d said Ducey, who turned off the cameras within weeks of taking office in January, making Brick the first town in New Jersey to ditch the devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision for me to end the red light program was an easy one,\u201d said Ducey on Tuesday, explaining that the township\u2019s camera vendor, American Traffic Solutions, came to his office to lobby in favor of keeping the system in place, but \u201cgave some very biased data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducey said he then looked internally to the Brick Township Police Department for accident statistics, which showed the number of right-angle crashes \u2013 the type the cameras are supposed to deter \u2013 either stayed the same as before the cameras were installed or had risen. At the township\u2019s first intersection to receive cameras \u2013 Brick Boulevard and Hooper Avenue \u2013 there were 28 accidents in 2013, including eight right angle accidents, compared with 13 accidents and five right angle accidents the year before the cameras were installed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt essentially was a cash grab,\u201d Ducey said. \u201cI decided in my first month as mayor that I would not balance the budget on ill gotten gains from a program touted as for safety without the end result being safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Making up for the lost revenue was the tough part, and one that mayors and members of municipal governing bodies across the state will now have to tackle. In Brick, Ducey said the township cut several department heads, saving money in salaries and benefits, then looked to other revenue streams, one of which was having the Brick Police EMS squad charge the full amount Medicare will reimburse when a recipient is treated and taken to a hospital. (Patients are not charged more than their insurance will pay, and those who lack insurance are not billed.)<\/p>\n

The end of the pilot program was being celebrated as an early Christmas gift for New Jerseyans by Assemblyman Declan O\u2019Scanlon (R-Monmouth), who stood next to one of Brick\u2019s cameras with a giant \u201cGood Riddance\u201d sign when they were removed in early 2014. O\u2019Scanlon has come out as the state\u2019s most vocal opponent to the cameras, citing the fact that drivers paid $30 in cost for every $1 of savings to their local governments when ticketed, with some of the tickets having been issued under odd circumstances, such as a legal right turn on red that was made too fast, or in some cases, drivers going through a red light at the direction of a police officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why this equipment doesn\u2019t improve safety is that the folks causing accidents at intersections aren\u2019t homicidal maniacs choosing to barrel through an intersection \u2013 they are you and me on a bad day with a sick kid in the back or worried about work,\u201d O\u2019Scanlon said.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, he said, truly dangerous drivers aren\u2019t deterred anyway \u2013 and the cameras don\u2019t change \u201cdriver behavior,\u201d they just drive people away from areas where the cameras are in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018driver behavior\u2019 that the camera companies\u2019 trumpet isn\u2019t contributing to accidents, it is drivers avoiding the intersections entirely because of this ticketing scam or simply refusing to ever make even perfectly safe right turns on red,\u201d O\u2019Scanlon said.<\/p>\n

That aspect of removing the cameras has rung true in Brick, the mayor says.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople no longer have the stress in driving through Brick and our businesses have more out of towners coming since the threat of receiving a red light camera ticket is gone,\u201d said Ducey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Jersey will be red-light-camera free at midnight, about 10 months after Brick led the way. The statewide pilot program is over, which means drivers no longer have to worry about having their picture snapped and receiving a ticket for numerous offenses the cameras once caught. Though initially heralded as a tool to improve safety […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,723,92,722],"class_list":["post-2556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-declan-oscanlon","tag-john-ducey","tag-red-light-cameras"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/oscanlon_ducey.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-Fe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}