Accident Rate Increases in Red Light Camera Intersections

One police chief offers the rather novel argument that statistics aren’t that important—that cameras enhance safety even when they increase accidents. Oh, and the purpose of red light cameras isn’t to raise revenue. No, no, no.

“If improved safety is the goal of red-light cameras, then it is a mission largely unaccomplished for the first crop of area suburbs that raced to install the devices after they became legal in 2006, according to state data.

“Accidents rose — in some cases, significantly — at half the 14 suburban intersections outfitted with traffic cameras by the end of 2007, the data show. The number of crashes fell at just five of those intersections after cameras went in, while two showed little change.

“At Mannheim and St. Charles roads in Bellwood, collisions rose from 17 the year before cameras appeared to 24 the year after. Melrose Park put a camera at 1st and North avenues, near the now-closed Kiddieland Amusement Park, and crashes increased from 56 the year before installation to 73 the year after.”

Read more at Chicago Tribune.

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States Consider Various Nightmare Scenarios

You’ll know that things are getting really bad when states begin defaulting on their bonds. A Federal bailout would effectively be a federal seizure of control and an elimination of the last vestiges of a state’s sovereignty—not that the states exercise much sovereignty now. A state under total Federal control would be in receivership under the same financial interests that own the Federal government.

“One question keeps coming up as governors and legislators grapple with a seemingly never-ending stream of gloomy budget news that keeps getting worse: How bad can it get?

“The answer, according to experts and a look through history, is probably that it could get worse than it has been in a generation — maybe even a lifetime — but not catastrophic.

“‘If revenues don’t pick up, states are going to be in a pretty tough spot when we get to 2011,’ said Kim Rueben, a state and local tax policy expert with the Urban Institute. ‘Do I think it’s going to be the end of the world as we know it? No.’

“Bankruptcy, at least the scenario where  a judge would take control of a state’s finances, is off the table. Bond defaults, the cardinal sin of public finance, seem highly unlikely for states. Another federal bail-out is plausible. Some state governments may even be fundamentally overhauled. But the worst for most states will sound familiar: service cuts, tax hikes, IOUs, layoffs, furloughs and political gridlock.”

Read more at Stateline.org.

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What the Next Phase of Economic Collapse Might Look Like

Charles Hugh Smith offers his vision of what total economic collapse might look like. I particularly like his phrase “protected fiefdom.” That’s as apt a phrase as there is to describe the various classes of parasites that are sucking us dry. In an odd way, the prospect of an emergent underground economy and implosion of the large institutions that have caused the calamity is cause for hope.

“Here are a few key trends which will gather momentum in 2010–trends drawn from the Survival+ analysis.

“My purpose in writing Survival+ was to provide a coherent account (i.e. an integrated understanding) of the powerful trends which are working beneath the superficial surface of our economy and culture.

“Survival+ explains why the status quo is doomed, and illuminates the mechanisms which doom it. It also describes “the way out”–we must each put our energy into constructing a parallel, transparent, self-organized, re-localized system which is entirely legal and entirely independent of the failing, doomed status quo which is stripmining the productive to enrich the public and private Elites (file under “Fall of the Empire, Roman and other”).”

Read more at OfTwoMinds.com.

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