Drivers who fail to stop at red lights at various intersections around the city of Rochester will no longer be able to go unnoticed due to the installation of new red light cameras, which the City Council approved in a 6-2 vote on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009.
These new cameras will have the ability to catch drivers who run red lights by taking a picture of the offender’s license plate and then mailing a $50 ticket, as well as a photograph of the car driving through the red light, to the offender.
Although the city of Rochester is optimistic that this program will be beneficial toward making the roads safer, some students at the UR still express concern about the new cameras.
‘[These cameras] make me feel a little uncomfortable,’ junior Margaret Ball said. ‘The surveillance is happening through a camera, not through an actual person.’
The City Council has approved a five-year program to install 50 cameras throughout the city of Rochester at various unsafe intersections. The program also calls for signs to be put up at intersections where the new red light cameras have been installed.
By this spring, the first 20 of these cameras will be installed and operational.
Overall, the goal of the program is to decrease the amount of accidents, and, more specifically, the program aims to provide more flexibility to the police department in making their officer assignments.
‘I think that these cameras will make drivers more cautious,’ Take Five scholar Gemma Sole said. ‘Now that I know that Rochester will be implementing these cameras, I will probably think twice myself about trying to make the light.’
Shao is a member of the class of 2010.
Information compiled from www.13wham.com and The Democrat and Chronicle
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