Jackson Free Press

Traffic light cameras caught a lot of hell this legislative session. The cameras sit not-too-stealthily at about eight intersections throughout Jackson, including spots in West Jackson, the corner of Lakeland Drive and Old Canton Road and the corner of Pearl and State streets.

Brochures that the American Traffic Solution gave to the Jackson City Council last year said the cameras snap a picture of a certain spot in the intersection whenever they sense motion under a red light. Unlike a traffic cop, the cameras can't be reasoned with. You can go to court and argue that you were part of a funeral procession or that your wife was giving birth in the car, but outside of emergencies, the cameras hold up very well in court because nothing beats a photo of your retreating license plate booking it under a red light.

The traffic citations have generated more than $400,000 in citations—and that's only for the people who showed up to pay the fines. American Traffic Solutions reaps a stupendous profit, with the company getting almost $260,000 and the city receiving almost $150,000.

ATS Communications Director Josh Weiss says it's not about the money; it's about safety, and he's right about that. Company records say the city of New Orleans registered an 84 percent reduction in traffic offenses since it installed the cameras. And ATS reports the city of Jackson has estimated a 68 percent reduction in crashes at the guarded intersections since the city installed the cameras last October.

Crashes mean a lot to me. I'm an avid motorcyclist who's been hopping two-wheelers since 1984. During that time I've had many mishaps—many of them my fault, yes. But the most painful damage I ever suffered involved other people.

Let's be frank. Motorcyclists view motorists as four-wheeled morons who are oblivious to what's going on around them and are barely aware of what transpires directly in front of their windshield. If a motorcyclist tells you any different, he or she has yet to feel his/her knee crack under somebody's car tire.

I've been in three accidents at intersections, and they were always because the person in the car didn't see me. One guy ran a light at the corner of Bailey Avenue and Woodrow Wilson and sent me over his fender in 1985. I hear my face left a pretty good dent in his driver's side door. He was uninsured and escaped legal trouble because insurance wasn't required at the time.

Another clown ignored a stop sign and drove into me as I was going down Capitol Street in 1990. Amazingly, I remember my gas tank coming loose in the violence of that impact and actually landing beside me as I rolled to a stop on the other side of his car. That was a hit and run. I didn't get the blood out of my eyes fast enough to record his retreating license plate.

My point is that motorists get in a car and cease to be people. They become meaty extensions of their two-ton kill-machines. They can't help it. I'm guilty of it myself. But for safety alone, I cannot condone the Mississippi Legislature attacking the effort of ticketing people who break the bloody law.

Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, admitted that he hated the idea of being watched at an intersection. News flash: The cameras aren't in your house. They're at an intersection that you're sharing with other drivers—some of them more vulnerable than others. If you don't like getting a $75 ticket, don't break the damn law.

Now it's time to address the money the city takes in from the citations. That extra $150,000 the city started making (just since October) is annual, reoccurring money. It's not one-time money. One-time money is what the city has been begging from the state for years to help fix the roads that commuters travel on when they go to work in the city, and they could never give us even that. That $150,000 is potential match money that the city could use to draw down federal funding for repairs so that legislators can drive down Pascagoula Street without their struts rattling off their vehicles.

The most money we've gotten out of the state Legislature this year is a loan—providing it passes—for infrastructure work at Capitol Green and permission to tax ourselves with an additional sales tax. Very generous of you.

The city of Jackson took a stand and decided to reduce potentially deadly crashes using a technique that has proven effective in other cities. They've also stepped up to the plate and generated revenue that the state was never willing to offer. You've left us to ourselves ever since you fled to the suburbs. Stand aside and let us continue to take care of ourselves.