Letters to the Editor: Red light cameras silly, profitable and contentious

Red light cameras silly, profitable and contentious

“Retired Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Paul Henry launched additional local opposition to the cameras last year after he released research showing that intersections with red-light cameras in Winter Park rarely see crashes related to red-light running to begin with.”

Red light running cameras in Winter Park and Maitland are: well, silly. But profitably silly and certainly contentious — too contentious.

I don’t come at this issue from a civil liberties perspective, though that argument has much merit, but from a more practical one of picking and choosing your battles; and what will give our tax money – yours and mine – the biggest bang for the buck in public safety.

Remember the cutting-edge DDACTs (Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety) rolled out by the WPPD in 2011? Probably not.

“The goal of DDACTS is to reduce the incidence of traffic crashes and crime in a neighborhood or specific geographical area. Through careful study, officers are placed where traffic crashes and crimes tend to occur more frequently so they are at the right place, at the right time to prevent trouble.” (From the Mayor’s (Bradley’s) Message, Update Winter Park (VOLUME XVIII NUMBER 1.) How’s that working?

I believe that the WPPD’s take-away was that there are not enough traffic crashes in Winter Park to “drive” any data-based policing.

Next up: Free Department of Homeland Security cameras installed in well-concealed locations in and around our Park Avenue (and more recently at a water treatment plant in Winter Springs?!).

Free? Kinda/sorta, but costing $30,000 in local dollars to feed transmission to the WPPD. Though transmission is not monitored in real time. The technology is only there to view video after the fact – to catch terrorists/criminals – not thwart them. Like with the Boston Bombers. Thank God the two brothers were also idiots.

Any terrorist who can’t disable a camera, effectively disguise his/her identity, and/or terrorize out of the view of stationary cameras, should just relinquish their membership in the Villains, Thieves, and Scoundrels Union.

Please stay tuned.

William Shallcross

Winter Park

Differences in freedom

Dear Editor,

Recently, Winter Park welcomed home helicopter pilot Lt. Chuck Nadd from Afghanistan. We are grateful for his service and for the Super Bowl commercial that recorded his homecoming.

Thankfulness, appreciation, and support for military can be expressed in many ways.

Banners, hugs and parades are wonderful, but for someone serving in the military perhaps the best way to express gratitude is to do everything we can to make sure that the only reason they will ever be sent to war is in defense of freedom.

The freedoms in Winter Park Lt. Nadd returned to are quite different today from those he left not long ago.

For example, Lt. Nadd might have been quite alarmed if he was made aware that his Winter Park City Commission in May 2013 had a 70-year-old Christian lady and a couple of her companions arrested on the Aloma Avenue public sidewalk as she peacefully and quietly read her Bible – simply exercising the same First Amendment right that Lt. Nadd and his fellow military members fight for every day.

This was the result of the City Commission's new "anti-picketing" ordinance instigated by Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel and written so broadly that, according to the city attorney, it outlaws even a wife politely asking her husband to take out the garbage if she does so while standing on any public property. The City Commission continues to hide the cost to the taxpayer of Commissioner Sprinkel's vendetta against the 70-year-old peaceful, Christian, Bible-reading lady and her friends, even making a federal case out of it by failing to repeal the bizarre ordinance. The Federal Appeals Court in Jacksonville is scheduled to hear the charges against the City Commission's "no-free speech ordinance" the week of March 3, 2014.

And if that were the only threat to freedom Lt. Nadd returned home to it would be bad enough.

But today Lt. Nadd and his girlfriend cannot even eat a meal in private in a Park Avenue outdoor dining area without a telescopic zoom government surveillance camera being the third wheel on their date and watching their every bite. This 24/7, 365-days-a-year intrusion of privacy in violation of the spirit of the Fourth Amendment is also courtesy of this Winter Park City Commission as the cameras went up in 2012. And if Lt. Nadd happened to be unfortunate enough to be staying in a residence within a half-mile of one of these City Commission-endorsed government surveillance cameras – and was aware of it – he might feel compelled to draw the curtains, because the same cameras can read a date on a dime from that distance through the kitchen window.

Also today, if Lt. Nadd wanted to speak at a Winter Park board meeting, he may be capriciously denied his right to do so by the City Commission's new ordinance that reduces the rights citizens have traditionally had to speak on matters such as planning and zoning if the board claims that the comments do not have to be heard for any one of a number of bogus reasons they might raise to muzzle free speech.

And finally, today Lt. Nadd may find that simply driving in Winter Park has perhaps become more dangerous on some occasions than flying his helicopter in Afghanistan, thanks to the City Commission's red-light camera government revenue generating scheme. Reliable data from around the country has proven that red-light running that results in death is not deterred by these cameras due to the cause of these deadly crashes being drivers impaired or distracted rather than any red-light camera deficiency reason that the politicians try to make the public believe is the reason.

Other types of accidents have skyrocketed in conjunction with the red light cameras as the City Commission refuses to discuss at public City Commission meetings the accident rate in Winter Park, and to disclose those rear-end collisions caused by the red-light cameras themselves. This occurs as drivers either brake sharply or accelerate dramatically at yellow lights in a normal response to avoid the predatory tickets, which have nothing to do with safety or freedom and everything to do with generating more government revenue to take more freedom away from the public. Commissioner Sprinkel, who faces the voters in March, was recently quoted in The Observer as saying that she supports the red-light cameras.

As Winter Park Commissioners predictably exploit Lt. Nadd's homecoming for their own purposes, let the rest of us thank Lt. Nadd and all who serve by doing all we can to fight for their freedom here at home as they do so well for us overseas.

Winter Park needs a few more good men (and women) like Lt. Nadd. And when he comes home to Winter Park next time, he might make a pretty good mayor.

Paul Vonder Heide

Winter Park