Johnson City Rear-end Crashes Up, Revenue Down

The headline says it all:  "Rear-end crashes up, revenue down." Unfortunately, you cannot actually read the article unless you are a paid subscriber, but you can see the headline and get a short summary of the article.  I read the article in the paper version that I found and really, the headline does say it all.  There was a statistically insignificant decrease in other accidents, but rear-end crashes were up markedly.  The reason that revenue is down is that Johnson City is no longer able to screw people with a violation for a rolling right on red unless the police actually see the violation and, as a result of the lower amount of fines, Redflex gets a bigger piece of the blood money. 

Johnson City has long had a problem with rear-end crashes.  According to a senior police official, Johnson City has historically had one of the highest accident rates in the state and most of them were rear-enders.  This was stated prior to the installation of the red light scameras, which easily leads to the conclusion that these cameras were never about safety and always about revenue.  These cameras frequently malfunction and are being used for surveillance of citizens in addition to revenue.  I have personally seen these cameras flash when cars weren't even in the intersection. Unbelievable.