Speed cameras are a brilliant tool.

They keep the roads safer. They allow cops to spend time pursuing violent criminals. And they raise money for the government.

They aren’t taxes. No one’s forcing you to speed! And if you find the yoke of speed-camera oppression on a particular route onerous, why then you can roar up or down another street!

The argument against speed cameras make no sense.

“I want to drive recklessly and don’t want the state to use technological means to catch me.”

So the opponents created a new one: “The state is using the cameras to raise money.”

This became a rallying cry, and actually found traction in this surprisingly dumb state.

That’s a good aspect of the cameras. Dopes who drive fast—they have to pay!

It’s a disincentive to control dangerous behavior. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing. All that’s really happened is that the state is a little less safe. And a little poorer.


Anyway, the cameras the state has placed around Arizona go dark at midnight tonight.

Of the stories in the local press about the occasion, the EVT’s is by far the best.

It notes that the cameras will remain in Tempe, Mesa and Chandler. Those cities will continue to reap their budget benefits.

And the safer streets:

During the first year, there were nearly 5,000 fewer collisions along the state’s highways than the previous year, according to Shoba Vaitheeswaran, a Redflex spokeswoman