nervous nelly

I was worried for days and days that I had gotten one of those hideous $361 red light violation tickets because I saw the camera go flashy flashy as I was crossing the Howe/Fair Oaks intersection last Friday.  I swear it was still green when I started my left turn, but of course I was going fast and it had to be towards the end of the go part of the cycle.  I was researching the whole "red light violation" citation process and found you can call the bastards, er, agency in charge to see if you've got a lovely citation in your near future.  I was totally not capable of making that call myself; my co-worker very generously did it for me.  Yay!  I'm off the hook.  But in case you were wondering:

1.  77% of those red light violation tickets are given in the first second of the red light.  Heh, so much for protecting us in dangerous intersections. 

2.  The city of Los Angeles admitted one of the key criteria for choosing which intersection camera is "increased revenue." Again, why do they even pretend it's for our safety to have such huge fines for these?

3.  In case my first two points weren't enough, here's a quote from an audit done of California's cities with red light violation cameras:

"Traffic safety appeared to be a significant factor in the choice for most sites for red light cameras; however, we found that Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oxnard, and San Diego placed cameras at some intersections that did not appear to have problems with red light violations based on accident statistics. In addition, four local governments acknowledged that they avoided placing cameras at state-owned intersections with high accident rates."

4. I rest my case.  (ok, there was a whole lot more to report, but I got lazy.)