Wow — more red light cameras!

Folks, it is all about money. Add up the over 15,000 citations to date for 2009. This equates to over $2 million at $140 a pop for Federal Way. Of this amount, there is minus approximately 20 percent to 30 percent for camera maintenance going directly to American Traffic Solutions. It is rather easy for most of us taxpayers to understand the reasons for Federal Way to install more cameras under the premise it is all about safety. The city coffers will easily raise another cool million for next year.

Think about this. Most everyone will agree that Federal Way is not collecting the same amount of sales tax, business tax and tax on the tax revenues. An obvious slowdown in people purchasing power and great numbers of people out of work create the shortfall. The way to quickly increase more revenue is to find a simple solution by adding more revenue-making photo cameras.

The safety factor rings well, but considering rear-end collisions caused by people not running the light at these intersections, it seems difficult to justify the safety factor. The California stop right-hand turn ticket is a really great money maker. Somewhere I read that the state recommended tickets for right-hand turn violations to be set no greater than parking tickets around $24.

So why do we pay $140 for this ticket? One only has to imagine what’s next. Maybe photo cops?

Neil Corbin, Federal Way