Running head: CURRENT EVENTS AND ETHICS-PHOTO RADAR ENFORCEMENT
Current Events and Ethics-Photo Radar Enforcement
Learning Team A-The Left Handers
University of Phoenix
Current Events and Ethics-Photo Radar Enforcement
Patrick Henry, in 1775 said, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? …I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Since these words were spoken, the idea they express has become a founding principle of our Republic, that every American’s individual liberties are theirs alone to forfeit or preserve. In these United States, no act of law or human agency, no matter the lives it could save or the money it might prevent being squandered, can hope to stand if it betrays the liberty principle. Standing at this crossroads in our time is photo radar enforcement of traffic laws, lauded by the scientific community for the lives it saves, coveted by governments for the money it makes and convicted by the public for its erosion of liberty.
The studies can be convincing in their conclusions, photo enforcement saves lives. In 2005 a series of investigation in British Colombia, Canada, proved that,”…the BC photo radar programme (sic) prevented a total of 1,542 injuries and 70 fatal collisions annually.”(Chen, p. 1) The studies were conducted throughout the province, collating site-specific data accumulated from the areas where cameras had been installed. The evidence showed that the installations of cameras controlled traffic measurably better than the same sites the prior year. (Chen)
Lives saved are not the only benefit of photo enforcement. The benefits of photo enforcement that have made it so popular to government are the money it saves, and most important, the money it makes.
The British Colombia study established that the societal costs in traffic collisions were due to death, injury, emergency (though not medical) intervention as well as the...