'Stop'... in the Name of Blog

Stopping the Stoplight Camera
A few weeks back in a round-up of "The Rouge's" recent activity, I documented that the city was installing red light cameras in a few intersections to decrease the number of accidents. After reading a recent post on www.msnbc.com I felt that I should explore the 'real' purpose behind "The Rouges" camera system.

Many cities around the U.S. who have installed red light cameras have documented that the cameras are effective in preventing people from running red lights and reducing the number of accidents. Most of these cities were sold on the cameras with a two prong benefits package...1.) Saving lives and 2.) significant increase in traffic ticket revenues. But, as more people actually 'stop' at red lights, revenue from the cameras have fallen drastically, with many cities finding that the cameras no longer pay for themselves. And, to top it all off, some cities are finding increases in the number accidents at intersections with the cameras, but of the rear-end collision type. So what is "The Rouges" stance on this issue.

"The Rouge" claims on the programs website (here) that it is only a safety program aimed at reducing accidents. The tickets are not moving violations, but civil penalties, meaning that the tickets will not go on your driving record. But it is interesting that they only tout this as a safety program with little mention of revenue generation or cost of operation of the system. I also wonder if tickets that were handed out by officers before the system was operation were considered moving violations or civil penalty (i.e. like a parking ticket) or if they are classified as a moving violation. If so, how do they justify the red light camera tickets as civil and ticket given by an officer as a moving violation for the exact same offense? Something to ponder the next time you run the red lights here in "The Rouge."


"We are Bloggers..."
Mount-R sent me a reminder about this little article that I had read at work today. It makes up for her forgetting about my birthday:-) The NY Times explored a couple of high profile individuals and their blogs to get some opinions on how people should go about blogging. I applied their advice and examined my blog to see if I violated some of the 'blogging rules' according to the NY Times.

1. Do not blog to make money. Check, there is no financial generation material on my blog, so I'm good here, that of course unless you want me to advertise for you;-)
   
2. Write about what you want to write about in your own voice. I believe that I do this. I will confess that this blog has taken on a new life from which it was originally intended. Its become more of interesting stories that I find sprinkled with little excerpts about some of the daily happenings of my life. This metamorphosis is due in large part because not a lot of interesting things happen each day in my life...aka I'm boring. Ha ha
3. Fit Blogging into the holes in your schedule. This is a little harder said than done. I need a mobile device that I can input stuff into. Plus, I only post one large posting per day taking time to write the particular articles. Also, Blogger has been very finicky lately, causing me to spend a lot of time cleaning up the formatting after the fact.
4. Just Post it already! Guilty as charged. I will string out several posts that I prepare for different days on various topics I find interesting. As the past couple of weeks can attest to, when a hiccup in the schedule occurs, so do the posting...which feeds into number 5.
5. Keep a Steady Rhythm. I try my hardest to keep the Daily Dose current as of the previous day, but life interrupts it sometimes. Hopefully when those occur you have such a desire to read your Daily Dose that you get giddy and get all caught back up!
   
6. Join the Community, such as it is. I will admit, I have lifted some photos off of a couple of other blogs and I tried to give them credit. You may find one or two that are not my own, but 99% of all the photos are taken by me. I give props to those blogs who have given me inspiration for postings, so I believe I can improve on this one, but I'm better than some...at least I think.
7. Plug Yourself. I have only done this with friends and family. I express great gratitude to Dominican View, Living in a Toxic World, and Kmewalt for helping spread a little daily dose. So if you haven't yet checked them out, head on over to their blogs and check out what they have to say, and of course, check back 'daily' so you get your Dose of Zachawii!

Cheers