POLL: Iowa City Council to Consider Red-Light Traffic Cameras. What do you think?

Traffic light cameras. Yay or nay?

Would safety affect your decision, either way?

The Iowa City City Council will consider these questions at its formal meeting on Tuesday evening. At this meeting, the council members are scheduled to vote on an amendment of city code that will allow the use of red-light traffic cameras as a safety and law enforcement device.

These devices are designed to photograph motorists as they run red lights, so they may be fined later for breaking the law. Opponents criticize the devices for being money grabs for cities, or, on a more philosophical level, for violating the privacy of motorists.

The former council had been cold to the idea, but held of on a decision until the new council could vote on it.

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine, a proponent of the traffic-light cameras, says that there is a safety benefit to the new model of these cameras that should make the city council think twice before giving the cameras a thumbs down.

The reason, he said, is the availability of new cameras that use speed and red-light technology simultaneously to identify vehicles that are going to run lights and then preemptively prevent cross traffic from getting a green light, according to a memo from Hargadine and transportation planner John Yapp released Thursday.

So what do you think about red-light cameras? I'll include extra options in the poll to capture the safety argument.