Wear Your Seat Belt

Gothamist reports:

The collision happened on June 29th at 5:30 a.m. One 29-year-old driver sustained minor injuries and was arrested for DWI. (No one else was hurt.) Roselle Park Police Chief Paul Morrison tells NBC New York, “I want people to realize what can happen when someone runs a red light. By showing this video, we hope people will realize running red lights can have tragic consequences.”

RELATED: Advocates for red light cameras are already citing this crash as evidence for the need to expand the program. Those ticketed by such cameras have sometimes successfully fought their citations in court on privacy grounds. The ACLU has come out against them.

Contrary to popular belief, the major concern about red light cameras and privacy is not about cameras taking pictures of license plates, assuming that they do not also take pictures of the drivers. Rather, it has to do with the storage by a government entity of data regarding a driver’s whereabouts, whether or not the driver was issued a citation (a citation is not automatically issued simply because a photograph is taken), and whether or not those citations are successfully appealed. Such data (which includes the date and time of a particular vehicle passing a particular location) should be inaccessible to anyone for any purpose other than issuing a citation (including for other law enforcement purposes or via discovery in civil proceedings), and it should be destroyed as soon as possible.