Just guessing, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that speed cameras – particularly Baltimore’s speed cameras – are seen by many as another reminder that government can’t get anything right.
Other evidence comes from the healthcare sign-up, of course. Plus, there’s the periodic government shutdown. Then, there’s the idea that government shouldn’t pay its bills (also known as the periodic debt ceiling pseudo-crisis.) And, of course, it’s tax time. Has that ever been right?
But perhaps trumping all this provocation, we are treated now to the violation of a rule I learned years ago in Annapolis. Tread lightly when you are messing with people’s cars.
If you’re a legislator or a mayor, you don’t want to invade the sacred space of the American Passenger Vehicle. It took years and years in Annapolis to pass seatbelt laws. Even when the life-saving data was clear, senators and delegates held back.
So now, we have cities and counties hoping to raise a few dollars by catching people speeding. Drivers have been willing to write checks to help balance the budget and to improve safety in school zones. But if the tickets are based on faulty readings, the good-citizenship impulse will fail. In fact, it was failing even before City Hall started its inquiry: an audit of the program revealed error rates above ten percent. Not nearly good enough.
And so here’s the government failure theme again: We hired some companies that couldn’t manage the health care insurance computers. And we’ve hired speed camera vendors that may be wrong ten percent of the time.
Wonder if the NSA computer spooks would have any ideas.
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