Op-Ed: Catch Me (On Camera) If You Can
By: Joe Cohodes
I was of two minds when I first heard Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s proposal to modify red-light cameras so they could “catch” speeders near school zones, parks, and the like.
For, you see, my right foot worships at the pagan altar of acceleration. My ribcage, however, reminds me from time to time that I was once a twelve year-old boy who found himself as the proverbial hood ornament of a 1998 Buick LeSabre, whose driver forgot to look before she turned left. There is a time and a place for speed, but neither can be found in the urban environs of Chicago and her 2.7 million citizens. As such, I was inclined to agree with Emmanuel. But then Rahm, that wily political fox, trotted out “the children.”
Forget what they say about lobbyists, kids are a politician’s best friend. Need a photo-op? Kiss a baby. Just make sure that little bundle of joy is in Momma’s arms when you do, otherwise he’ll spit up all over that blue suit/red tie/white shirt/American flag-pin get-up that your P.R. rep loves. You wanted a photo-op, not a punchline for Tonight with Jay Leno, remember? But there’s more to a politician’s love of children than publicity. Apropos of nothing whatsoever, I’ll give you an example, purely hypothetical, with absolutely no application to the real world. Whatso … Oh, to hell with the analogy. Let’s lay it all on the table.
What do you do when your city budget is drowning in $587 million worth of red ink? Do you stand atop City Hall, amidst the luscious rooftop garden, and watch?
No! You think of the children.
Had Emmanuel been more circumspect about the intended reach of his automated traffic cops, I would have supported his proposal. Had he limited his speed-camera rollout to, let’s say, the two mile stretch of 79th Street that was found to contain four of the top 20 crash intersections, according to a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study, or the 12 high-crash corridors identified in the same study, I would have found his proposal modest, logical, and acceptable.
Alas, his plan was a tad too brazen, too obviously focused on revenue and not enough on protecting pedestrians. The original proposal had Rahm’s silent sentinels of speed covering 47% of Chicago’s 227.2 square miles, operating 24 hours a day. You know, to protect those playgrounds jam-packed with innocent children swinging from the monkey bars at midnight, or those schools disgorging students who just got out of their 2 A.M. Multiplication Tables seminar. The Department of Revenue must have had a high-beam Cheshire cat grin on its collective face, thinking of those scanners darkly, clicking merrily away at speeding scofflaws while money poured into city coffers at the tune of $100 per violation.
Rahm’s proposal, albeit narrowed down by the legislature, passed the Illinois Senate on Wednesday, and City Hall continues to piously insist it has nothing but the kids in mind. “At the end of the day, it’s really about people’s lives,” said Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein. “When your child is hit by a car, it’s earth-shattering for you.” While I do not speak from experience, it’s a safe bet that a parent’s world shatters equally when their child is hit by bullets, rather than bumpers. In 2010, seventy-two children were shot to death in the Windy City. Total number of pedestrians (of all ages) fatally hit by cars last year? Thirty two. But think of the children.
For all his political adroitness, Emmanuel made that rookie mistake – he picked up the baby. Rahm overreached, and Chicago saw his speed cameras for what they are: another way for City Hall to nickel-and-dime its way back to solvency.
