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Dori: Everett City Council, tell me red light cams aren’t about revenue

Dec 23, 2019, 7:17 AM

red light cameras, Everett City Council...

Dori does not believe that red light cameras are about safety. (KIRO 7 TV)

(KIRO 7 TV)

Just when the people of this state say they want $30 car tabs, the government revenge continues. The Everett City Council is thinking about adding red light cameras to seven intersections.

The council members claim, as people promoting red light cameras usually do, that it’s about public safety.

I will make the same offer to the Everett City Council politicians that I made to the Lynnwood City Council several years back. Come on my show and tell me to my face that these cameras are about public safety.

Any politician who tells you that red light cameras are about public safety is a bold-faced liar. Red light cameras are about revenue. Everett wants more money. No doubt they want revenge for I-976.

Dori: I want Kent leaders to take a polygraph test about red light cameras

How do I know that? When the Washington State Legislature first approved red light cameras, they said that the tickets could not cost more than a parking ticket. What has every city done? They have found the most expensive parking ticket that it is possible to get — usually something like blocking an alley when an emergency vehicle needs to access it — and charged red light camera fines accordingly.

I am sure that 90 percent of red light camera tickets are people who come up to the intersection and, if it’s open, coast into the free right at a few miles per hour, instead of stopping first. We used to call that a California stop. I highly doubt that many of the ticketed drivers are people who blow through lights after they have turned red.

Any Everett politician who supports this and says it is about public safety — I, Dori Monson, declare you to be lying. Come on my show and prove me wrong.

I have to look out for my listeners here. Everyone is coming for their wallets.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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Dori: Everett City Council, tell me red light cams aren’t about revenue