Tricky Bureaucrats Wring Extra Cash Out of Traffic Lights

The parasitical drones comprising Big Government’s bureaucracy are generally regarded as subnormal in terms of intelligence, but they can be quite clever when it comes to separating productive citizens from their hard-earned money. For example:

A Florida city [Tamarac, pop. 60,427] might win the prize for creativity, installing a red-light camera at an intersection next to a hospital, targeting those who are on their way to the emergency room. …

Fort Lauderdale attorney Ted Hollander told Channel 10 that he believes the city put the camera by the hospital to prey on those seeking medical attention.

Here’s another clever trick:

El Paso, Texas, found that when they cut the time of their yellow lights by four-tenths of a second, the number of tickets written increased by 132 percent.

As with government-imposed CAFE standards that cost thousands of lives by forcing us to drive in flimsy vehicles, our physical safety is superfluous:

Municipal officials claim moves like this are made to improve traffic safety. But a study in Texas showed that a one-second increase in yellow-light times resulted in a 40 percent drop in accidents at intersections.

Officials might be able to raise even more funds by doing away with yellow lights altogether. The accidents caused would have the added benefit of taking carbon-emitting vehicles off the road.

traffic-light-tree
New design for a revenue-raising traffic light.

On a tip from The Only Other Conservative in Seattle. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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