I sincerely want to thank the mayor and the City Council for starting their partnership with American Traffic Solutions (ATS) with a traffic camera pilot-program for the first year.

The council must give its termination notice to ATS by Dec. 1. Given the police department’s update to the city council last month, it is impossible to imagine the council will extend the program another four years. We are halfway through the pilot program and what have we learned?

Accidents at the three intersections have increased 27 percent since the cameras were installed. Rear-end collisions have increased 33 percent since the cameras were installed. We know some of those drivers reported slamming on their brakes to avoid a ticket.

We know the city has issued more than $900,000 in tickets to its citizens for a program where the police chief testified, “purely collision data probably wouldn’t justify the use of cameras. We don’t have that many accidents”.

Because 80 percent of the revenue is kept by King County courts and the city’s for-profit partner, ATS keeps about eight percent, the city is left with just 12 percent of the revenue.

We know that 93 percent of the tickets given at the three intersections are for California stops. We know that the ATS cameras catch about one “straight-through” violation per intersection per 24 hour period. We know that the overall level of infractions are essentially unchanged since they began issuing tickets.

Most importantly, we know that thousands of registered voters in Redmond have signed petitions requesting a public vote on this controversial program.

One finds it hard to imagine the city council will extend its contract with ATS, but now is not the time to become complacent.

Members of your council have told me they want to hear from you. Please send in your petition by Aug. 20 and add your voice to the chorus.

The petition can be found online at www.voters-decide.org.

Scott Harlan, Redmond Initiative No. 1 – Let the People Decide on Red Light Cameras