Red Light Tickets Scam

Red light tickets scam funds from already-struggling families
(http://www.southtownstar.com/news/opinion/guests/2052309,021710gathingscol.article)
February 17, 2010
By Cheryl Gathings

I said to the judge, "So, you see, I did stop," and she said, "Yeah, you did, but you went past the white line or you were on the white line." So guess what happened? You got it - I had to pay $100 because I stopped in front of the white line.

This is the thing that really gets me: I know that that judge and everybody in that courtroom, including police officers and other municipal employees, at one time or another had stopped either in front of the white line or beyond it. And guess what else? You got it again - they didn't have to pay a $100 fine for it.

These red light violations are the latest fad that municipalities are using to scoop up our hard-earned dollars to put in their fat pocketbooks along with our property tax dollars, mandated water/sewer dollars, sales taxes and everything else that they can think of to hit us with.

It is a shame that governments can't be more creative with generating revenue that they have to stoop to such a ridiculous way of hitting working people, who already are hurting by being hit with foreclosures, educating children and paying more for utilities, transportation to and from work and everything else. Towns then invest that money in buying cameras to monitor low- to moderate-income families to "catch them" at some ludicrous act of not stopping before the white line.

This type of legal hustling accelerates the moral decline in our communities, adding to the state of the economy with loss of jobs and housing. Furthermore, it adds to the crime already rampant in our cities and villages.

Should not safety and protection be a priority of government? They used to be. But now it's all about greed, it's all about competing for federal dollars - keeping up with the Joneses instead of really implementing President Barack Obama's motto, "hope we can believe in," in our communities. How much hope can you give our American families when all you do is find ways to steal our hard-earned money? This has got to stop!

So, I said to the judge, "Where is it written that we have to stop in front of the white line?" She handed me a piece of paper explaining the "white line" law. She said, "You can appeal this in the Markham courthouse, but you have to pay an appeal fee of $250" to do it.

On my way out of court, the police officer said to me, "I feel for you; we don't like it either, and the mayor knows how you feel."

Really? I don't think it would matter to the mayor that I am a single parent with two children in college and a special-needs child at home whom I care for 24/7.

I say to governments: Stop bleeding hurting families with idiotic means of increasing government funds and start really caring and helping by being sensitive to the hurt we already must endure with struggling to meet our expected family responsibilities.

You don't have to take $100 out of our already depleted monthly budgets. You do have options. You can give warnings the first time to people who actually do stop. But it is obvious that your intentions are to rake in everything you can and continue to drain us dry until someone goes on a real rampage. And then you will ask, "What's wrong with him?"

You are what is wrong, because such policies do push normal people over the edge.

CHERYL GATHINGS, AN EIGHT-YEAR RESIDENT OF HAZEL CREST, IS A COMMUNITY ACTIVIST AND REAL ESTATE BROKER.