Chicago Car Accident Lawyer Blog

The Sun-Times reports that a plan to install red-light cameras at suburban intersections is facing opposition, even as county officials claim the effort will reduce the number of Chicago car accidents.

Cook County is moving ahead with the plan to install cameras at 20 intersections in suburbia but village officials are angered that their input was not sought. Three cameras are planned in Arlington Heights, where officials previously decided not to install cameras out of respect for the public. The intersections are maintained by the Cook County highway department; a county spokesman said the cameras are being installed at intersections with a higher concentration of safety issues. The county would collect any revenue generated from the tickets. County officials estimate the cameras will bring in at least $2 million a year, the Daily Herald reports.

The cameras, which snap photos of red-light violators and send tickets in the mail, have become a hot-button issue, with detractors claiming they are being used to generate revenue and may even increase rear-end collisions at intersections. The Tribune reports that Schaumburg took the cameras down, despite ticketing 10,000 drivers in 2008 and generating more than $1 million in revenue.

Traffic statistics there showed that the cameras hadn't reduced collisions and the politicians acquiesced to irate motorists. Now the county has decided to install 6 cameras at intersections in Schaumburg. Nearly 200 cameras are currently operating at Chicago intersections. However, a recent study by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that crashes have not declined at camera equipped intersections, despite an overall reduction in traffic accidents citywide.

Chicago intersection accidents are a real concern. The Illinois Department of Transportation reports that about one-fourth of all fatal Illinois crashes occurred at signal-equipped intersection in 2008, accounting for 83,000 of the state's 408,000 crashes.