This week’s edition of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate contains an article (“Park Ridge City Council says no to red-light camera removal,” July 11) about the Park Ridge City Council’s decision last month to keep the red light camera at the corner of Northwest Highway and Oakton, which was installed in 2010.

The decision was in response to complaints by several business owners in that area that the red-light camera was hurting their businesses.

Did we miss the memo saying that drivers need to obey stoplights only when police are physically present? Or that stopping is optional if you’re on your way to buy something?

Frankly, we don’t like the Big Brother approach to law enforcement, with cameras seemingly capturing our every move from the moment we leave our houses until we return. And, given the technology that exists and the government’s (NSA, anyone?) penchant for “intelligence-gathering,” maybe even our homes are no longer sanctuaries.

So we subscribe to Ben Franklin’s view that trading liberty for safety makes one deserving of neither.

That being said, we recall the determination being made when that red-light camera was installed that there were frequent traffic violations there; and the red-light camera was chosen as an alternative to having police officers devoting an inordinate amount of time to policing that intersection at the expense of other areas.

According to the H-A article, “the vast majority” of those violations (202 of 289 in June) are for improper right turns on red. We’re not exactly sure why that’s such a chronic problem, but a violation is a violation.

Is the revenue derived from that camera desirable? Absolutely! If June’s total of $16,000 in fines is a typical month’s haul, that’s almost $200,000 a year – or approaching the all-in cost of employing two police officers.

But should revenue be the primary decision-driver? Absolutely not.

If “safety” is the real reason the Police and Council implemented the red-light camera, its success in promoting safety should be the first and foremost consideration for keeping it.

As noted above, there are a variety of reasons for being suspicious of camera-based law enforcement. A principal one is spelled C-H-I-C-A-G-O, that almost-bankrupt banana republic on our southeastern border that seems willing to tax anything that moves…or stands still for too long…in order to feed its century-plus culture of corruption and its current generation(s) of incompetents, crooks and grifters.

Another even more ominous reason is depicted in Orwell’s “1984.”

But to remove the Oakton red-light camera because of complaints that business is being lost from customers ticked off about getting ticketed for blowing a red light in their pursuit of commerce is half-witted, bordering on crack-potted.

The beefers who raised this issue, however, have performed a public service irrespective of how nutty their complaints might sound. They caused the Council and Police Department to revisit the red-light camera issue and its continuing success in fulfilling its avowed purpose. That should be done from time to time with every program and practice.

And the Council got it right by keeping the camera where it is, at least for the time being.

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