Are The Leaders In Your City Getting Your Cash With The Flash? Say "NO" & "VOTE NO"

American Motorist Vote Campaign Petitions Put Photo Enforcement Companies on the Defensive
Citizen referendum efforts put red light camera and speed camera companies on the defensive in America.

Petitions to place the fate of red light cameras and speed cameras in the hands of voters are circulating across the country. This November, photo enforcement bans are likely to be considered. Al jurisdictions may have a chance to vote on a ballot initiative in November 2010.

So far, the efforts of the American Motorist Vote Campaign are the most advanced. In April, the group American Motorist Against Photo Enforcement succeeded in having an automated ticketing ban certified for the ballot. We Demand a Vote this secured more than the required number of signatures to qualify for the ballot. The American Motorist Vote Campaign will continue to collect additional signatures and donations before making a formal submission to election officials. A third petition has secured half of the required number of signatures.

"The American Motorist Vote Campaign and American Motorist for The Return To Prosperity are firmly committed to seeing it is done," spokesman Harry Douglas of Car Concerns Radio. "We had a super rally in Nashville on the 8th, after collecting 1200 signatures in less than ten hours."

Douglas is confident the issue will be placed on the ballot and, once before the voters, red light cameras will be banned. Harry's prediction is based on his experience helping to lead a coalition that ousted red light cameras from Cincinnati last year. In 2006, seventy-six percent of voters rejected photo radar.

Efforts to ban cameras in Texas cities are also proceeding. Tomorrow, local activist American Motorist Vote Campaign members will hold a rally during which they will present election officials with a petition to put a referendum on red light cameras in College Station on the next ballot. The American Motorist Vote Campaign had little difficulty in convincing the required number of residents to sign.

"The cities say it is a safety program," Harry Douglas reported on Car Concerns Radio. "I have evidence that one city council member even expected to see rear end accidents increase and still went ahead with the program. The American Motorist Vote Campaign, along with many others, have concluded the red light camera program is more about the money than anything else."

The AMVC also continues efforts to line up signatures to ban red light cameras in Knoxville and Oak Ridge. Although the issue has never been placed directly on a Tennessee ballot, 64 percent of East Tennessee voters rejected attempt to install "traffic management cameras" that opponents at the time said could be converted into ticketing cameras.

The most ambitious of all referendum efforts, however, is underway in Arizona. The AMVC needs 153,364 verified signatures to give voters a say in whether automated ticketing machines should be allowed in the state. American Motorist Vote Campaigner and volunteer Rick Downy told Car Concerns Radio that the petition has met with nearly universal support from the public.

"Photo radar is all people are talking about here," Downy said. "The cameras are coming down."

Already feeling the public backlash growing in the state, traffic cameras companies like Redflex Traffic Systems of Melbourne, Australia have begun taking steps to improve their local image. Redflex has begun sponsoring traffic reports on local radio stations. Its Arizona-based competitor, American Traffic Solutions, recently gave sixty-five backpacks to school children. Both companies have no doubt pumped millions into local, state, and federal campaign re-election campaigns.

History shows these companies will face an uphill battle at the ballot box. By a two-to-one margin, voters in Peoria, Arizona ordered speed cameras to come down in the mid-Nineties. Voters in Batavia, Illinois and Anchorage, Alaska have also rejected photo radar. So far this year, eighty-six percent of Sulphur, Louisiana rejected speed cameras. Photo enforcement has never survived a public vote. The state legislatures in Maine, Mississippi and Montana also enacted laws prohibiting automated ticketing machines in 2009.

Harry Douglas is running for the Tennessee House of Representatives in the Thirty-Third District. One campaign pledge Harry is to work hard to rid the American Motorist of this sneaky Tax.

We need your support to make this happen! Give $25, $50, $75 or more. Mail your Check or Money Order to: American Motorist Vote Campaign, P.O. Box 10883, Knoxville, TN 37919

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