Senator Larcenia Bullard recently shared a story of one of her constituents’ sons who was caught by a red light camera while driving some of his pot-smoking friends. Police used the tape showing his back-seat friends getting high and charged the teenager with a drug offense instead of a traffic infraction, said Bullard, whose district includes part of Palm Beach County. Invasive or fair? How did they know it was pot?
Senator Bullard said the red light cameras cameras should take photos limited in size to the trunk of the car and not include the window of the vehicle. That way officers – and others – can’t peek at what’s going on inside, she said. Ridiculous claim in my opinion. It would be interested to see what those who study criminal justice or have a degree in criminal justice think about this.
Senator Bullard he went on to say that, "A man is sitting in the back seat of a car with a woman who he’s not married to and his wife,” Bullard, D-Miami, said, drawing snickers from her Senate Transportation committee colleagues. “But it’s very true. This is real. This stuff happens. I see where this camera is really working but we need to get beyond taking pictures of that back window where you can see someone cheating on his wife or someone smoking marijuana.”
The cameras are not installed for these purposes, however, they do have some unintended policing benefits. Karma is a bitch and bad people will always get caught for doing bad things.