then other states should just refuse to share ANY information with NJ. When in other states, it is incumbent upon drivers to obey the laws of that state

Seeing red: New Jerseyans shouldn't have to pay camera fines in other states (Editorial)

Assemblyman Declan O?Scanlon, New Jersey's red-light knight, has taken on all the money-grubbing cameras in our state. Now he?s after the ones in every other state, too.

Last week, he introduced a bill that would block New Jersey?s Motor Vehicle Commission from sharing car owners? license-plate information with any state or private company for the purpose of fining New Jersey residents.

It?s a shield against electronic enforcement outside our borders, and also applies to speed cameras ? the next iteration of the Orwellian approach to cash-strapped local budgets.

New Jersey isn?t photographing speeders yet, but neighbors such as New York and Maryland do. One day, you?re cruising along with the natural flow of traffic on a family vacation; the next month, you?ve got bad news in the mail.

O?Scanlon (R-Monmouth) is looking to ward off that unlucky juju by following in the footsteps of South Dakota, which passed a similar law in March after its residents complained that nearby Iowa was sending them $168 tickets like unfriendly postcards.

If police call about lawbreakers, New Jersey will still cooperate, O?Scanlon says. But why should we allow any motor vehicle bureaucrat or for-profit company in another state to go swimming in our pockets?

Yes, these cameras are supposed to keep us safe. But what if the only way to pay for a hidden speed camera is to fine hundreds, if not thousands of unwitting people for going a reasonable rate of speed, barely over the legal limit? Is that really the best way to improve safety? And how far do we want to invite Big Brother in?

As much as New Jersey?s cameras are rigged against motorists, other states have it worse. Their speed cameras can have high error rates: In Baltimore, it was as much as 10 percent, meaning 70,000 people were wrongly charged $2.8 million. Red light cameras have accuracy issues, too: New York?s have essentially no guidelines for the length of yellow lights.

New Jersey still needs to re-evaluate its own red light cameras. We are told they make us safer. A state Department of Transportation report said crashes at intersections that have had the cameras for at least two years dropped: right-angle accidents by 60 percent, rear-end crashes by 7 percent.

Problem is, safety improved even more at the intersections that didn?t have cameras. So how do you explain that?

We need a much better study, and there's a deadline: New Jersey?s red light camera program is set to expire Dec. 16. By then, it will be five years old. If the state can?t show the program improved accident rates in all that time, call it a failure and take down the cameras. Or, as O?Scanlon put it, ?Merry Christmas.?

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2 ... her_states_editorial.html