We can all agree that running red lights at an intersection is something that governments should try to combat. It is dangerous and unnecessarily puts innocent people at risk.

But in many cases cities are taking in ridiculous revenue from tickets without reducing accidents and violating the law by having private citizens deciding the legal fate of people with no control or regulation.

So how does this all work?

Well let’s say you run a red light. Nobody was around to see it and you might see a flash out of the corner of your eye; maybe not.

Sometime later, you end up with a ticket and a picture saying that you have to pay a fine, yet there will be no points added to your license.

Recently, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that cities that use these cameras are not doing anything wrong in their actions by charging people as though they committed a civil offense.

While changing a criminal charge to a civil charge may seem like a great idea to someone with bad insurance or lots of points, people should know why this is happening.

If a police officer cited you for running a red light, you would be given the right to confront your accuser (the officer) and the government has to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The problem is when the camera catches you; you cannot confront or cross-examine a camera. This leaves many in a position where they have to prove their innocence to the court.

So how is it that the legal charge is different depending on whether a cop or a camera catches people? Running a red light is the same whether a camera, a cop or 1,000 people witness it.

I wonder if the same rules about cameras witnessing crimes and civil offenses now apply to robbing banks?

If so, I just found a cheap way to pay for law school. Now all I need to do is find a ski mask.

Anyway, I’m getting side- tracked. I should go back to looking at the process of paying your fine.

When you pay your fine, the money is split between the city and the company that is responsible for identifying you.

Yes, a private company is making money issuing citations – a commission off of every citation in fact.

The company Lockheed Martin operates cameras in many large U.S. cities. According to a California court, they are in charge of operating, calibrating and maintaining the camera. This company has private citizens decide who gets a ticket, and then writes up the citation, and mails it.

All of this is done with little oversight by the police departments of the cities, in many cases the signature of an issuing officer is printed onto the citation by the computer to save time.

The motivation behind this entire scheme can easily be seen in how many faulty citations are issued. Cleveland proudly claims it garnered more $6.8 million during 2006.

The scary part is that in Cleveland alone during 2006, 25 percent of 5,200 contested cases were dismissed due to problems with the camera. How many more people were forced to pay fines for wrong or improper citations yet didn’t know it?

These problems ranged from ticketing the wrong car because a car switched lanes, or in some cases the license plate is unreadable. The city and the company it works with simply guess on the numbers and letters it cannot see.

Despite these problems and the 25 percent dismissal rate, the mayor of Cleveland claimed in a TV interview they should simply just come down to court and clear this whole thing up and fix the problem.

So people have to take time out of their busy live or off work (not making money during this time) to come to court and fix a problem that is the city’s fault. Cleveland’s logic in excusing their own incompetence is that “They don’t have to pay. It’s a process.”

So, we should be lucky and thank the stars that we didn’t get penalized wrongly.

Studies have been conducted in many states to show that these red light cameras are simply revenue generating programs, not traffic safety initiatives. Virginia and Texas have found out that by simply adding one second to the yellow light cycles accidents can drop by nearly 25 percent.

On top of the studies by state agencies, Congress discovered in some areas that yellow-light times were shortened simply to generate more tickets, and at the same time increased dangerous crashes.

Doing things in the name of public safety is one thing. The problem arises when governments bend the rules to generate a profit. If they are so cash strapped they need to write tickets to pay the bills, maybe they need to have new management.