# New types of traffic cameras allowed by the state legislature have the potential to lead to big safety gains in Seattle -- but a potential clash over how those cameras are deployed could be on the horizon. SDOT and transportation chair Rob Saka are not seeing eye to eye.
Keep in mind too that they’re not always accurate. I know of one in my city that regularly takes photos of people going through on the green because it’s a bit of a wonky intersection. And that means a person gets to spend their day in court instead of at work fighting a ticket they did not deserve.
Yeah, that at least can be systematically identified and corrected; the bias and also inaccuracy of judgement of current human officers seems far worse and when combined with the fact non-vehicular safety is seen as a low priority or completely ignored, getting to “good” for safety of non-vehicular traffic is life and death. A few tickets that get waived, or in my city, Portland Oregon, a citizen sued to prove the cameras inaccurate where they were and won vs. engineers, is a small price to pay vs. the current state of zero enforcement and bodies littering crosswalks and cyclists mown down in “bike lanes”.