Last Edited: Thursday, 01 May 2008, 6:19 PM CDT Created: Thursday, 01 May 2008, 4:24 PM CDT
The next time you run a red light in Kansas City, Missouri: smile, you may be on camera. The City Council approved a plan to install cameras to catch drivers running red lights.
39th and Broadway is considered a dangerous intersection in Kansas City and it's intersections like that where the cameras will be installed. It plans to install 12 cameras at some of the city's busiest intersections.
"The goal of the red light camera program is to curb people's behavior to stop people from running red lights," council member Cathy Jolly said.
The camera will snap a picture of the rear license plate of cars running red lights. Then the car's owner will get a ticket in the mail for $100. That's something to think about the next time someone borrows your car.
"Somebody is ultimately going to have to pay it," Jolly said. "It's going to be up to you as the owner whether or not you're going to pay or whether or not you're going to make the person driving your car pay it."
For some cities that currently have the camera program, it's meant more than a million dollars in revenue. For drivers and pedestrians, it's stop and go between safety and privacy.
"I walk to lunch and lot of times people are trying to zip through and catch a yellow light and I would love for them to get caught, that would be wonderful," Natalie Keys said.
"I think it's an invasion of privacy," Othello Barrolle said.
"People will know where these intersections are," Jolly said. "This is not a game of gotcha."
No word yet where the cameras will be. The city plans to meet with the Public Works Department and police to determine those locations.
Heather Claybrook, FOX 4 News