Eyman's I-985 attacked for reducing incentive for cities to introduce red light cameras

Eyman's I-985 invites road tragedies

By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST

DURING THE past decade, our state's less savvy citizens have seen voting for Tim Eyman's tax initiatives as a pain-free way of giving local government a poke in the eye.

The officials so often abused by the initiative kingpin -- Eyman talks endlessly of an unnamed "they" and "them" -- bend over backward to ease the impact and maintain pared-down essential services.

Initiative 985 carries more pain -- physical pain.

Vote in favor of the initiative and your kid may get smashed in the legs by fenders of a car running a red light, or your grandmother killed as she uses a crosswalk after getting off a bus.

Why? Initiative 985 erects a financial barrier that will prevent cities from installing or maintaining cameras at busy and dangerous intersections.

"Traffic cameras are an attempt to begin to level the playing field between powerful cars and human bodies out there. Eyman could give a rat's rear about that," said Andrea Okomski, whose son, Joe, suffered permanent injuries when hit by a car on North 85th Street.

Lori Koidal has become an activist for pedestrian rights since her mother was killed last year by a driver who ran a red light at a busy Kenmore intersection. The driver was not found criminally liable.

"It makes me mad to see something gain traction, and then not happen," Koidal added. "Something CAN work, and this takes it away.

"We're talking about holding people accountable for their actions. If you know there is a camera, you're going to be less likely to run a red light. You will be more likely to slow down."

Eyman, not surprisingly, takes a different view. Displaying the insight that marks him as a leader of bitter men, he used a Friday e-mail to blast traffic cameras as "a lucrative cash cow profit center."

The initiative would take away from cities all of the fines and penalties raised by traffic cameras. The money would instead be sent to a state decongestion fund. It would be used to time traffic lights rather than installing cameras to monitor traffic at sensitive intersections and around schools.

"I hate those cameras, but I believe in them. They make me be careful," King County Executive Ron Sims said in a Seattle CityClub debate with Eyman.

Sims draws on personal experience. He was hit by a car after school as a third-grader in Spokane.

We've seen a common pattern on previous Eyman initiatives. The Elway Poll, about two weeks out, shows a sharp decline in voter support. But time runs out on opponents.

Eyman squeaks through with about 51.12 percent of the vote. He loses in King County but carries rural areas by heavy margins. A guy who could strut sitting down, he then descends on Olympia and claims to be a tribune of the regular guy.

The traffic camera issue is making him squirm.

He tried the Big Brother gambit before CityClub, claiming there is "a little bit of ACLU in all of us." He has tried to demonize camera makers for contributing to the campaign against I-985.

How much is the anti-985 war chest? It totaled $186,000 as of Friday, compared with the $6.2 million raised by supporters and opponents of Initiative 1000, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide.

Above all, argues Eyman, "I-985 removes the profit motive for photo red light cameras and photo speeding cameras."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the consequences. The cameras become unaffordable to install or maintain.

Eyman has recently heard that message from both the Renton and Burien city councils. He was told in Renton that cameras have cut speeding around schools and freed up police officers to pursue criminals.

Will cities continue to install cameras if money from fines gets sent to Olympia? "We would not be able to afford them," Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said on a recent podcast.

The national growth of intersection accidents underscores a need to do exactly what Eyman's initiative would render fiscally impossible.

Drivers running red lights cause more than 100,000 crashes a year, killing nearly 1,000 people and injuring 90,000 others. According to the Federal Highway Administration, this has become a leading cause of fatal collisions in metropolitan areas.

"This should be viewed as an outrageous epidemic," Richard Retting, chief traffic engineer with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told the Ladies Home Journal. "We're not talking about a rare illness that requires decades of billion-dollar research to prevent or cure. This is a situation where people are dying from something that's 100 percent preventable."

Okomski makes another telling point. We simply don't have enough police to make people be civil on the road, or to cover intersections prone to side-impact "T-bone" crashes.

Yet, I-985 is aimed at preventing the prevention. Eyman doesn't stand for tax relief. He is promoting road kill.