Red Light Non-Story

After a competent article detailing J-Fled's Magical Disappearing Act, Fran goes back to City Hall drivel:

• Chicago's Big Brother network of red-light cameras has turned into a money machine for the city, generating $58 million in annual revenue in 2009.

  The same cannot be said for city employees caught by the cameras in the act of running red lights. Nearly 70 percent of their tickets get dismissed.

Oh no! 70% dismissed? There must be a scandal here somewhere, right?

• Since January 2007, 2,685 red-light-camera tickets have been issued to vehicles registered to city departments. At $100 a pop, that should have generated $268,500. Instead, only $77,167 has been collected.

Uh oh, numbers. Numbers confuse people. Numbers mean statistics. And statistics means lies. Especially where the City is concerned.

• A whopping 1,830 of those tickets were dismissed for reasons that include the municipal code exemption for emergency vehicles. Not all of those vehicles were responding to emergencies with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Some police vehicles were working undercover. Some were vehicles assigned to city departments not typically considered emergency departments.

Mmmhmm. 70% and more were "emergency vehicles." That's a non-story right there.

• Of those tickets, 689 have been paid by city employees who apparently had no valid defense. Another 77 tickets remain unpaid. Some are eligible for administrative hearings and could be overturned by city hearing officers.

So in those cases where guilt can be proven, employee operators have paid, and in 77 cases, hearings are pending.

So why is this a story at all? Someone had some space to fill? Maybe a contract is about to be settled via an arbitrator? It's pretty much a pointless story.