Red Light Cameras

I am a fan of using red light cameras at intersections, but they have been declared unconstitutional in the circuit court that Minnesota is part of (or maybe it's something in our state constitution?) because it's not possible to know who was driving the car at the time.

I don't know why I never thought of this before, but tonight Robin Garwood (aide to Minneapolis City Councilmember Cam Gordon) said this on Twitter:

[We should] treat red light running like we do parking violations. Government doesn't have to prove who parked a car illegally, because the ticket goes to the owner, not the driver. That's the statute that could change.

It's madness, in my view, that we're more comfortable as a society holding car owners accountable for where their car is illegally parked than how it is unsafely driven. Not many people get killed or injured by badly parked cars. Badly driven ones do most of the damage.

That logic seems inescapable to me. It's time to change this ridiculous limitation on the fairest, surest form of enforcement.