A new police report from Kansas City has found red-light cameras to coincide with more accidents, not fewer. From the Kansas City Star:

[T]he analysis of more than 2,500 wrecks in the two years after the cameras appeared shows that injury wrecks, rear-end wrecks and overall wrecks all increased… In the cameras’ second year of use, accidents were higher at 11 of the 17 intersections being monitored. Overall, wrecks were up 18 percent at those locations.

Injury accidents rose at 13 of the intersections, with the only fatal accident occurring at one of the intersections after the cameras’ arrival… By contrast, wrecks across the city — and statewide — dropped in 2009 and 2010. The city installed the first cameras in January 2009 and added more that spring and summer.

Evidence like this is not new, and it compels elected officials to do away with red-light cameras. The fact that so many are still around is revealing of the ulterior motives at play.

Yes, government officials, by perpetuating the presence of red-light cameras, have shown their chief motive to be revenue generation, not safety. Even if they were to dispute the findings of the Kansas City analysis, additional actions taken by elected officials across the country affirm revenue as the goal. Here is just one example, from one of my earlier columns:

The National Motorists Association notes that there are many ways to increase traffic-light safety without prosecution of drivers. For example, research from the Texas Transportation Institute suggests that increasing the amber light by one second reduces collisions by 40 percent

So have cities taken this painlessly applicable finding and extended the amber-light timing? Au contraire. At least six U.S. cities have been convicted of shortening the yellow light to catch more people on the red. The Texas study found a one-second cut from international standards to increase violations by 110 percent.

For more on this, please read my FFF column on the matter, “Red-Light Camera Feud Reveals Ulterior Motives.”