11/24/2006
North Carolina: City Vehicles Caught Running Red LightsSchool buses, bookmobiles, garbage trucks, police cars and prison vans race through red lights in Wake County, North Carolina.
Municipal and county vehicles were responsible for 300 red light running incidents in Cary and Raleigh, North Carolina over the past three years. An investigation by WTVD-TV uncovered the records using Freedom of Information Act requests.
Twelve Raleigh and fifteen Cary intersections use red light cameras to issue expensive citations to motorists. Cary municipal vehicles, including garbage trucks, and a Department of Correction van ran the light 33 times. In Raleigh, seven police cars ran red lights even though there was no emergency at the time.
The Wake County Bookmobile blasted through intersections as did county school buses on 23 occasions. In each case, the school pays the fine on behalf of the bus driver. Don Haydon, the top transportation official with Wake County Schools downplayed the significance of a red light camera ticket.
"There were quite a few red light violations," Haydon told WTVD-TV. "To put that in perspective, over a three-year period, our buses drove a total of about 45 million miles."