It looks like the City of Houston, in its quest to rescue the citizenry from the scourge of red-light running at ten intersections, while leaving you vulnerable to shootings, gangs, and other violent crime, has discovered a new threat to your safety: “The Rolling Right Turn on Red.”

[Cue threatening music]

Hundreds of drivers who ran red lights while making turns at intersections newly monitored by cameras have not been issued tickets because of a loophole in the photo-enforcement ordinance.

“The way the current city ordinance is written, turns are excluded, even if they are illegal turns,” said Houston police Sgt. Michael Muench.

The language used here is rather muddled. It is not illegal to turn right on red, but the concern seems to be with those who are coming up to the intersection and making such turns without first coming to a full stop. Apparently the loss of revenue, er, “safety” is alarming enough that the Mayor and Council are considering changes to the camera ordinance.

So how has the system been doing during its first two weeks of operation?

A total of 1,729 incidents were caught, police reported. After ATS reviewed the images and removed the unclear ones, the company sent 1,040 violations to Houston police.

Traffic officers reviewed more than 1,000 violations caught on camera during the first two weeks of the program, the police department reported. A third were thrown out, many because the driver was making a right or left turn while running the light, Muench said.

This is an intriguing level of accuracy. About 40% of the incidents recorded were thrown out by ATS, and a further third were discarded after police review. “Many” of these police-reviewed incidents were thrown out due to turns, but there is no data provided to define “many.” Thus only about 40% of recorded incidents have been considered legitimate for citation.

It is also interesting to note that it was reported that roughly 530 valid incidents were recorded after the first week of operation, and the total now appears to be just a few shy of 700. That indicates a week two addition of only about 165-170 new citations. With a drop from 530 citations in one week to 165 the next it is little wonder that the Mayor is concerned.

One of the more striking features about photo enforcement is the absurd proportionality on display. Despite rising violent crime and terrible infrastructure in our city, our leadership is instead focusing on the sudden safety epidemic of red-light running and right-turns on red at only ten intersections (eventually fifty) out of thousands.

Rather than budgeting responsibly so as to properly staff the police department and have an actual police presence on the streets to deter all forms of crime, Mayor White is instead gravely interested in effectively enforcing one particular traffic law which, it just so happens, could generate up to $27 million a year in revenue. But of course, this is all about “safety,” which is why spokesmen go to great lengths to sound generous towards drivers.

Though many of the dismissed violations were thrown out because of the turn technicality, some were dismissed for other reasons, Muench said.

“We try to err in favor of the driver, so if it’s a question whatsoever, we just don’t issue it,” he said.

Happy motoring, taxpayers!