An official audit of the Winnipeg, Canada photo radar and red light camera system shows that the city used misleading statistics in an attempt to cover-up the program’s failure to reduce accidents. Independent evidence cited in the report released to the public Wednesday indicates that the number of insurance claims for accidents, injuries and property damage expenses went up significantly at sites using camera enforcement in the year following the introduction of the devices.

Provincial law requires that Winnipeg Police Service conduct an evaluation of the safety effects of its photo ticket program. That evaluation claimed accidents dropped at the first twelve intersections to use cameras. Rear end collisions increased from 63 in 2003 to 84 in 2004 and 71 in 2005. Right angle collisions, however, dropped from 37 in 2003 to 15 in 2004 and 12 in 2005. On balance, the numbers looked positive.

Police data for the entire city, however, showed no change in the overall number of accidents. This raised a red flag for the auditor regarding the effectiveness of red light cameras in particular.

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Police in Chicago, and elsewhere in the state of Illinois, are dramatically expanding the deployment of stealth cameras to catch alleged speeders. The cameras may be a massive invasion of privacy, however, according to some legal experts who are calling for precautions to be taken with the surveillance data.

Recent moves to install such technology in Illinois come as other states are taking action to block its use. Some citizens are taking matters into their own hands, using so-called “photo-blocker” spray to shield themselves from the constitutionally questionable speed traps.

“Chicago must afford some way for those ticketed to say, ‘Right car; right license plate; wrong person,’” said Harold Krent, a law professor and dean of the Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

“Chicago needs to embrace a system to determine how long its surveillance images will be kept and to limit access to such images,” he added.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley called the vans the “police cars of the future.”

Illinois government agencies tried to implement traffic surveillance technology nearly 20 years ago, but civil liberties concerns undermined the plan. Last summer in Virginia, meanwhile, legislators shut down a similar program.

The national office of the American Civil Liberties Union has opposed red-light cameras in Washington, D.C., saying the cameras intrude on the constitutionally protected right to privacy.

The cameras shift the burden of proof from government to citizens and unfairly penalize car owners who may not necessarily be red-light runners, according to the ACLU.

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