Cameras can contribute to accidents

I am a daily, faithful reader of your newspaper and would like to comment on your recent series about red-light cameras. I would like to acquaint you with a situation that just happened to us.

On July 14, at approximately 9 a.m., my dad was driving me to an eye doctor appointment. We were driving east on Lake Street (obeying the speed limit), and were approaching the intersection of Lake Street and Route 53 (a very busy intersection where you obviously know that one of those cameras has been installed), when we had slowed down very much in preparation to stop for the red light. The person behind us, however, apparently thought he could make the light, and plowed into us. My dad and I both felt the impact badly enough in the front seat, but if I had been sitting in the back seat (like I usually do when my Mom is in the car), I'd hate to think that I would be wearing a back brace for the rest of my life. That's how bad the impact of the crash was. In addition, this crash caused $4,400 damage to our car.

Now we are extremely law-abiding citizens, but being that it was extremely obvious to both of us that the car behind us was not going to stop, thus there was now way to avoid this accident, I have no doubt in my mind that my dad would have gone through the red light to avoid this crash. The thing that really bothers me is that this type of incident can occur over and over and over again. If the cameras are not taken down, is our only alternative to avoid intersections in which the red light cameras have been installed so that we wouldn't be intimidated to go through a red light in order to avoid a crash and possibly getting very badly injured?

Mary Pacovsky

Bartlett