Fines must be linked to public safety

Remember all the anger that's been prompted by the red-light camera phenomenon in the past year and a half?

We've exercised a lot of that anger ourselves, charging that counties and municipalities that install them too often do so as a way to raise revenue, not as a way to promote public safety.

Well, this just in:

Red-light cameras may not be the only masked bandits holding their hands out while parading as law-enforcement tools.

Amid the myriad news stories that are reported throughout each day, two in particular caught our attention last week.

One was the news that, beginning this Wednesday, fines for speeding tickets in Illinois will be going up significantly. As will fines for seat-belt violations, unlicensed driving and other traffic infractions.

The increases are not spare change. The penalty for speeding will go to $120, up from $75. If you speed more than 30 mph over the limit, the fine will climb to $160, from $95. If you drive without a license, you'll pay $1,500 rather than $1,000.

The other story was a report that highway deaths have fallen to the lowest level in more than half a century. Nationally, traffic deaths totaled 33,808 last year. There hasn't been a lower total since 1950, when 33,196 fatalities were reported.

And that's on a one-to-one comparison. It doesn't even take into account that populations and the number of motorists are much higher today than at the middle of the last century. Certainly, traffic deaths are on the decline in Illinois, where they dropped 13 percent in 2009.

Does anyone else see an incongruity here?

We do not condone speeding or other traffic violations that endanger the public, and we aren't reflexively opposed to increases in fines. It's difficult to offer up much sympathy for anyone who drives recklessly enough to put lives at risk.

But if the fines are to be increased, the reason ought to be public safety.

If traffic deaths were increasing, it would be logical to raise the fines as a way to discourage traffic violations that lead to those deaths.

But if our streets and highways are safer today than they've been in six decades, we don't see the rationale.

Well, let us take that back. Because we do see the rationale:

This isn't about safety. And it isn't about justice.

This is about raising money.

The government sees traffic fines essentially as just another tax, and since government has spent itself into near-bankruptcy, it wants to use traffic fines to help pay the bills. It's using our law enforcement system as a profit center.

That is a dangerous road to drive down.