The state legislature's transportation committee voted Friday to approve a bill that would enable any Connecticut municipality with a population over 60,000 to install cameras to take pictures of red-light violators at intersections, and to impose a fine of $124 per violation.
The 25-11 committee vote sends the bill to the floor of the state Senate for debate and action. Approval also would be required in the House before it could be sent to the governor, who then would decide whether to sign it into law.
Legislative approval isn't guaranteed. At least one such bill has cleared the committee in recent years, but none has been approved in the full House and Senate. This latest proposal is likely to revive past debates that pitted safety advocates, who seek to prevent the deaths of both drivers and pedestrians, against civil libertarians worried about Big Brother's electronic erosion of citizens' privacy. Added to all of that are some critics' claims that the primary motivation to install the cameras not to promote safety, but to generate municipal revenue through fines.