Install red-light cameras for safety

Government initiatives that save lives, generate revenue and don't infringe on anyone's rights should be seized upon. Such slam dunks are all too rare.

But a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit funded by auto insurers, identified one. The analysis showed that cities with red-light cameras saw related traffic fatalities fall 24 percent more than similarly sized cities that didn't install the instruments.

The study compared numbers of red-light related fatalities in U.S. cities with populations of more than 200,000 between 1992 and 1996, when none of them had cameras, with the same statistic between 2004 and 2008, when some did.

The study concluded that if the cities which had the cameras had not installed them, another 159 people would have died.

Red-light cameras are a good investment, creating more in revenue than they cost. They are not a nanny-state theft of personal rights, any more than posting police officers at intersections to catch red-light runners is.

Nassau and Suffolk both started with cameras at 50 intersections each, and are asking Albany for permission to expand their programs. State lawmakers, who delayed the introduction of cameras for years, shouldn't stand in the way of the expansion.