Cameras win public nod

Despite privacy and due-process concerns, a number of polls show Americans overwhelmingly support the use of red-light cameras.

n A 1998 Lou Harris Poll showed 65 percent of the public favored using cameras to enforce red-light-running laws. By 1999, that support increased to 74 percent.

n In April 2001, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety polled people in cities with red-light cameras already in use and found 80 percent favored them.

n An Insurance Research Council poll in large cities in 1996 showed 83 percent approval. The cameras are considered by most people as a cheap and effective way to reduce red-light running, accidents, injuries and deaths.

Source: Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety