It's amazing what a single second can do... If you were listening to the Lars Larson Show here Friday night you heard from our own State Representative Barry Loudermilk. Now Barry has worked diligently to do away with red light cameras in Georgia. His viewpoint is that they're unconstitutional because the ticket is charged to the owner of the vehicle whether or not the owner was actually driving... plus anyone charged with an offense is supposed to be able to face their accuser in a court of law, something that doesn't happen with these red light cameras.

Loudermilk and others have also argued that the primary motivation behind the cameras is the money they generate for the cities and counties that install them... while the cities and counties would always fire back that safety was the reason for them. Yet every time Barry would introduce legislation to reduce the fines or have the dollars redirected to the state... mayors, councilmen, and commissioners would flood the Gold dome in protest.

There's also big money in the pot for the companies that manufacture and operate the cameras for the cities. So needless to say they have lobbyists working against any restrictions on red light cameras.

Fortunately for us, Loudermilk was successful in getting legislation passed last year that would require that at any intersection where a red light camera is placed, the yellow light would have to stay on for the federally recommended minimum time plus one second... That's all it took!

You see, once a city installs a red light camera, the state DOT relinquishes control of the lights at that intersection to the city... and many of these local governments were reducing the amount of time that the caution lights remained yellow. Less time means more tickets.

By forcing them to leave the lights on yellow for the federally recommended minimum plus one second guess what happened? Accidents at the intersections actually decreased, plus the number of tickets dropped by as much as 80%!

And guess what many of the cities with red light cameras are doing? Pulling the plug... which proves that putting those dollars in the cities' bank accounts was the primary motivation for installing the cameras in the first place. Just in Gwinnett County alone Duluth, Lilburn, Norcross, Snellville, and Suwanee have either turned off the cameras or plan to as soon as their contracts are up because that extra second is costing them big bucks.

So a big tip of the hat to State Representative Barry Loudermilk for having the determination to not give up... and for also for having the brains to outwit the red light camera folks and prove they were primarily in it for the money.

That's my opinion, we welcome yours. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next Monday... for a complete transcript of this morning's comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 - WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, March 16, 2009)