Robert Scafe didn’t say “cheese,” but the camera caught him all the same.

While living in Germany during a tour of duty with the U.S. Army, Scafe on several occasions got traffic tickets — for violations seen and recorded only by cameras linked to traffic signals.

He became a more cautious driver.

“You learn a lesson and you know not to do it,” Scafe said Monday after shopping near the busy intersection of Ninth and Iowa streets. “You get to the intersection and you think, ‘I better be careful.’ You want to slow down.”

Such stories are one reason the city of Lawrence is helping the League of Kansas Municipalities promote a bill in the Legislature that would give cities permission to use cameras to catch law-breaking drivers. The bill is expected to be introduced this week.

“Anything that slows traffic and makes our intersections safer, we’re all for,” Lawrence Police Lt. David Cobb said.

But Scafe knows the other side of the stoplight camera issue. He tells a story of a man whose wife opened the mail when the traffic ticket arrived. There were two violations recorded in the photo, one legal and the other marital: Failure to stop at a red light, and being with another woman.

“There are privacy issues,” Assistant City Manager David Corliss conceded.

Lawrence is helping the League of Kansas Municipalities promote a bill in the Legislature that would give cities permission to use traffic-light cameras to catch drivers violating traffic laws. Shown in the photograph, looking east, are three traffic lights on 11th Street at its intersections with Tennessee, Kentucky and Vermont streets.

The systems link cameras to traffic lights at busy intersections, and snap pictures of vehicles that run red lights. The vehicle’s owner is identified from the license plate in the photo and a ticket sent to the owner’s home.

Automatic camera systems are in use in cities in 15 states across the United States, including Colorado, but their legality is being challenged in a series of court cases. That’s why cities want the state to provide specific rules on how systems could be used in Kansas.

Kim Gulley, a spokeswoman for the League of Kansas Municipalities, said studies had shown the system to be effective.

“Red-light running is a serious cause of accidents,” she said. “Red-light cameras have been effectively used to cut down traffic accidents.”

Opponents don’t like government cameras watching them, even in traffic. That’s why one legislator said he was skeptical of the bill’s prospects.

“I doubt if there would be anybody who favors this from western Kansas,” said Rep. John Faber, R-Brewster, vice chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “Maybe there will be from Johnson County.”

Corliss didn’t have the number of Lawrence traffic accidents involving drivers who didn’t stop at red lights. But he said there were 769 citations in 2002 for violating traffic control signals.

“My bet is a number of them would’ve been involved in accidents,” he said.

Corliss suggested the cameras could free police officers from traffic duties to work on higher-priority crimes. And he said the ticketing system — which would probably generate far more than 769 tickets a year — might produce some much-needed cash for the city as well.

Lawrence city commissioners haven’t decided if they would adopt such a system for the city. Budget questions could tip the balance.

“I’ll be interested to see if it even proves legal,” Mayor Sue Hack said. “We’ll look at other communities that do this and see if it’s been an income producer or an income user.”