To the editor:

Cameras have been used to catch traffic violators in other areas I’ve lived, and I don’t think it’s a bad idea. However, I was intrigued by a comment in Tuesday’s paper from David Corliss, assistant city manager, who said that the cameras “could free police officers from traffic duties to work on higher-priority crimes” (the quote is a paraphrase by the reporter of Corliss’ comments). Something I witnessed Monday makes me wonder just how much attention our police officers are paying to traffic violators.

Around noon Monday I was driving north on Massachusetts Street approaching 17th Street. I saw a cruiser parked, nose forward, in the parking lot of a church near that intersection. Ahead of me a large pickup truck, going faster than the posted speed limit of 30 mph, blatantly ran the red light — not just the yellow light — at 17th and Mass. I slowed down, expecting the police cruiser to take off in pursuit of this obvious violator. The cruiser did not budge, and the pickup proceeded down Mass toward downtown, going at least 40 mph if not faster, by my reckoning.

A camera would surely have caught that offender, but I wondered why the police officer at the scene did nothing to stop someone who was obviously driving in a reckless manner. Even if the officer were on a break, he or she had a prime opportunity to ticket someone breaking two laws at once and to bring in revenue for the city. Maybe we need to look at why we aren’t enforcing the traffic laws we have before we start passing new ones.

Andrea Zuercher,

Lawrence