Apparently, Chicago traffic light cameras are racist too, Dem lawmaker calls for probe

An Illinois state lawmaker is demanding answers about what he suggests is racial profiling by the city of Chicago’s traffic cameras which he claims are biased against black drivers.

Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat representing the Eighth District, cited data showing that the cameras resulted in over 2.5 times more tickets being issued to motorists caught by cameras at intersections on the Windy City’s heavily black South Side than the ones on the North Side.

According to the Illinois Policy Institute, the red-light cameras on the South Side were responsible for an average of 9,132 tickets, 5,521 more than those on the North Side for fines of $61.4 million, numbers that Ford says resulted in disproportionately more tickets being issued to blacks.

“It’s clearly a money grab and it’s not fair,” he told The Center Square. “The question is are the people on the South Side of Chicago driving to that degree that they deserve to be disproportionately impacted by a system, or is the system flawed? I would urge the city to do some type of investigation.”

“The tickets are one problem, but the impact that these tickets have on families is devastating,” Ford said. “If I get multiple tickets and I’m placed on a boot list, then my car gets towed and I lose my car. Then I have these tickets and I have to file bankruptcy to eliminate the debt. Government should not be in the business of driving people into poverty. We know that this regressive tax hits people in poverty more and drives people deeper into poverty.”

“There should be a deep dive investigation to explain because we know that when you compare the traffic stops by human beings, we learned that there was a reason behind it,” added Ford, who has previously called for a moratorium on the traffic cameras.

“People were racially profiled. We have to ask ourselves how are the residents in the South Side of Chicago receiving three times the number of tickets. I think the public deserves transparency and explanation as to whether there are more chances for this population to be ticketed,” he said, another example of how EVERYTHING must be racist now in the minds of some people.

X users had some thoughts.

“Chicago is home to more red-light cameras than any other large city in the nation. In total, these cameras generated $915 million in revenue from issuing red-light tickets from January 2008 through September 2023,” according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

Chris Donaldson

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