roadside cameras

Robin's Editorial


if you have not noticed yet, there are more and more cameras that are showing up all over the place. In the Eugene/Springfield area for example, you'll find cameras on bridges, billboards, on top of buildings looking down at us.

A couple weeks ago, I visited Portland and I was flabbergasted with how many cameras that I saw along the highway.

I started to ask myself why are there so many cameras, and what are they used for?

I have discovered that odot has quite a collection of cameras and a percentage of them are available on the Web.

It is becoming commonplace now to see cameras at traffic lights. We have been told that this allows the traffic control box to "see" the cars and is cheaper than the wire loop in the road.

Radio and television stations have cameras for their road reports that they broadcast.

All of these are fine and well, I have no objections to any of this however, but what I would like to know is who is looking through these cameras.

For example, in the city of Eugene on the ferry Street Bridge, there are at least four cameras that are remote controlled. Why?

I do not think that it would be unreasonable to require some method of identifying what the cameras for, either by color coding or some sort of indication on the camera of its owner and if the camera is mounted on a publicly owned structure, then that camera should also be available for viewing by the general public.

I wonder, if as a private citizen that I would be allowed to post a camera somewhere along the roadway on my own personal use?