Small group protests cameras at company headquarters

A small crowd of around 30 people gathered outside of the Arizona headquarters of Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. to protest the photo radar cameras the company produces.

Thursday's protest,organized by members of camerafraud.com, an anti-photo radar activism group, was aimed at gaining public support to eventually outlaw the use of photo radar.

"The ballot initiative will be filed in a couple of days," said Shawn Dow with camerafraud.com. "We'll start collecting signatures. And that initiative will be a true citizens' initiative -- no money, no backing, no corporations -- and the initiative is to ban all photo radar enforcement in the entire state of Arizona."

The protesters said that, despite numbers released by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the cameras do not make freeways safer.

"Public safety is the fraud they're scamming on people to make them think that it's okay to do this," said one protester.

"If you've ever driven the freeways here in Arizona, you know everywhere there's a photo camera, everyone's slamming on their brakes. That causes accidents."

Redflex employee Jay Heiler isn't phased by the all the attention.

"We love protesters," Heiler said. "Protest is a time honored form of public debate that should always be welcomed in our society.

"But when the public debate really gets down reasoned argument, the argument for enforcement is quite strong. It saves live and it makes our roads and highways safer."

DPS plans to have 100 photo enforcement cameras operating in the greater Phoenix area by February 2009.

(Copyright 2008 Bonneville International Corporation. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. AP contributed to this report.)