"The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don't work," said lead author Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health. "Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections."

Comprehensive studies from North Carolina, Virginia, and Ontario have all reported cameras are associated with increases in crashes. The study by the Virginia Transportation Research Council also found that cameras were linked to increased crash costs. The only studies that conclude cameras reduced crashes or injuries contained "major research design flaws," such as incomplete data or inadequate analyses, and were always conducted by researchers with links to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS, funded by automobile insurance companies, is the leading advocate for red-light cameras since insurance companies can profit from red-light cameras by way of higher premiums due to increased crashes and citations.

And, of course, the agenda of the government is to increase revenue due to fines:

A 2001 paper by the Office of the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives reported that red-light cameras are "a hidden tax levied on motorists." The report came to the same conclusions that all of the other valid studies have, that red-light cameras are associated with increased crashes and that the timings at yellow lights are often set too short to increase tickets for red-light running. That's right, the state actually tampers with the yellow light settings to make them shorter, and more likely to turn red as you're driving through them.

In fact, six U.S. cities have been found guilty of shortening the yellow light cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners. Those local governments have completely ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration, and collect the profits instead.

The cities in question include Union City, CA, Dallas and Lubbock, TX, Nashville and Chattanooga, TN, and Springfield, MO, according to Motorists.org, which collected information from reports from around the country.

Don't worry, they won't be.

The key to understanding this is that this sort of contractual liability is part of a contract, and with free software -- or free anything -- there's no contract. Free software wouldn't fall under a liability regime because the writer and the user have no business relationship; they are not seller and buyer. I would hope the courts would realize this without any prompting, but we could always pass a Good Samaritan-like law that would protect people who distribute free software. (The opposite would be an Attractive Nuisance-like law -- that would be bad.)

There would be an industry of companies who provide liabilities for free software. If Red Hat, for example, sold free Linux, they would have to provide some liability protection. Yes, this would mean that they would charge more for Linux; that extra would go to the insurance premiums. That same sort of insurance protection would be available to companies who use other free software packages.

The insurance industry is key to making this work. Luckily, they're good at protecting people against liabilities. There's no reason to think they won't be able to do it here.

I've written more about liabilities and the insurance industry here.

Forgive me for going totally off topic (hey its my blog I write what I want) but it is Sunday and not much news on security.  I wanted to write about an article I saw in the NY Times today called "Even the Insured Feel the Strain of Health Costs". The article details that with the hard economic times even people who have health insurance are being bitten by the ever rising costs of health care.  Rising premiums, covering less procedures and care and charging more for prescriptions and medical care combine to put the bite on everyone.  From my own experience here are 4 examples of how even with health insurance, medical care costs are taking a bite:

1. My wife had minor surgery in September.  It was ambulatory surgery where she went in the morning and went home that afternoon/evening.  Even though we have full PPO coverage and it was participating doctors, hospital, etc. my out-of-pocket costs after insurance were almost $3000! The surgeon received a whopping $472 from the insurance company for the operation and the hospital billed like 17k!  When I called the hospital they said they did not expect to get paid that much, but had to bill it so they could get as much as they could.  I than had to negotiate what I would pay out of pocket beyond that. I also had to pay the anesthesia, the prescriptions, etc.

2. Here at StillSecure we had to switch providers again this year because United Health Care wanted another 15 to 20% raise in premiums. In fact that is about normal for health insurance, way above the cost of living and inflation.  We pay a good chunk of our employees insurance premiums, but even so the 20% or so that we have the employee pick up gets bigger and bigger.  Plus the insurance company covers less and less.  This squeeze is frankly baffling. How can you pay more and get less.

3. I had a dental implant a few months back.  Though we pay for dental coverage, our insurance would cover a bridge or cap, but they don't consider implants necessary and would not cover any of it. I had to lay 2k out of pocket. On top of this the panoramic x-ray the oral surgeon took (which again was not covered, another 100 bucks) showed I had an impacted wisdom tooth with a cyst around it.  My dental insurance covered the wisdom tooth, but the cyst removal would be considered under my regular insurance and my dentist was not participating. In fact I could not find a participating oral surgeon in the area.  So I had to an extra $600 dollars out of pocket and of course my out-of-network deductible was $750, so I ate it again.

4. The orthodontist.  This one is perhaps the worst of all and really gets my goat.  My oldest son went for an orthodontic exam. The doctor told my wife that he would probably need braces when he gets older and that current best practices in orthodontics is to put braces on now in a phase 1 and than if necessary they put other braces on later when more of his adult teeth come in. Putting braces on now would lesson the severity of what he would need later.  OK, great lets do it, right?  Wrong!  Our insurance covers a one time payment of $1200. The dentist said if we use it now, the cost for phase 1 would be $3600.  That leaves a balance of $2400 that I have to pay.  However, if I do it without insurance he would charge me $2400 and than I could use the $1200 towards the phase 2 braces my son may need which could be up to 10k. So if we went through insurance the cost was $3600 with $2400 out of pocket or no insurance $2400 out of pocket.  What is wrong with that picture. Whether I have insurance or not, it still costs me $2400!  This is fundamentally what is wrong with our health care system.  The dentist is willing to accept $2400.  He should take the $1200 from my insurance and I should pay him another $1200.  Anything else is ludicrous and in my mind borders on criminal insurance fraud.

We need to restore sanity to the whole system. It is not just the 48 million people in this country that don't have insurance, it is also the costs of the people who do have insurance. Don't tell me that giving us greater limits to put in tax deferred health savings plan are the answer either.  Fundamentally we need the insurance companies to stop sucking the blood of the premium payers. We need the health industry to bill for what the do and what it is worth, not how to maximize what the insurance company pays and most of all we need to make sure that people can afford and receive decent health care!

BTW, if you want to read an excellent blog on this subject, Dr. Stanley Feld, Brad's dad writes a great blog on it.

In reality, we are a much more secure nation if we do issue driver's licenses and/or state IDs to every resident who applies, regardless of immigration status. Issuing them doesn't make us any less secure, and refusing puts us at risk.

The state driver's license databases are the only comprehensive databases of U.S. residents. They're more complete, and contain more information - including photographs and, in some cases, fingerprints - than the IRS database, the Social Security database, or state birth certificate databases. As such, they are an invaluable police tool - for investigating crimes, tracking down suspects, and proving guilt.

Removing the 8 million-15 million illegal immigrants from these databases would only make law enforcement harder. Of course, the unlicensed won't pack up and leave. They will drive without licenses, increasing insurance premiums for everyone. They will use fake IDs, buy real IDs from crooked DMV employees - as several of the 9/11 terrorists did - forge "breeder documents" to get real IDs (another 9/11 terrorist trick), or resort to identity theft. These millions of people will continue to live and work in this country, invisible to any government database and therefore the police.

Assuming that denying licenses to illegals will make them leave is head-in-the-sand thinking.

Of course, even an attempt to deny licenses to illegal immigrants puts DMV clerks in the impossible position of verifying immigration status. This is expensive and time-consuming; furthermore, it won't work. The law is complicated, and it can take hours to verify someone's status only to get it wrong. Paperwork can be easy to forge, far easier than driver's licenses, meaning many illegal immigrants will get these licenses that now "prove" immigrant status.

Even more legal immigrants will be mistakenly denied licenses, resulting in lawsuits and additional government expense.

Some states have considered a tiered license system, one that explicitly lists immigration status on the licenses. Of course, this won't work either. Illegal immigrants are far more likely to take their chances being caught than admit their immigration status to the DMV.

We are all safer if everyone in society trusts and respects law enforcement. A society where illegal immigrants are afraid to talk to police because of fear of deportation is a society where fewer people come forward to report crimes, aid police investigations, and testify as witnesses.

And finally, denying driver's licenses to illegal immigrants will not protect us from terrorism. Contrary to popular belief, a driver's license is not required to board a plane. You can use any government-issued photo ID, including a foreign passport. And if you're willing to undergo secondary screening, you can board a plane without an ID at all. This is probably how anybody on the "no fly" list gets around these days.

A 2003 American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators report concludes: "Digital images from driver's licenses have significantly aided law enforcement agencies charged with homeland security. The 19 (9/11) terrorists obtained driver licenses from several states, and federal authorities relied heavily on these images for the identification of the individuals responsible."

Whether it's the DHS trying to protect the nation from terrorism, or local, state and national law enforcement trying to protect the nation from crime, we are all safer if we encourage every adult in America to get a driver's license.

This op ed originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press.