(Dallasnews.com -Dallas' red light cameras may face changes as revenue estimate drops)
Dallas TX rolled out a pretty large deployment of red light cameras, and guess what -
people stopped running the red lights! For and for all intents and purposes they proved the method to be a success.
The only problem is, funding your plan with the expectations of it's failure. .
Funds needed to maintain the cameras ($3,799/month/camera*) were expected to be provided by the citations issued as a result of the camera use.
Ever get that feeling as you're sitting in one of those three hour planning meetings, where you ask yourself "what the hell is going on here?"
Sure, more often than not we tactfully raise our voices and try to bring sanity to the table. But what happens when we're not there?
I know - I know, that's a pretty arrogant thing to say - it's even an arrogant thing to think. But who has the most experience trying to change the behavior of people? I'm not talking about long term social climate change, I'm talking about changing the everyday behavior of people to willingly or unwillingly do something they may not want to do - and change it quickly. Security professionals do that everyday. We stop people from using doors they want to use, parking in places they want to park, walking through office suites, hanging out in specific areas - the list goes on and on.
In today's world, where the IT guys are licking their teeth at security convergence and the digitizing of the industry, one key element is being lost every time decisions are made without the security guy in the room. This is just one of the many reasons I highly suggest security managers partner with the technology managers but never loose sight of what you bring to the table. And don't let the other guys loose sight either.
This is coming from a guy that likes IT. I even think IT departments do a much better job running some security aspects than security departments do. But this is a perfect example of what they can't provide and how important that missing piece is.
It looks like the people who know the most about changing people's actions were left out of this discussion.
* that's right - they're paying a contract of $2,826,456/ year! That's what happens when the IT guys backdoor the security guys. Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) doesn't look like a security integrator at all. I may be missing something though .
