The Amarillo City Council has voted 5-0 to spend more than $200,000 with money earmarked for traffic safety improvements.

The Amarillo Globe-News story doesn’t mention it specifically, but this is the kind of expense that state law requires of cities that deploy red-light cameras at troublesome intersections.

As the Globe-News reports: Officials said the purchase, which extends to four separate vendors, will fund new equipment and replace outdated equipment and other signal materials.

Read the story here.

This is why I continue to support the principle of cities using this technology to help deter lawbreakers from running through red lights. Amarillo has used these devices for several yeas, raising considerable amounts of money from fines collected by violators.

The bitching has been tiresome … and wrongheaded. Red-light camera foes keep insisting that the city is using this technology as a money-maker to fund this or that project. Wrong! State law says cities must dedicate that revenue to traffic safety improvements. Nothing else! It’s dedicated revenue.

To its credit, the City Council hasn’t backed down in the face of a vocal minority of residents who continue to yammer about the cameras. They cite such idiocy as the cameras intruding on motorists’ privacy. Interesting, yes?

Consider that motorists who drive their vehicles on public streets therefore surrender their “privacy” when they break the law and put other motorists and pedestrians in jeopardy.

The city is spending some money on needed improvements to its traffic signalization and other elements of its traffic management plan. If it comes from the revenue collected by red-light camera enforcement, so much for the better.