The other day as I was driving around the neighborhood I spotted the following sign at the entry of a neighboring town:
Red Light Photo Enforced Community – Hmmm.. that seems odd and contrived I thought. But I knew what it conveyed. In that community, at certain traffic light intersections. cameras and sensors monitored whether cars came to a full stop on a red light – exactly where they are supposed to (e.g. going over the white line is a violation). If you did not follow the law to the tee, you get a surprise in your mail a few days later. A ticket with a hefty fine, along with a photograph of your car “caught red handed”! You can even go to a website where they will have a video of you caught in the act. Obviously, I am speaking from experience 
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This was done in my town last year and everybody raised a big hue and cry because it was seen as a big money making racket for the town. For example, they installed it not in intersections which were already considered dangerous (from past accident history), but ones where they expected more crowd etc. – and ones where more affluent folks from other towns were expected to visit – i.e. better revenue stream. It was also argued that these caught more of the very minor violations (e.g. you did stop but went over the line) rather than the real dangerous, major ones as in someone clearly ignored the red light and shot through the intersection. There is also the “big brother is watching” feeling this gave to common folk. Eventually the PR was bad enough that they stopped it. But this is good business for the towns, and they can always say “hey, laws are meant to be followed”. In US, if it is good business, it is usually unstoppable.
Anyway, enough of about that, as that is the not the true intent of this post. It is instead about something far more trivial! I felt that the ordering the words red light photo enforced community read odd and seemed contrived. If one wanted to convey that in your community, stopping at red light was enforced via photo, is this how one would word it? My English isn’t super strong, and so maybe, this is fine, but it still seems odd. As I was thinking of alternate ways, I broke out into a broad smile and guffawed, because I am sure they must have thought of the another ordering and immediately rejected it as it immediately would have been appeared at FAIL blog as follows:
Road Sign FAIL
“Photo enforced Red Light Community” – Now that reads quite funny if you think about it !
PS: If you have not checked out FAIL Blog (http://failblog.org) you must. It is hilarious and will keep you occupied for a while!
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