# New types of traffic cameras allowed by the state legislature have the potential to lead to big safety gains in Seattle -- but a potential clash over how those cameras are deployed could be on the horizon. SDOT and transportation chair Rob Saka are not seeing eye to eye.
They’re not using these to catch criminals - that’d be like expecting anti-gun laws to give murderers pause. No, they use them to make people like you and me pay hundreds of dollars when the light goes from yellow to red while we’re in the intersection or close enough to it that we couldn’t safely stop without stopping literally in the middle of it all. That’s what this is about - making people like us pay. Not actual criminals who commit a crime that they would be arrested for.