Red light camera, a good tool? or profit machine?

OK, Now you had a chance to mull this over...
But ponder this, before this was even talked about for tools(red light cameras) There was a news story here in Nashville about 10 years ago, about the city installing cameras at the enter section of Old Hickrory Blvd. and Gallatin Road for snapping pics of plates(they are on the back) if you ran the red light.. this got alot of press here, but were installed.
After they finished you could clearly see the cameras were not positioned to photo the car running the light ,but they shot pics of straight shots of facing cars through the windshield in the oncoming lanes and turning lanes..They were there for 1 or 2 years and then gone, shortly after a story shown here of a test program from the FED using facial recognition to "search for criminals" at intersections to see if they could use them to ID projected areas to target for searching or what not..
The cameras or gone,but not the mounts?
AND AS ALWAYS! "Respect the law"