Denver Post Endorses Use of Red Light Cameras, by Jeremy Noble

The article that I decided to pick to write my rhetorical analysis of text was on “should Colorado increase the use of red light camera’s.” A lot of people have different opinion on whether there should be red light cameras on the corner of intersection. It has been proven that the red light cameras reduce the amount of fatalities from automobiles. This article is trying to persuade the reader to agree that there should be red light cameras on every corner in Denver. In my opinion the author does a good job at persuading the audience to agree with him that there needs to be a red light camera at every corner. In the article the author uses many different ways to persuade the audience such as pathos. Pathos is the emotional or motivational appeals. After reading the article, the author makes you feel emotional. The way he does is by telling the readers that there are lives that can be saved and we are not doing that. The author uses pathos by describing a story about someone dying at a yellow/red light. If there were cameras at every intersection maybe the driver would have thought twice before going through the light. The story makes the readers feel emotional and sort of sympathetic for the author. This could help the author persuade the reader into agreeing with his argument. Also, the author uses a lot of examples in his article to persuade the readers to agree with him. One example that really makes you think is when the author says “if red-light cameras were installed in all U.S. cities with more than 200,000 residents, the devices would have prevented 815 deaths.” This quotation really makes you think about how this could help society. You could think of it as one of these people that died, could be a family member of yours. If we have the red light camera installed then this may have not of happen.

There is also a sense of ethos in the article. The Denver Post is the main newspaper in Denver. All of the articles and information in the paper is creditable and worth reading. A lot of people respect The Denver Post because of its reputation, which is very valuable. Also, he uses other websites and articles that are creditable to build his argument. The helps build confidence in the reader because they know that the author is in a creditable newspaper and using creditable citation. An example of this is when he quotes The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The author also uses logos to persuade the readers to agree with his argument. There are a lot of facts stated in the article that the author uses such as “The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently produced a study saying the cameras were responsible for saving 159 lives in 14 cities over five years. “Red light cameras are working,” said institute president Adrian Lund. "There are hundreds of people who are alive because some communities had the courage to use this method of enforcement." This is showing statistics that the red light cameras are working and making a difference in the amount of deaths. Through the whole article the author uses logos to get their point across. He uses different statistics from creditable websites to prove his ideas and points.

Personally for me I thought this article did a good job at persuading me to be on the authors side. It made me think about all the lives that could be saved. I also imagined if this was on of my family members that had died in a red light accident. It could have been prevented and they would not be dead. Overall, this is a great article and used the methods of pathos, ethos, and logos to get his point across.