Abusing Traffic Signals

From Wired News, we get Traffic Hackers Hit Red Light

"The Safe Intersections Act, part of the transit bill signed Wednesday by President Bush, makes it a misdemeanor for unauthorized users to wield a "traffic signal pre-emption transmitter," a special remote control used by police, firefighters and ambulance drivers to change traffic lights to green as they approach an intersection."

Does this seem like overkill to anyone else?

If the cities are going to design a system that gives pre-emption to a device that costs less than $20 for someone to build, then they are the ones who should be getting fined! The easy solution? Design a simple security step into the process so that a generic signal pre-emption transmitters will not work. By the way, I happen to know that many cities have designed security systems into their pre-emption that stops this type of abuse, so my solution is not very far fetched.