http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/05/MNGJ1N2VRO.DTL&ao=all
Red-light cameras boost coffers, rile drivers
Kevin Fagan
Sunday, February 5, 2012

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle
Phuong Nguyen sees the camera at 27th and Northgate in Oakland flicker all day from her family's flower store.
California has the most expensive red-light camera tickets in the world - the fine is so steep that one camera in Oakland generates more than $3 million a year - and a Fremont man is launching a protest group to do something about that.
If Roger Jones has his way, that freezing dread that knifes through a driver the moment he sees the overhead flash of a traffic camera will become a thing of the past.
But he's facing quite an uphill fight against officials hungry for the cash the cameras sweep in and police who are convinced they make the roads safer.
Anyone in California snapped violating a red light pays a fine of $480, and according to the traffic-watch site TheNewspaper.com, no other jurisdiction anywhere has a tab that high. The second-highest fine in the United States is $250, and it is usually more like $100.
The Legislature passed two bills in the past two years that would have reduced the fine or limited the cameras' use, but both were vetoed. When he killed the most recent measure, Gov. Jerry Brown said the matter should be left to local jurisdictions.
The state Department of Finance has estimated that red-light cameras bring in more than $80 million annually to the state and $50 million to cities and counties - and that, Jones and his supporters say, is the real reason they continue to snap away at motorists.
Not all $480 from each ticket goes to the cities or counties that authorize the cameras - more than half goes to the state or to the companies that run the devices. And not all tickets result in convictions.
But the haul is still out of proportion to the overall set of offenses, critics say. And so even though the fine for running a red light is the same whether a camera or a live police officer generates it, the cameras draw the fire because they can issue far more tickets than a single cop sitting at an intersection.
'Gotcha'
"Is there a limit to how much 'gotcha government' we have to put up with?" asked Jones, 62, a retired distribution manager who began crusading against red-light cameras after he got a ticket from one in 2009. "Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should."
His newly formed organization, the Red Light Camera Protest Group, picketed at Mowry Avenue and Fremont Boulevard in Fremont on Saturday, waving signs to approving honks from several motorists. It was their first protest, and the two dozen who participated plan more in the coming months - all calling for the elimination of red-light cameras and a reduction in the fine.
"I think we'd all be better off without them," Jones said. "There are better ways to address the problem."













