Red Light Camera News ANTI RLC MAYOR ELECTED IN HAINES CITY! Says: “We’re half way there,”
ANTI RLC MAYOR ELECTED IN HAINES CITY! Says: “We’re half way there,” on banning RLC in the town!
http://www.lakewalesnews.com/articles/2011/04/13/county_page/doc4da5bac36b441609367959.txt
The red light cameras come to end
By BILL QUINLAN
Correspondent
Published:
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 11:10 AM EDT
By a 3-1 vote, Haines City Commissioners on Thursday, April 7 ended the ticketing of motorists caught on camera making illegal right turns on red lights.
“We’re half way there,” Commissioner-Elect Don Mason after the meeting.
Mason, who takes office May 5, defeated incumbent Philip Hinkle winning 70.4 percent of the vote April 5, partly because he campaigned for elimination of the cameras.
Hinkle and the other four city commissioners had voted unanimously last year to install the cameras and put the program in effect in January of this year.
Ticketing motorists caught on camera running straight through red lights remains in effect.
Haines City Police Chief Richard Sloan provided the commissioners with a 68-page packet at their April 7 meeting. In it he included a Feb. 1 press release from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety stating red light cameras saved an estimated 815 lives in large cities from 2004-2008.
Sloan wrote that the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act of 2010, the Florida state law authorizing the camera program, stipulates “careful and prudent” as the standard by which police departments must decide who caught on camera making right turns will get cited. He provided commissioners with seven guidelines his officers must use to determine what is careful and prudent in each case.
Sloan also provided material documenting support for red light cameras around the country, as well as opposition to it – often by those violators cast as victims.
In addition, Sloan provided data to support the argument that the camera law is having the intended effect.
The number of motorists photographed taking illegal right turns dropped 54 percent in the second month. The number running straight through red lights dropped only 5 percent.
In his five-page April 6 memorandum to commissioners and city staff, Sloan disputed Mason’s claim that officers spend an average of only 30 seconds reviewing pictures of possible on-camera violations. Sloan’s date indicates an average time of 3.81 minutes.
Sloan provided the commissioners with three options: keep the camera program in place with no change; increase the allowable speed (currently at 11 mph.) for right turns on red; and eliminate citing motorists for making illegal right turns when caught on camera.
The fine for making an illegal right turn on red is $158 if caught on camera and $262 if caught by a police officer.
Legislation has been introduced in Tallahassee to repeal the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act of 2010.
The law was recently upheld in the County Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in And for Miami-Dade County against claims that it is unconstitutional and unfair.
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