Red Light Camera News The Rap Report Part III: Red Light Cameras Get the Red Light
http://sanrafael.patch.com/articles/the-rap-report-part-iii-red-light-cameras-get-the-red-light
The Rap Report Part III: Red Light Cameras Get the Red Light
Should money from traffic fines go to support unrelated law enforcement programs?
By Richard Rapaport | Email the author | November 22, 2010
Last week, KGO morning host, Ronn Owens ran a segment on red light traffic cameras. The discussion keyed off a recent election in Houston, where the electorate voted to shut down its automated traffic light program.
Digging a little deeper, Owens might have discovered that Houston is not the only place where red-light traffic camera programs are under siege. To be fair, Owens was highlighting the refreshing news that enraged citizens were taking matters into their own hands, voting on issues normally left in the grip of city councils and law enforcement agencies.
Owens might, in fact, have landed at a very close-to-home location, San Rafael, where a red-light camera has been goading local drivers since October 2009. It was then that the first installation, westbound on Third at Irwin streets, and northbound on Irwin at Third streets, went live. The local angst was due to a number of factors, some tangible, others ideological.
The latter of these has to do with the fact that somewhere in the American psyche, there is a "fairness gene," that hates people and programs that are sneaky, unreasonable or excessive and regard red-light cameras as being all of the above.
As far as the former is concerned, part of the problem had to do with the way the program is run by Redflex Traffic Systems, an Australian company operating out of Scottsdale, Ariz.
Given the current political climate, Arizona is not one of California's favorite places to send or spend money. Redflex is the largest and most sophisticated of a number of companies engaged in profitable automated law enforcement and the 2008 deal between Redflex and the city of San Rafael was, to say the least, a sweetie. In return for installing and maintaining an automated red light photo enforcement system at 10 approaches within the city, Redflex would receive $6,000 a month. In return, San Rafael could sit back and watch the tide of money roll in.
In a spring 2010 report to the San Rafael City Council, Sgt., now Lt. Glenn McElderry, the city's traffic officer, noted than between Oct. 2009 and April 2010, the cameras at Irwin and Third had been activated 4,313 times out of which a total of 3,274 notices were sent to drivers. The sheer efficiency of the system was an ironic part of the problem.
Once a motorist was caught "red-lighted" in the intersection, the camera would be automatically triggered, and photos and a video taken. It was then a simple matter to match up the license of the offender with their California address. Drivers, however, would only find out they had been nabbed when they received a letter from Scottsdale with accompanying pictures. Because the Redflex notice generally arrived well before San Rafael's summons, all a perplexed driver could do was call into an impossibly overloaded city hotline, or simply stew and wait for their official summons to arrive. Extreme angst came largely from the fact that the ticket for running the at Irwin and Third was a pocket-picking, mind-boggling, $500.You read it right, five hundred dollars.
Here it is disclaimer time: No one is in favor of red-light runners, a race that seemingly disproves Darwin's theory of natural selection. It turns out, however, that the red-light cameras do little more than change "T-bone" collisions into a similar number of "rear-enders." Not only that, but most tickets on Irwin and Third involve so-called "California Stops," in which a motorist rolls gently from one one-way street onto another.
It was, finally, the disproportional cost of red-light camera tickets that got the goat of San Mateo Assemblyman Jerry Hill. In early 2001, Hill introduced AB 909, to bring down fines for "California Stops," making their bite commensurate with the act. In September, AB 909 passed both houses of the Legislature, but was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The reason for the veto had most to do with traffic fines becoming the fuel for a number of policing programs having little to do with traffic safety. Below, for example, is a list of the programs San Rafael supports through fines from the automated red-light camera system. It is based on a $494 fee not counting the added cost of appeals:
■$139.06 – Violation fine to City of San Rafael (30% of fee)
■$ 8.92 – County General Fund
■$ 17.15 – Criminal Justice Facilities Construction Fund
■$ 13.72 – Courthouse Construction Fund
■$ 19.60 – EMS
■$ 7.20 – 2% Automation Charge for Criminal Records
■$ 9.80 – DNA Identification Penalty Assessment
■$ 13.72 – Maddy EMS
■$ 3.43 – Automated Fingerprint ID System Fund
■$ 9.80 – DNA Additional Penalty Assessment
■$ 48.02 – State Penalty; Criminal Offenses
■$ 20.58 – County Share of State Penalty
■$ 20.00 – 20% State Surcharge; Base Fines
■$ 29.40 – State Court Construction Penalty; Criminal Offenses
■$ 30.00 – Court Security Fee on Criminal Offenses
■$ 35.00 – ICNA-Conviction Assessment-Infractions
■$ 19.60 – ICNA – Court Const PA
Now, if you could decode the damn thing, this list might serve as material for a George Lopez routine. But multiply that $500 figure by more than 4,000 tickets a year and it is no longer funny; you get something like $2 million generated by the installation at Irwin and Third alone.
The good news, which Owens might want to discuss is that because of a growing public outcry, the San Rafael City Council is holding off on three proposed new Redflex installations. Could this be part of a populist revolt against the notion that law enforcement needs to be a moneymaking venture? Stay tuned.
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