The red-light cameras were deactivated when the city’s contract with American Traffic Solutions Inc. Long Beach had traffic cameras at five main intersections to catch red-light runners, but they were shut off in December 2010. Likewise, after San Bernardino ended its program in December 2012, there has not been a significant increase in accidents, said police Lt. “It was not significant, and many were other types of accidents,” Al-Ghafry said. In the past year with the cameras, there were 28 to 30 accidents with no red-light camera, there were 34 accidents. “There wasn’t much difference,” said Majed Al-Ghafry, assistant city manager. But Beeber said there was only one fewer broadside accident, a statistically insignificant number.Ī Virgina Department of Transportation study concluded rear-end collisions increased between 31 percent and 54 percent at intersections with red-light cameras, including an 18 percent increase in injury-related accidents.Įl Cajon, a city in Northern San Diego County with about double the population of Walnut, junked its red-light cameras in September after suspending the program in February, not long after San Diego did the same.Ī before-and-after study in El Cajon found about the same number of accidents. The city staff said the increase in rear-end collisions were a worthwhile trade-off for fewer broadside collisions. In Walnut, rear-end collisions increased by 80 percent at the photo-enforced intersection of Grand Avenue and Amar/Temple Avenue, according to Beeber’s report. Twenty-seven out of 30 ballot measures on red-light cameras have resulted in programs being overturned, Beeber said. “The trend has begun to reverse itself.”ĭeclining revenues, a nonsupportive court system and increases in the number of accidents instead of decreases, are the major reasons why cities have pulled the plug on red-light cameras in the past two years. “The overall number of red-light camera locations have dropped,” Beeber said. In California, 60 cities and counties have ended red-light camera programs, more than the number currently using the cameras - about 51, said Jay Beeber, a researcher writing the report on red-light cameras for the libertarian-leaning think tank, who is also executive director of the group Safer Streets LA and a member of a subcommittee of the California Traffic Control Devices Committee, authorized by Caltrans to study reforms. Yet many smaller cities are hanging on to the programs to keep the revenues they raise.Īccording to a not-yet-released report on red-light cameras from the Reason Foundation, the number of communities with red-light cameras in the United States has dropped from about 700 in 2011 to 500 at the end of 2013. Red-light cameras - controversial traffic enforcement devices that can ding an unsuspecting motorist for $500 a pop for minor infractions like illegally turning right on red - are slowly fading to black.įor the first time since they were introduced in the 1980s, statistics show a large drop in the number of cities and counties using the photo enforcement systems.
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