Red lights, redux

There are several interesting comments on the previous post about cameras at red lights. I think my Tuesday column will be on this topic. Today I've talked with folks from one of the biggest companies that do this, as well as law enforcement.

The system seems to work. Red-light running is certainly a big problem, especially here in Florida. And I am not bogged down by constitutional concerns over privacy, since driving a car on a public street (and the act of running red lights and creating a public menace) is a matter of public concern and compelling societal interest.

Basically I have three concerns:

* That the company has an incentive to make money by increasing the number of citations.

* That the government has an incentive to raise revenue by increasing the number of citations.

* That the government is hiring a private company to handle law enforcement, with even the mailed citations coming from the private address rather than the government.

In answer to some of the questions below -- the money raised typically is split between the government and the company. The contract can either be a flat-rate, X dollars per camera per month, or else X dollars per violation processed.

You CAN'T get out of it by saying, "Someone else was driving my car." If you lend your car to your kid or someone else and they blow a red light, you get the initial citation -- it's up to you to assert, in an affidavit, the identify of the person who deserves the ticket if it isn't you. This is fine by me, since it promotes the personal responsibility of owning a car in the first place. If you owned a gun, you wouldn't just lend it to anybody willy-nilly -- a car is an equally deadly, if not more deadly, weapon.

Comments

[20/20]

Howard,

“If you lend your car to your kid or someone else and they blow a red light, you get the initial citation -- it's up to you to assert, in an affidavit, the identify of the person who deserves the ticket if it isn't you.”

Is there a provision that requires the private operator to repay any and all expenses incurred by the individual who is deemed “guilty until proven innocent” … until and if he/she proves that the private operator ticketed the wrong person… or are the attorneys the known hidden benefactors in all this?

[guy]

Howard perhaps someone knows the answer to this:
I know there is supposed to be a certain many seconds that the yellow caution light is supposed to be on does anyone know how long this is?????
I think it's five seconds.

[RB]

If we have the money to put cameras in intersections, maybe we can pay to get a decent study done an improve light timing so we aren't hitting every single light on the way to work and feeling compelled to push it. Or perhaps we can spend the money on putting in infrastructure before we allow development. Willy nilly building and road design and a lack of said infrastructure before construction (the biggest loophole of all in construction rules?) is the real reason our traffic light situation is so bad. It's easy to blame bad drivers, but it's not just their fault.

Well put, RB!

Standard Pinellas Politics; never enough time and tax dollars to do it right, always enough time and tax dollars to do it over.

[just saying!]

Our 4th Amendment rights have been slowly but surely eroding since 9/11. Another thing that creates unsafe driving conditions and a public menace, is the paranoia that comes from the fear that “Big Brother” is forever watching.

If we need more police officers, then get more police officers. Leave the video games to the kids, and the spying to Dubya and the boys.

Besides, if we outlaw the use of cell phones “while” driving… we’d save a hell of a lot more lives, and cut down on menacing drivers.

[Howard Troxler]

Agreed on cell phones.

Re: yellow lights: I believe that there is a standard... somebody also told me there were at least allegations of yellow-light manipulation in some place that tried this.

My thinkin' is that requiring a flat-rate to the vendor, and preventing the gov't from making a profit, removes any temptations...

[Over the bull!]

Consolidate and synchronize the system first, then talk to me about making it more cost effective to ticket people!

Put the horse back in front of the damn cart, and let’s get this wagon train moving in the right direction, before we ticket the Indians for squatting.

[TH]

cell phones? how about mothers who pay attention to their kids rather than the road?

Charlotte NC had these and they worked. The first quarter after they were installed at "busy" intersections the number of accidents went down - guess people paid attention.

Hey, if there is a chance that it will reduce our auto insurance here in Pinellas - I'm all for it!

[ALC]

@just saying-- You suggest we just hire more police officers to catch red-light runners. Are you aware how much it would cost to put more a traffic cop at every dangerous intersection, and pay that employee benefits and a pension? You're aware you would be paying for this exorbitant expense through a higher millage rate? You're also aware that the pool for well-qualified officers of the peace is critically low, so we would be swearing in unqualified candidates and strapping a holster onto their belt? You are. So you're aware, then, that your assertion is absurd, right?

As Howard said, there are few privacy concerns involved in video-cameras along a public right-of-way that are programmed to only capture law-breaking activity that is a serious risk to the public welfare. I suspect your aversion to the idea comes more from a Luddite instinct that prompts some kind of kneejerk reaction against the use of dem new-fangled tekno-logical gadgets by the government. Would you rather the St. Petersburg Police Department also revert to an all-horseback force?

Also-- please provide some empirical data that shows drivers distracted by cell phone conversations are responsible for more fatal traffic accidents than drivers who run red lights. If you're gonna make an assertion like that, you ought to back it up.

[ALC]

@just saying-- Another question: How the heck did you find a way to connect the Bush Administration to unsafe driving? Man, someone give this man or woman an ribbon for facility in logical fallacy with a combat star for ad hominem attack!

---
just saying wrote:
Another thing that creates unsafe driving conditions and a public menace, is the paranoia that comes from the fear that “Big Brother” is forever watching.
---

I think 20/20 has a good point about time and costs out of pocket if one is not in fact guilty of the infraction, but I think the rebuttal of many, generally speaking, would be that it is part of knowing who is driving your car and the responsibility that comes with it. In other words- don't lend your car out. If the person is a good enough friend that you're ok with lending the car out to them, they should be willing to take responsibility in that aspect as well.

I don't have concerns over the privacy issue in this particular case. I do have a few others though:

The timing of yellow lights. If a bill does move forward to allow the placement of the cameras, they ought to include something about the length of yellow lights for the sake of argument. They should be specified anyway, with or without cameras, according to speed limit and traffic. I would swear there are already many that are shorter than others at certain intersections.

I also think this should not be a for-profit venture. In no way should the company with the cameras be paid based upon the amount of tickets they are responsible for sending out.

I personally don't care too much if the government brings in more money through citations- as long as the goal is to lower the amount of citations, not just to bring in cash.

I do wonder though, with these cameras, what others would be next? As someone suggested would cameras on school buses be another option? Then what? I can see specific cameras in specific places for specified use, but at what point does it just become a camera on every corner watching everybody?

Another concern/question: What kind of security clearance will the employees of the company with the cameras have to have? Is a simple background check really sufficient when we're talking perhaps VIN numbers, addresses, tag, etc.? Will those cited have access to who in particular ticketed them if they dispute the ticket? Are there clear cut policies regarding questionable tickets? In writing?

http://thenewspaper.com/news/19/1952.asp

Washington: City Councilman Gets Bogus Red Light Ticket
Seattle, Washington red light camera falsely accuses councilman from a city about to install its own ticket camera system.

A Seattle, Washington red light camera accused an Aberdeen city councilman of a crime that he did not commit. Seattle demanded that Tim Alstrom pay $101 because he drove his Honda through a red light at Northeast 45th Street and Roosevelt Way Northeast on June 29 at 3:21am. The photographed car did not belong to Alstrom, and the councilman was in Aberdeen, asleep, at the time.

Alstrom had no way to contest the citation because Seattle, like nearly all cities that use photo enforcement, only allows a ticket to be dismissed if the registered owner of the vehicle nominates the actual driver who will pay the $101. In this case, Alstrom had no way to know who that might be -- all he knew was that it was not him. Since Alstrom's city intends to impose the same burden on its residents with ticket cameras of its own, the councilman had no choice but to spend four hours driving to Seattle and back and waste a day in municipal court getting the ticket killed.

In its first ten months of operation, Seattle's ticket vendor, ATS, issued $1,410,566 worth of automated citations. Seattle police told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that this was a "rare" occurrence and asserted, despite the evidence, that every single one of those fourteen thousand tickets were closely reviewed by a police officer.

In Alstrom's case, the photograph was blurred and either a computer misread the difficult image or a technician working for ATS guessed what the license might have been. There is no penalty for guessing or falsely accusing a motorist of a crime, but there is a monetary reward when innocent motorists just pay the ticket rather than take off an entire day of work to fight one.

[727guy]

http://thenewspaper.com/news/20/2049.asp

California: Shortened Red Light Camera Grace Nets City $2 Million
By shortening the trigger timing on its red light cameras by 0.4 seconds, San Diego, California will collect an extra $2 million in ticket revenue.

San Diego, California will generate more than $2 million in additional revenue one year after shortening the red light camera program's "grace period" trigger settings. The staggering figure represents a ten-fold increase over the $200,000 promised during the July 2006 city council vote to shorten the timing.

The grace period reduction reflects a decrease in the amount of time allowed to a motorist before a ticket is issued and after the light changes from yellow to red. According to a 2002 audit of the San Diego program, this period ranged from 0.3 to 0.5 seconds between 1998 and 2001. The city council's sole purpose in dropping this number to a lightning-quick 0.1 seconds was to issue more citations to rescue the city budget from the "financial doldrums." In some cases, 0.1 seconds is so quick that signal heads in a red light camera photograph can display both yellow and red signals simultaneously.

In 2005, one full year before the change, San Diego issued 6783 tickets worth $2,313,003. With the timing change, the program has issued almost 9000 tickets from January to August 2007. At this rate, the city will issue $4.3 million worth of tickets this year.

The reason such a small change in timing has such great effect is that about four out of every five red light camera citations are issued before even a second had elapsed after the light changed to red, according to a report by the California State Auditor. Shorter trigger settings allow jurisdictions to collect more revenue because the greatest number of technical violations occur within the first 0.25 seconds after a light turns red, according to a Texas Transportation Institute study. Confidential San Diego documents obtained in a 2001 court trial prove that the city and its vendor, now ACS, only installed red light cameras at intersections with high volumes and an "Amber (yellow) phase less than 4 seconds." The short yellow and short grace periods have the same effect on revenue.

But the Texas suggests that issuing tickets for these technical violations has little impact on safety. The probability of a right-angle collision within a split-second after a signal changes from yellow to red is almost zero at an intersection with a protected left turn lane. "Given a 1.0-second all-red interval, the probabilities also suggest that crossing through vehicles will not start to enter until after about 4 seconds have lapsed," the Texas study explained (page 99).

San Diego Police Chief David Bejarano explained the photo ticketing program's net effect on safety during an interview with Nightline: "And it's true in a few intersections we found a few more accidents than prior to the red light photo enforcement. At some intersections we saw no change at all, and at several intersections we actually saw an increase in traffic accidents." Accidents have also not dropped under the current red light program.

[727guy]

Houston, Texas Banks on Short Yellows
Yellow signal warning times in the Houston, Texas area fall short of TxDOT recommendations which helps to generate millions in revenue.

Red light cameras in the Houston, Texas area are earning millions of dollars in extra revenue by trapping motorists with short yellow signals. KPRC-TV timed the yellow duration at a number of high-speed intersections and found them to be far below the level recommended in Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) guidelines. At the intersection of FM 1960 and West Townsend in Humble, for example, the posted speed is 50 MPH which suggests that the yellow should last five seconds. Motorists, however, only get 3.6 seconds of warning before the red light camera begins issuing tickets.

Houston's busiest intersection, the intersection of North Freeway feeder and West Road, generates 1000 tickets a month with just 3.6 seconds of yellow. Likewise the intersection of the Interstate 10 feeder and Wayside offers just 3.6 seconds of warning and the 59 service road and Fountainview offered four seconds of yellow. Traffic on these roads flows at 45 MPH or more.

With these timings, Houston's program has been bringing in as much as $2 million a month in revenue. Although effective, the short yellows come with a significant safety penalty. The Texas Transportation Institute study found that a yellow shortened by one second from the recommended minimum will generate a 110 percent jump in the number of tickets. Increasing the yellow one second above the recommended minimum cut crashes by 40 percent. These results are reflected in Houston's own program. After a year of use, the cameras did not demonstrate any significant safety benefit.

Although a TxDOT spokesman downplayed the relevance of the short yellows because other factors must go into yellow timing calculations, national yellow signal timing guidelines developed in 1976 -- long before the advent of red light cameras in the US -- show that all of these intersections should be considered deficient (view chart). Houston's short yellow policy was adopted long before the red light cameras were installed by adopting a signal timing formula designed to reduce yellow warning periods. Dallas has also been caught banking on short yellow times.

[727guy]

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/c_d_columns/robot_revenuing_shots_were_fired_column

[just saying!]

ALC… easy there big fella! Lets take it slow.

“You suggest we just hire more police officers to catch red-light runners.”

Yes, it puts people to work, hence more tax payers, hence more economic movement, AND… eventually, people might stop running lights; imagine that concept.

“Are you aware how much it would cost to put more a traffic cop at every dangerous intersection, and pay that employee benefits and a pension?”

If that “cop” at that intersection saves you spouse or child’s life, I imagine you’d pay almost anything. I certainly would.

“You're also aware that the pool for well-qualified officers of the peace is critically low, so we would be swearing in unqualified candidates and strapping a holster onto their belt?”

Here’s a thought! Why don’t we train more people in law enforcement!
Then we can put more people to work, hence more tax payers, and hence more economic movement you get my drift. And if someone is “swearing in unqualified candidates and strapping a holster onto their belt?” … then that person shouldn’t have the power to swear in at all. Vote them out next time around.

Ok, your entire second paragraph leads me to believe you’re smoking dope or something, so we’ll just pass on it. And save the “back it up” rhetoric, it’s an opinion on a blog... get a hold of yourself for God's sake. Although I will seek the answer for my own selfish reasons.

Oh, and your next post… pleeease… How the heck did YOU find a way to connect the
“paranoia that comes from the fear that “Big Brother” is forever watching.’ to the Bush Administration… Freudian much?

Let me guess, you're a saleman for the company that wants the contract?

[Howard Troxler]

Howard here -- thanks to the poster with the links to accounts of yellow light manipulation and other money-raising hijinks by local governments.

What I'm proposing in my column tomorrow morning is that Florida law say local governments can NOT use their "profits" from this system as general revenue that could be spent on anything the government wishes... at the least, keep it in a public safety trust fund... reduces the temptation to govt to abuse this, as these stories suggest has happened. What say?

Jumping in video vs. police...

First, we do not have enough cops now as it is. In Clearwater they sit on corners, three cars sometimes at Gulf-to-Bay and 19, while drug dealing and bad behavior is so rampant in some areas that videos are being made to be sold a la the "Gone Wild" franchise. And I have yet to see fewer people running red lights at that intersection when the police are not there. If we can't sit cops in the corners in these neighborhoods to help curtail drug dealing, then there is no excuse to sit them on a corner to catch traffic violations.

All the training in the world will not create quality if it's not already there. You can't teach all the things needed to be a good cop. Being short staffed does not create a stronger pool to choose from in regards to candidates. It creates desperation among the staff which in turn forces them to hire people they would otherwise never consider. See: schools.

More work equals more taxpayers? In Pinellas, there ain't much more room for more taxpayers. And if people aren't coming here now, they sure aren't going to because we need more police. As it is taxes pay into a reason to *not* be here.

Regarding the potential funds...

I agree that they should be general revenue. But I could see that creating a problem as well. A lot of poor planners will plan on an unstable revenue source (as the tickets could and should be if the goal is to reduce the running of the lights) as a guaranteed part of their budget. And then when the money isn't there, their backs are against the wall and they have to find the money. This could still create the scenarios others have posted with the shorter yellow lights.

Of course, ideally, we wouldn't have poor planners in office. But this is the land of local elections drawing less than 10% of it's voters. We have poor planning. Even if we didn't, it's always a risk. We need safeguards in place.

[Jim Johnson]

It's an easy day for a broad-beamed donut muncher. All he/she has to do is watch videos.

First theyll nail light runners, then go after people not wearing seat belts, then add defective tail-lights etc.

This scam is a gold mine for the whole crew.

[20/20]

I think the most intriguing aspect of this debate is how we deem red-light runners as a menace to society, a threat to citizen safety, and a potential deadly hazard… yet at the same time we validate technological privatization by implying that our public law enforcement resources could be better utilized on things that are more important than stopping a menace to society, a threat to citizen safety, and a potential deadly hazard.

The art of politics and money; truly remarkable.

[Gary]

If they really wanted to stop red light runners and the object was not to raise money.
Someone above suggested better timed lights.
or / maybe a light before the intersection that alerts you to stop because the light is changing in addition to a yellow light which gives you one second to decide if your close enough to make it through the light or not.
Or a white line on the road to mark the point if the light changes yellow and your not past the line . STOP
I look for the crosswalk signals because they have how many seconds I have before the light is going to change. Could they make them bigger so I can read them further away?
But, unfortunately its usually about money.
Government gets theirs. Insurance companies get to raise your rate for 5 years because of the ticket.

[727guy]

@20/20 - exactly, its a contradiction from the get-go. "This is an incredibly important problem that must be solved, but its not important enough to use existing law enforcement resources to battle it".

The only solution is - ta-daaaa! - our product!

And @Gary - exactly, what studies have been done that show we're out of options on this problem? Has there been a traffic light study at problem intersections? Have any alternatives been implemented, such as longer yellows or manipulation of light length at specific intersections? How about addressing this problem where it begins, at the licensing level? If people are such terrible drivers, why not make the test harder? The current licensing standards are a joke as it is. How about a public awareness campaign?

It reminds me of quote from The Simpsons - "You gotta help us, doc! We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

[guy]

people ~ it is very simple, if you have a yellow light law of at least 8 seconds,
if someone goes through red after that, they deserve a ticket.
And let big brother loose on him or her.
Also it will not change the speed of traffic, and give a safe feeling to drivers.

[Rich]

justme,

you must be a communist if you honestly believe that hiring more government workers stimulates an economy. If that were the case, wouldn't we all be government employees? oh wait that doesn't work.

Make the yellow light lengths universal by speed limits. Pay the company for the cameras only. Pay all costs associated with running the system out of citation money and the rest goes to driver improvement schools.

I really don't like the whole idea of cameras but if they do it then there needs to be some sense to it.

Gary 9:49am-

Funny you mention the lines on the road as an option to let drivers know if they are within them, they should have time to go through the yellow light. I have a younger sibling who just went through a driving course to get his license and that is exactly what the instructor told him that the solid white lane lines were at an intersection; that if he was within those when the light turned yellow, he could go no matter what and it was fine. I had to take my brother around to show him the difference in yellow light times to make him realize that was not a safe option. We didn't time anything, but after a few intersections he could tell there was a difference.

So any lights or lines would be moot if they are not *required* to have yellow lights be of a certain length.

[Gary]

To 727guy
If your comment is to me, It doesn't make sense. I won't bother responding

To Mar 4 2:42pm
I was talking about a line to go across the road. And yes it would have to be adjusted for speed limit and yellow light length. Its been a long time since I taught drivers or studied a rules of the road book. A solid white line anywhere on the road /expressway etc means stay in your lane. Maybe its been adjusted to mean more. The law used to be you couldn't change lanes within 100ft of an intersection.

But back to the point. There are a lot of suggestions and perhaps solutions in the above comments and if it isn't about money but saving lives some of them should be looked at. Oh yeah,they should do a study
P.S.
The cameras also help police solve crimes.
As far as Big Brother.
Have a cell phone, Onstar, Toll Pass or any other gps system in your car?

[727guy]

@Gary - I was agreeing with you, as in "exactly, your point makes sense, here are some other points in a similar vein". Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[Rob]

Red light cameras were decalred unconstituional by the North Carolina state supreme court in 2005. I know because I had to move there from Florida after only being offered jobs that paid wages I made 25 years ago. The money collected from this violation of civil rights should go directly to the workers to get wages up to this century's rates. If you people tolerate this camera crap it only proves your all sheep-grossly underpaid sheep.