Letter: Encinitas City Council Should Delay Decision on Red Light Cameras

Editor's note: The Encinitas City Council will discuss the Redflex red light cameras at its Wednesday meeting. 

Honorable Council Members Encinitas,

I urge you to at the very least table the matter of whether to renew your Redflex contract. Delaying will improve your negotiating position with Redflex which has lost some significant accounts lately. Use the extra time to learn more how ineffective the camerasare in improving safety and how damaging they are to the community.

Over the last 3 years I have compiled ticket counts, signal light timing charts, and other data from many areas around the SF Bay area where I live. What is obvious is that for a city to become "revenue neutral" involves heavy enforcement of one of two types of violations, and usually both.

Rolling Right Turns: While never mentioned as a safety reason for employing red lightcameras, this is a huge revenue generator. Nearly $500 fines for violations which seldom result in accidents, especially serious accidents. The high fines contribute significantly to the distrust by citizens toward its government. The economic harm to motorists and the business community does not warrant massive enforcement carrying one of the highest fines in the country. No city has produced accident data to show this infraction needs massive enforcement.

Violations for entering intersection in a fraction of a second of the red phase:

When yellow lights are set at or near the minimums the number of violations which occur within the first 1/2 second of the red usually accounts for more than half the violations. A much cheaper and more effective traffic calming strategy is to simply add 1/2 second or more to the yellow. There will be no rebound. This is actually what is happening in my home town, Fremont. One yellow light was lengthened by 7/10's over the minimum and straight through violations dropped by 76% and there has been no rebound. Violations are still at low levels for over 2 years.

Other intersections around the Bay have had extended yellow lights and in each case, the violations have been reduced. In rough numbers, violations come down nearly 10% for each tenth-of-a-second added to a yellow. I speak of violations of the more serious, straight through type.

Finally, let me add that the Hayward Police Dept. recently conducted its own study of collisions after 3-4 years of Redflex cameras. Data from the 10 camera locations actually showed an increase in rear end collisions across the board and even broadside collisions had increased at some of the intersections. What will the data specific to red lightviolations show in Encinitas?

Sincerely,

Roger Jones is from Fremont and is a member of the Red Light Camera Protest Group.