Camera’s Eye Puts Drivers on Red Alert

Seven months after the Pasadena Police Department began using a photo radar device that automatically snaps pictures of speeders, the department has begun testing another photographic crime-fighting tool--to catch people driving through red lights.

The new device, called a Multafot, is a combination of camera and microcomputer designed to detect vehicles that illegally enter an intersection on a red light.

The apparatus snaps a picture of the signal lights, the vehicle, its license plate and the driver’s face. The information is later used to produce a ticket that is mailed to the registered owner of the car.

Pasadena is the first city in the state and the second in the country to test the automated red-light surveillance system. New York City tested the machine last year and is preparing to do more extensive testing this year.

Pasadena installed the device Monday at Fair Oaks Avenue and Union Street and plans to test it there for 30 days, officials said. Then it will be tested for 30 days at California Boulevard and Hill Avenue.

“I love it,” said Thelma Harding, an employee of a nearby beauty salon who hears at least a couple of accidents a month at the Fair Oaks intersection. “I think it might work.”

No tickets will be issued during Pasadena’s 60-day test. If the device lives up to its manufacturer’s claims, however, it could be spewing out citations by the end of the year, Mayor William Thomson said.

Like the photo radar, the Multafot has been used for years in parts of Europe, Asia and South America.

The red-light surveillance system, which is made by the same Swiss company that produces the photo radar, Zellweger Uster Ltd., uses a set of sensors embedded in the road to detect cars.

Signals from the sensors are electronically sent to the Multafot camera and computer, mounted 12 feet above the ground on a pole 110 feet from the intersection.

When the light turns red, the unit is activated and a picture taken whenever the sensors detect a vehicle illegally traveling through the intersection.

Another photo is taken about a second later to show that the vehicle not only entered the intersection but also ran a red light.

“The only thing an officer has to do is change the film,” said Robert P. Umbdenstock, president of Multanova/RPJ Inc., U.S. distributor of the device.

There are some problems, however. The units--which are on loan to the city during the test period--cost between $40,000 and $45,000 each, and it typically takes four of them to monitor all directions in an intersection, so it would be expensive to cover more than a few points in the city.

In addition, the machine must be refined during the test period so that it snaps photos only of violators because there are situations in which vehicles can legally enter an intersection on a red light, to make right turns, for example.

Umbdenstock said none of the problems is insurmountable.

The city could, he said, buy a few surveillance units and rotate them to dozens of empty boxes placed at different locations. Motorists would not know if a box had a camera inside and would be hesitant to violate the law, he said.

City officials say one factor hard to predict is public acceptance.

The use of the photo radar, which has led to the issuance of more than 2,300 speeding tickets since September, has been protested by some drivers as “Big Brother” intruding on their motoring freedom. Angry motorists have criticized the device as unfair, un-American and just plain sneaky.

Thomson said he believes that the red-light surveillance device will be far less controversial. Few drivers would argue in support of the right to run red lights, he said.