Cameras to Record Red-Light Runners

Scofflaws beware: Los Angeles County plans to equip three of its busiest intersections with cameras that will photograph motorists who run red lights.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday began the bureaucratic process of installing traffic cameras at the intersections of 135th Street and Broadway, Arrow Highway and Glendora Avenue and Sepulveda and Wilshire boulevards, all in unincorporated county areas.

“This is life and death,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the pilot project. “People running red lights are killing people in this county.”

There is an added benefit that Yaroslavsky noted--every motorist captured on camera running a red light will face a $271 fine, which will end up in government coffers.

California cities that have eliminated the human factor and implemented so-called photo enforcement, ranging from San Francisco to Beverly Hills to Poway, have seen traffic violations decrease and traffic fines increase. Nobody, after all, ever talked a camera out of writing a ticket.

“It’s a way of enforcing the law that doesn’t require a $60,000 police officer and a $20,000 car,” Yaroslavsky said.

Governments have hungrily eyed the extra dollars those tickets represent ever since California law was changed in 1996 to allow tickets to be issued automatically.

Beverly Hills was among the first cities to install cameras that record the license plates of offenders. A town seldom short on funds is nonetheless anticipating $700,000 in revenues this year from just two cameras at its busiest intersections, according to a county report on the program.

Such revenues have tempted other cities, from Los Angeles to Palmdale, to begin installing cameras at busy intersections.

Safety, however, also is a factor. A study of San Francisco’s camera program showed a 40% reduction in red light violations since October 1996, and a 10% drop in injuries caused by running traffic lights.

California Highway Patrol Sgt. Ernie Sanchez said his department, which polices streets in unincorporated county areas, does not want the cameras to be ticket generators.

Rather, he said, the CHP hopes they will alter drivers’ behavior.

“Maybe they’ll start applying their brakes a little sooner,” Sanchez said.