Drivers May Smile for Red Light Photos

Despite the fancy sensors and the latest technology, only half the motorists who get caught running red lights equipped with surveillance cameras actually receive traffic citations.

Even so, cities are adding the cameras rapidly, arguing that, despite such limitations, the cameras are reducing accidents and prompting motorists to think twice before gunning through that red light.

The sophisticated systems--triggered by a motorist’s speed when a light turns from yellow to red--began cropping up across Southern California four years ago, first in Oxnard and then in Beverly Hills. Within the next year, about 20 local cities expect to be using them. Los Angeles, which began monitoring four intersections in December, plans to have 16 covered with cameras by the end of summer.

Who gets away with running a red light when the camera is on is often a matter of chance.

The pictures are not always clear enough to stand up in court, where judges require images of the license plate as well as the face of the driver. Sun glare, for example, can mar the camera’s picture of either one. Also, some drivers have their heads down, or turned toward passengers.

Gender mismatches are often thrown out; the driver is a man, for example, but the registered owner is a woman. Or maybe the license plate is partially obstructed by dirt or a trailer hitch. In a few cases, a driver who triggered the camera managed to slam on the brakes and stop in time.

In cities where cameras shoot only from the front--including West Hollywood and Beverly Hills--anyone without a front license plate will get a free pass. Some drivers get past the system by wearing sunglasses or pulling caps low on their heads, though officials doubt that these are deliberate attempts to evade getting the $271 tickets.

Rate Doesn’t Bother Traffic Engineer

“Not that many people leave the house thinking they’re out to beat a red light that day,” said Brenda Miller, founder of Redflex Systems, which operates cameras for police in California and three other states.

West Hollywood traffic engineer Joyce Rooney says she isn’t bothered that the city’s citation rate of photographed motorists isn’t higher. West Hollywood takes about 3,000 pictures of likely violators a month, rotating cameras among 16 intersections, which results in about 1,500 tickets.

“That’s 1,500 people causing potential accidents who have to pay a price they wouldn’t otherwise pay,” she said.

Highway safety experts say more than 200,000 people each year are injured in collisions caused by red light runners. More than 800 are killed.

But a survey of cities that use the cameras suggests that the devices’ presence has cut accidents.

When the Garden Grove City Council last year agreed to a one-intersection test, traffic engineer George Allen knew the one he wanted: Brookhurst Avenue at Westminster Boulevard. It was rated by State Farm Insurance Co. as one of the top 10 accident intersections in the state.

Since the cameras were installed 10 months ago, the number of accidents there has fallen by 52%, said Allen.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety studies show that the cameras are a deterrent, cutting by half the number of people who run red lights at those intersections. Spokesman Richard Retting says a new report due soon will show statistical data on how much they’ve actually reduced accidents.

“These cameras are very effective,” Retting said.

Garden Grove is using the state’s first digital system, in which the motorists’ images pop up on a computer. The city is already considering additional cameras, even as it tries to perfect what officials consider shortcomings in the system. Citations are issued for only 39% of pictures taken. Officials say it’s taking longer than expected to work out the bugs.

To the south in San Juan Capistrano, Sheriff’s Department officials have been trying to perfect their court presentations to satisfy judges. And even some who plead not guilty are becoming convinced.

Stephen Crapo went to court convinced he would beat his ticket for running a red light. His vehicle had triggered the new photo enforcement camera at a San Juan Capistrano intersection.

To Crapo, a Saddleback College football coach, the picture evidence on his citation was inconclusive. Besides, he knew he was innocent. He would never drive like that.

“But the police brought in color blow-ups showing me approaching the intersection,” Crapo said. “No question, I definitely ran that light. I was shocked.”

Successful court challenges against San Juan Capistrano’s cameras rank among the highest in the region. Of 82 cases that went to court this past year, 33 were dismissed. But most of those cases came in the first few months, when judges in south Orange County Superior Court were unhappy with the meager evidence in citation pictures offered by the police.

“Since then, we’ve perfected our presentation; we’ve made sure that photos show both the license plate and the red light in the same frame,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Rick Stahr. In recent months, only a handful of court cases have gone against the police there. In West Court, where the Garden Grove cases go, fewer than 10% of court challenges are successful, administrators say.

Cities are increasingly weeding out unclear photos to improve their performance in court. A survey of traffic engineers and vendors found that about 50% of the photos taken are used to issue citations.

Some Cities Reject the Idea

Don’t expect to get away with it just because you aren’t the registered owner. The police and courts say they’re seeing a growing number of cases in which the registered owner is turning in the driver--sometimes an employee, or even a family member. The police are then reissuing the citations.

Not that all Southern California cities are joining the trend. Anaheim officials say they’re not convinced of the cameras’ effectiveness. Buena Park Police Chief Richard Tefank says it goes against the grain of what he calls the Three E’s of traffic policing: enforcement, education and engineering.

“If you don’t have that police officer there handing you the ticket, you don’t have that education sinking in,” Tefank said.

San Juan Capistrano Planning Commissioner Mike Eggers says he sees the trend as “just one more part of our lives that’s under surveillance. We need to draw our toe in the sand somewhere.”

Supporters, however, said the benefits far outweigh any privacy concerns.

“What kind of right of privacy do you have driving a car?” counters Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Rick Stahr, in charge of the San Juan Capistrano program. “At a 7-Eleven, you are under 24-hour camera surveillance. Our cameras don’t capture your image unless you run a red light.”

A selected few intersections are all that most cities can feasibly handle. That means most corners get no monitoring at all. But Ray Pedrosa, who runs the Lockheed Martin camera system for West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, says the experts are convinced of a “halo effect.”

“The idea is, if you see the enforcement camera at one intersection, you’re likely to drive more carefully at the next one, and so on,” he said.

Especially if you’ve received a red light ticket. Like Crapo, the Saddleback Valley football coach.

“I don’t even run yellow lights now,” he said. “The cameras do make a difference; they have with me.”