LATimes: 80% of Red Light Tickets for Right-Turn Violations
by Judd WileyMay 20th, 2008, 2:13 pm
Red-light cameras currently monitor 175 intersections in Los Angeles County. The original stated goal of these cameras was to reduce T-bone collisions.
Yesterday, however, the Los Angeles Times reported that 80% of red-light camera tickets go to drivers making “rolling right turns.” A rolling right turn is when a driver doesn’t come to a complete stop before making a right turn. It’s a frequently misunderstood technicality, and not a pressing safety concern.
However, rolling right turns has become a cash cow for government bureaucrats. Last year, the city of Los Angeles issued more than 30,000 red light camera tickets at 32 intersections. Approximately 8 in 10 involved right turns, according to Los Angeles Police Sgt. Matthew MacWillie, the program’s co-coordinator.
Regular red light violations (when you go straight through the light, or make a left turn) in LA County come with a $381 penalty, while rolling right turns at traffic signals carry a $159 fine.
Do the math. 30,000 total red light camera tickets times 80% equals 24,000 tickets for rolling right turns. Multiply that by $159 and you get $3.8 million. So just on rolling right turns, LA County grossed $3.8 million last year, or $119,000 per intersection.
Of course, according to the bureaucrats it’s not about the money. It’s about your safety.
For instance, Montebello had one of LA County’s highest revenue-generating rates, raking in roughly $90,000 per month from five approaches to three intersections. That’s two times its expenses - a 100% rate of return - most of which came from rolling right turn tickets. Montebello officials, however, say their city’s red light camera program “is about safety, not money.”
Walnut, in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, had right-light camera vendor Redflex Traffic Systems survey several intersections and determine a “threshold” of violations needed to make the cameras financially feasible. Right-turn enforcement was included, and Walnut netted about $250,000 in 2007. A Redflex spokeswoman said the company takes “absolutely no position” on right turns.
Montebello, Walnut, and the rest of LA County want you, the voters and taxpayers, to believe that all of this is for your safety. Red-light cameras are annoying, but they’re saving lives.
But according to Stephen Yanez, a Downey engineer quoted in the LA Times:
“From an engineering standpoint, we know the locations we would want are different than what the [camera] vendor would want,” said Stephen Yanez, a Downey engineer. “They are basically looking for locations that have a high violation rate. We are looking for locations with a high collision rate. … Collision rate is not necessarily related to violation rate.”
Using cameras to police right turns offers a “tremendous opportunity for revenue” because the violation is common, he said. But he added that the turns involve relatively little accident risk.
Government administrators view red-light cameras as a revenue source above all else. It’s not about your safety, security, protection, or wellbeing. It’s about taking your money. End of story.
There’s only one word to describe this type of behavior - thievery. And it has to stop.
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Posted in Red-Light Cameras, Tickets, Traffic Lights |
After reading Judd Wiley’s article re: Red Light Tickets, I am even more outraged but totally not surprised. In fact, yesterday when my 19 year old received a ticket in the mail and pictures taken from a red light camera, I commented to my husband that this is upsurd! Firstly, the pictures, we assume, are trying to point to the fact that she didn’t stop behind the line she should have. This is hard to imagine when she was only going 23MPH. Secondly, are they kidding that such a violation should cost $381!!!!
We feel truly helpless to fight this. It has become so regretfully obvious with the judicial system lately that there is no such thing as a good person and that you are guilty until you can prove or have the money to prove your innocence! Worse yet, “Big Brother” seems to be watching your every turn.
Ellen,
That’s a very interesting point, which leads me to wonder:
When you get the red-light camera pictures in the mail, how do the pictures definitively prove that your daughter didn’t come to a complete stop at the line? Think about it. A picture of your daughter’s car crossing the white line doesn’t prove anything! She could have obeyed the law by stopping and starting. Or she could have blown through the red-light and made a right turn without ever stopping. A single snapshot in time is incapable of proving either way.
I wonder how this works in court? The only way to prove the offense would be a videotape. If you challenge the $381 ticket in court, are they required to produce the video?
Ellen,
I empathize. My wife was ticketed by one of these things when her friend was driving the car.
She wasn’t even in it, she had loaned it out for the day.
She still got the ticket, which was outrageous and had to go to the hassle of disputing it. She did get out of it, but had to have her friend write a statement and go through a process that took a couple of months.
I hate to think how much more the bureaucracy involved in that process cost than the ticket they issued. What is the purpose of these things?
If your friend is driving and you’re in the passenger seat when you get pulled over, your friend gets the ticket. Until these stupid cameras can distinguish exactly what is going on and who is doing it, then we shouldn’t have them.
Consult an attorney for free about situations like these…