Now that the Virginia Legislature seems receptive to allowing jurisdictions to add red-light cameras if they want, I thought I’d share with you parts of an e-mail I received a little while ago from John Mason, the former mayor of the city of Fairfax. Although I may not agree with everything he said, Mayor Mason does a very good job of detailing the case for the cameras:
“It’s unfortunate that red-light cameras may have been tarnished by poor procedures and intentions in some jurisdictions; however, that should not be the reason for not using them. The City of Fairfax was the first jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia to employ red-light cameras under permissive legislation from the General Assembly a decade ago. The legislation required that a sworn officer review the photos of red-light runners to ensure that citing for running a red light satisfied Virginia’s criteria. This avoided any temptation on the part of a supporting contractor to increase offense numbers at a lesser standard.
“Timing of lights (green — yellow — red) was consistent with established criteria; no adjustment of timing to increase number of offenses was done. Under the permitted pilot program, the registered owner of vehicle was cited with a ticket. No points were allocated. The cited vehicle owner could respond to ticket by paying fine or simply certifying that he or she was not driving the car. Interestingly, over 90 percent acknowledged the red-light running and paid the fine. In some cases, parents noted that their son or daughter was driving and ensured that he or she paid the fine.
“The result was a 40 percent decrease at intersections monitored with red light cameras (to include intersections with camera boxes but no camera as cameras were moved around). It’s virtually impossible to position police officers in crowded urban environments; there’s no room for police vehicle and positioning of observing officer is challenging. More importantly, it is not a good use of police officers’ time to have them spending hours monitoring traffic signals.
“As to the revenue issue, it was essentially a break event situation for us — cost of employing technology was covered by fines. We anticipated, however, that over time it would cost the city, as the number of red-light runners was declining. That did not deter us from the concept. Technology such as red light cameras makes sense.”
The interesting thing, if you read carefully, is that jurisdictions will have to buy more equipment now than what they likely will use later if the same pattern takes place. The issue of the timing of the yellow cycle is a major one in that the length of this cycle needs to be consistent in like intersections, but also to take into account instances where extra time may be necessary. I would hope that the cameras are placed in areas where there are real problems. It will be interesting to see what sort of impact these lights have on safety and on revenue.
