Bill to Stop Red Light Cameras Introduced on State Level

An Inland Empire lawmaker wants to pull the plug on red light cameras, and that was good news to one Murrieta resident who adamantly opposes the cameras.

Assemblyman Paul Cook, R-Beaumont, on Thursday introduced AB 1008, which would prohibit the installation of red light traffic cameras beginning next year and require studies for cities to justify existing ones.

“People don't trust government, and red light cameras aren't helping,'' Cook said. “I think folks feel like they're being sold a bill of goods. The fines keep going up, and there's no clear evidence that they reduce the number of accidents or lead to greater public safety. Governments need to prove that they work.''

Diana Serafin, who is in the process of preparing petitions to get red lights taken down in Murrieta, was excited to hear about the bill.

“I hope it passes,” Serafin said. “Cities are waking up and pulling them out because they are causing more accidents. People become more nervous at intersections; just watch them.”

Fines can range as high as $450, the assemblyman said, referring to the red light cameras as a simple means for cities to generate income.

Under the proposed legislation, starting Jan. 1, 2012, cities would be barred from putting in new cameras. Intersections where the systems are in operation would have to undergo studies to determine whether red light cameras have been a sufficient deterrent to reduce the number of accidents triggered by motorists disobeying traffic signals, according to Cook.

He referred to a 2010 audit of the city of Los Angeles' red light cameras, which cast doubt on their effectiveness.

With red light cameras under fire in Murrieta from some parties, Mayor Randon Lane said the City’s focus has always been on the safety of residents.

The City’s five-year contracts with its red light camera provider are expiring this year. The contracts have not yet been renewed; Lane said the Council could vote on renewing them as soon as its next meeting.

“I fall back on the fact that we have had a drastic reduction in red-light violations,” Lane said Friday. “In 2005, we had an intersection where we had 105 violations per day. Now we have two violations per day there.”

One councilman, Rick Gibbs, said at a meeting that any revenue the City takes in from the camera tickets should go to charity. Lane said he agreed with that approach.

Under the new contract with American Traffic Systems, the City would pay about $21,035 a month for the cameras, with a revenue of about $$4,703 a year.

John Sobel, chief of staff for Assemblyman Cook, said there was a lot of conflicting data on whether the cameras promoted safety in the first place.

“So in the meantime, we are charging people $450 in this economy. Before you start charging people, you better have a good basis,” Sobel said.

Serafin bases her argument against the cameras on the number of accidents in Murrieta that have not happened at red light intersections, but rather at places where there are no intersections at all. She said the money the City pays on red light cameras per year could instead be used to pay for more police officers' salaries.

Under the bill, according to Sobel, government agencies that have operating cameras but who could not prove their safety measures would have until Jan. 1., 2015, to remove them.

“We realize they may have contracts in place,” he said.

Sobel cautioned that the bill was just introduced, and said it could undergo a variety of changes if and when it became law.

“We tried to be pretty reasonable in the language. We are not saying they need to be torn down tomorrow,” he said.

City News Service contributed to this report.