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Stop Chaos At Intersections With Red-Light Cameras

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 4, 2008

Red-light running has become epidemic in Hillsborough County. In the last two years, more than 800 crashes and three fatalities happened when someone didn't stop for a red light.

The sheriff's office tickets thousands of drivers each year for the offense, but deputies cannot patrol every major intersection. Many drivers have come to treat traffic signals - and other motorists' lives - with disdain.

If you watch nearly any busy intersections you'll see a driver - often several - run through the red at virtually every light change. Red-light violations risk lives and don't move traffic faster. Drivers here know that when the light turns green, they better wait to make sure that cross-traffic has stopped.

It's time for the county to get tough with violators. And there is a way to do it without charging taxpayers or making more demands on the sheriff's office's stretched personnel: red-light cameras.

The cameras continuously film intersections and automatically report violations - including the license plate of violators.

While the cameras have some critics, statistics show they work.

In New York City, the red-light camera program reduced violations 73 percent and collisions 41 percent.

In Philadelphia a program reduced violations 72 percent. In Seattle, violations dropped by half in just a year.

Apopka adopted cameras last year after it had six fatalities due to red-light running in the first six months of the year. The cameras were installed in July at two dangerous intersections. The first month, 289 violators were cited. By December the number of violations had dropped to 18. That's impact.

So the Hillsborough County Commission had good reason to give the sheriff's office the go-ahead to study the cameras, though further discussions and public hearings will be necessary before final approval.

Because state law requires an officer to witness an offense to write a ticket, violators will be given a citation under a local ordinance, similar to a parking ticket. But the fine - most communities levy $125 or so - should be a deterrent.

The citation, which would include photographs of the violation, would go to the owner of the car and could be contested in court. The recordings of the violation, which can be viewed on a Web site, are difficult to dispute.

There would be a provision for someone to document that they were not driving the car at the time of the violation. And only drivers who enter the intersection after the light is red - not amber - would be cited.

Critics complain the cameras, which are operated by private vendors, are in reality a money-making scheme. It's true a portion of the fines would be used to compensate vendors, who pay the costs of erecting and maintaining the cameras. The remaining revenue would go to the county's general fund.

But if the cameras succeed in reducing crashes and violations, the amount of revenue would be modest. If the cameras fail to achieve those goals, their use could be discontinued.

And Col. Greg Brown of the sheriff's office says a law enforcement officer - not a vendor employee - would determine which motorists are fined. This could be done without adding personnel, Brown says, by utilizing deputies who have been injured and temporarily can't work in the field.

Another complaint is that the cameras cause rear-end collisions because motorists slam on brakes to avoid running the red lights. But the number of such collisions normally diminishes as motorists become accustomed to the cameras.

Besides, as Brown says, getting rear-ended is not nearly as dangerous as being hit in the side, where only a few inches of metal protect the driver.

Commissioners should vigorously pursue this economical solution to a serious public safety threat.

The alternative is to hire more deputies than the county can afford or simply abandon Hillsborough intersections to a deadly chaos.

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