Closing in on an intersection, the green light turns yellow — and you know what comes next.
Driving through that red light is undeniably dangerous. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), police linked hundreds of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries in 2010 to crashes in which a driver ran a red light.
But if you’re one of those red-light runners, you’re not alone. The Oxnard Police Department (OPD) says more than half of all American drivers say they run red lights. The OPD’s response: installing cameras at 11 of its “most crash-ridden” intersections.
Even if you’re a driver who knows the dangers but does it anyway, you aren’t the only one with a double-standard. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found last year through a telephone survey that virtually all drivers say red-light running is “unacceptable,” yet around 1 out of every 3 drivers admitted to doing so in the past month. The OPD reports that nearly all drivers “fear a red light runner will hit them when they enter an intersection.”
What’s created is a complex problem with a still-developing solution that is hotly debated among public safety, law enforcement, and public circles.
The obvious solution would be to put a camera at an intersection to nab red-light running violators, and many have
The IIHS’s current estimates put the number of red-light camera programs at more than 500 communities in almost half the states in the U.S. and Washington, D.C.
According to the Institute, there’s little doubt that the cameras cut into the number and severity of crashes, not only reducing the number of violations for red-light runners at camera-equipped locations but producing an overall drop in violations even at camera-less locations. And that’s not counting the drops in injuries and fatalities.
But what sounds like a simple solution has riled up drivers, some of whom have succeeded in pushing back against camera programs (sometimes called automatic enforcement) in major cities like Los Angeles.
Red Light Cameras and Crash Reduction
If one thing’s certain, it’s that red-light camera enforcement increases the number of citations, at least when they first begin.
A study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on red light cameras in San Diego found that, based on statistics between 1992 and 1998, the beginning of a red-light camera enforcement program in 1997 led to a sudden jump in citations that pushed that year’s citation figures above all other years of the study.
An IIHS study published this year centered on Arlington County in Virginia and found “significant reductions” in the number of red-light violations after camera-based ticketing began there.
Anne McCartt, lead author for the IIHS study, called the study “fresh evidence” in the fight to show that red-light cameras promoted safer driving behavior and, ultimately, a drop in crashes.
A year after ticketing began at those camera-equipped intersections, the Institute identified increasingly bigger drops in the likelihood that drivers would run lights after they turned red. Not only that, but the likelihood that they would run those lights long after they turned red also dropped.
“What these numbers show is that those violations most likely to lead to a crash are reduced the most,” McCartt said in a statement about the study. “The longer the light has been red when a violator enters an intersection, the more likely the driver is to encounter a vehicle traveling in another direction or a pedestrian.”
But the question is often raised: do camera programs reduce the number of accidents?
Red Light Cameras and Rear-Enders
The story of the red light camera is not a cut-and-dry success — and goes further back than you probably think.
A seven-community study by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) in 2005 found that intersections with cameras cut down the number of right-angle crashes there. The rub: there was also an identifiable jump in rear-end crashes.
The FHA study suggested that camera-based systems are “most beneficial at intersections where there are relatively few rear-end crashes and many right-angle ones.”
Ten years before the FHA study, the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) looked at rear-end and angled crash numbers spanning a decade mostly in the 1980s, saying that the “strong increase” in rear-end crashes backed its conclusion that “there is no evidence that the [red light camera] program is decreasing accidents.”
The percentage rise of rear-end crashes usually pales in comparison to the percentage drop in right-angle crashes, according to the FHA study, which also found that the “lesser severities” of rear-end injury crashes “does not negate” the drop in right-angle crashes that red-light camera systems target.
“So the net effect is positive,” the IIHS said in a statement about red light cameras.
Public Support Crucial to Program’s Success
The picture of red-light camera enforcement that’s often painted in the public often ends up negative.
In Los Angeles, backlash from drivers about cameras led city councilmembers to tell communities in the most-populated county in the U.S. that they didn’t have to pay their red-light tickets. A year later in March 2012, a unanimous vote from the L.A. Police Commission gave drivers another break: police would stop pursuing unpaid tickets.
A report from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) released late last year revisits San Diego, where the current camera-based red light enforcement program, called Safe Lights for San Diego, began in 2002. That program’s inception, the report said, saw hurdles immediately, with “many of the San Diego politicians” not supporting its creation. The city nixed the program last month, with Mayor Bob Filner touting his fulfillment of a campaign pledge.
Major conclusions from the report included the need for publicity about a camera program beginning before the camera is mounted at an intersection. Otherwise, such automated enforcement can be perceived as a “tax feeding general coffers.”
The IIHS echoed the sentiment, saying that a common misconception is that cameras are rigged by officials “so that more tickets can be issued.”
But the battle may not be over in the Golden State. A legislative effort in California is underway with Assembly Bill 666, which would reset guidelines around red light camera enforcement, including the placement of such cases in administrative hearings instead of the criminal court trials where they are now heard.
Virginia’s Arlington County will likely see more cameras, with the county’s fiscal budget this year including funds for expansion, according to the IIHS, which said that it expected the positive results from camera enforcement to see “a broader effect.”
What It Means to Your Insurance
Whether or not a camera-based violation will lead to higher premiums depends on whether or not that violation is a moving violation.
Moving violations often mean a point charged to your driver’s license, which insurers view as valid cause to categorize you as a riskier driver that should be charged higher rates.
But Virginia state law, for example, mandates that the violation lie outside of moving violation penalties. According to law, penalties cannot exceed $50 and are not linked to any points against a license. The Virginia city of Chesapeake states in a Q&A that camera-based red light violations are “handled similar to a parking violation.”
So check up with your state laws and your local law enforcement agency to find out where your community stands with red light cameras.
That’s especially important in California, where one ticket without insurance implications can still run a very high price tag. San Diego was “spitting out” $490 tickets, the Union-Tribune said. In Los Angeles, the L.A. Weekly said the fine entailed “ball-busting, $475 envelopes from hell.” In Oxnard, Calif., where cameras are still used at red lights, it’s $436.
