San Leandro’s Red Light Cameras Only Capture Cash

In 2005, our city council approved the implementation of a red light camera program over the concerns of residents and local leaders. The rationale seemed beneficial on its face – automated cameras to help catch people running red lights, improve traffic safety, and cut costs related to traffic enforcement. The program has been repeatedly extended, with frequent praise on its effectiveness from SLPD Chief Tudor, Mayor Cutter, and other city officials.

The reality has been far different from what we were promised.

To start with, San Leandro's red light cameras were installed at intersections with enough vehicle traffic to generate sufficient revenue to pay for their annual cost. They were *not* installed at the intersections that were the most dangerous. In fact, when one red light camera location was found not to generate enough citations, it was removed!

This is a common problem with red light camera programs, not just in San Leandro, but across the country. You can watch a short explainer video here. Also, visit here and here for further information.

Meanwhile, in 2019, 88.3% of citations from San Leandro's red light cameras were for a right turn at red. This is nearly the same as 2018, which had 88.0% of citations for a right turn at a red. In both years, the total number of citations issued were over 9,000, almost all of them for legal right turns on a red light.

Now, as we all know, in California (along with most states) turning on a red is allowed unless the intersection is specifically marked to prohibit it. In fact, turning on a red, when safe to do so, is not just common but *expected* driver behavior and failure to do so can lead to traffic congestions and unsafe driving conditions. See more discussion about turning right on red here and here. 

Notably, one stated purpose of installing the red light cameras was to reduce T-bone collisions, where a car running a red light collides with the side of another vehicle. Yet, accidents have actually increased at two intersections since red light cameras were originally installed. Conversely, San Leandro had a greater reduction in collision rates at intersections without red light cameras than those with red light cameras! (Contrary to the false assertions by SLPD Chief Tudor about the program’s efficacy.)

If you look at a Traffic Engineering Technical Assistance Program (TETAP) report completed in early 2005 for the city – around the same time as the implementation of the red light camera program – you will see that most of the recommendations to reduce collisions were changes to signage, implementing signals, changing existing signal intervals, and structural changes to intersections and roadways themselves. Another thing to note is that, the report listed some of the most high-collision intersections in the city that are *still* not on the list of intersections with a red light camera program.

See a copy of the report here. You can also see more data on red light camera citations for San Leandro here. You can get copies of San Leandro traffic collision data by submitting a public records request; process information is available here. Alternatively, you can visit here for data and statistics from the California Office of Traffic Safety, which includes the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) that SLPD submits their data to. Don’t forget to cross check the discrepancies from the posted information about the red light camera program by SLPD here. 

But there’s more to the story. See, the vendor for San Leandro’s red light camera program is Redflex Traffic Systems. The same company that was involved in a $2 million bribery scandal in Chicago in 2010, which went all the way to top with their former CEO. The same company that created a huge spike in illegal citations in Fremont in 2017 when yellow lights were shortened without informing the city’s management. The same company costing San Leandro far more than other similar municipalities. Yet, while Oakland, Hayward, Napa, and Redwood City ditched Redflex, San Leandro decided to extend their contract! Actually, the city extended it twice – first in 2011 and again in 2019 – and in an incomprehensible reversal, Mayor Cutter voted against the extension in 2011 but then for it in 2019, even as other city councilmembers and residents raised significant reasons to doubt that the program was in the community’s best interests.

You can find more information from local reporters here and here. Redflex even has its own thoroughly sourced Wikipedia page here, and you should check the citations for details on the company’s criminal history.

But, again, this issue is not unique to San Leandro. The same sort of things also happened in Houston and Dallas, Texas, among other cities discussed in the articles posted above. Check out this article and this article for more information.

So, we have a red light camera program that barely generates enough money to cover its operational costs, provides very little revenue to the city directly, doesn’t reduce the need for traffic enforcement, hasn’t improved traffic safety because it wasn’t designed to, primarily serves to cite people for making safe and legal right turns, and is managed by a corrupt vendor convicted in federal court of bribery and fraud.

Cui bono? Who benefits from this? Because it sure isn’t the people of San Leandro.

Actually, let’s talk about that, about the real cost to people for these tickets. A red light camera ticket costs around $500 after all the fees and fines are tacked on to the original infraction. If you want to fight the ticket, you need to invest time, effort, and even more resources through court procedures. This disproportionately burdens low-income residents, who have to decide between “just” paying a ticket for a safe and legal right turn on red that they never should’ve received and that they can’t afford among the high-cost of living here in San Leandro – or risking even more by fighting the ticket while juggling job and family obligations against a system very few people understand, and that even fewer can successfully navigate without legal aid that can be expensive and/or hard to find. If they lose, they may end up even worse off than before, with the possibility of traffic school, jeopardizing their driving license, and impacting their background record, among other worries from becoming unable to afford their housing to even losing their job.

 

You can see how this leads to a vicious cycle, right? Read more about it here and here and here and here and here.

I hope this post has helped make it clear that it’s past time that San Leandro learns the lesson other cities have long since learned: red light camera programs don’t work, cause more harm than they allegedly prevent, and they shouldn’t exist in our community. We need a new way, a better way, to handle traffic and roadway safety.

For a sneak-peek on what that *could* look like, visit this website.

(Credit for original content and research provided by Mike Katz-Lacabe.)

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Addendum:

Unfortunately, due to the proprietary nature of Redflex's product, as well as the intertwined nature of their work with law enforcement, I'm not (yet) able to obtain copies of internal documents that discuss the specifics of how their cameras work in brass tacks, particularly compared to systems by other vendors and how accurate they are, as well as how accurate the reviews prior to issuing a citation are. I don't put much stock in the marketing materials, for obvious reasons. (For likely issues with reviews of flags by the cameras and how those become issued citations, see this article.)

But, as noted above, almost all of the right turn on red (RTOR) citations are for safe and legal right turns.

That said, a story from 2010, when red light camera program use was spreading, showed that cameras will even flag drivers who make a full stop and then pull slowly forward in preparation for a right turn. The story has other damning information about red light camera programs. You can see it here.

Additionally, the LA Times noted in 2008 that the "rolling" right turn on red is not actually unsafe and was not the rationale for the use of red light camera programs. Check it out here. Notably, no proof has ever been offered by SLPD or Redflex that a majority of the RTORs they capture are illegal, let alone unsafe.