March 4, 2010
By Isaac Babcock
The Voice
Oviedo may soon have its own red-light cameras, as the city jumped onto the national trend toward implementing the devices at Monday's City Council meeting.
But the city's vote for the cameras, which would ticket red-light runners with "code enforcement violations" and fines, wasn't without dissent. Some on the Council questioned whether the cameras would cause more harm than good, possibly increasing accidents, or ticketing drivers who wouldn't have posed much if any danger to other drivers.
Councilman Stephen Schenck was the only member of the Council to directly oppose the cameras, saying that it was "creating a solution for a problem we haven't even studied yet."
He said that intersections other Council members had cited anecdotally as being dangerous hadn't been studied for safety risks or patrolled by large groups of officers to try to reduce violations.
Councilman Steve Henken was the most vocal supporter of the cameras, saying that he was in favor of them regardless of studies of red-light running in Oviedo. He cited that at three intersections in Winter Springs where cameras had been installed, red-light running and crashes were reduced.
"I'm 100 percent for it," he said. "This is all about safety."
But in a much larger research project by the University of South Florida studying the effects of cameras statewide and nationwide, accidents where red-light cameras were installed actually increased, in some cases dramatically.
"The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don't work," said author Barbara Langland Orban, chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health. "Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections."
According to studies in North Carolina and Virginia, crashes that resulted in injuries significantly increased at intersections where red-light cameras were installed, largely from rear impacts when drivers attempted panic stops to avoid being ticketed.
In a USF analysis of Florida's red-light running and accident statistics before the installation of cameras, the incidence of red-light crashes had actually been falling over the last decade. Absent the cameras, accidents caused by red-light runners represented only 4 percent of all fatalities per year. During the last decade, red-light running accidents dropped by 33 percent.
Schenck said that in Winter Springs, though it appeared some types of crashes were reduced at intersections with cameras installed, rear impacts remained steady.
"Based on the crash numbers, we have a rear-end crash problem there now based on the crashes that we know of, and they didn't go down," he said.
Schenck proposed an alternate solution to the cameras, where the city increases the duration of yellow lights to prevent drivers from being forced to brake hard to avoid running the light.
"Adding a little more time to the yellow is a proven technique," Schenck said. "And it lasts. There's no rebound to it."
Mark Bedard, the regional sales manager for Gatso USA, which sells the cameras, said that lengthening yellow light duration does work, but disagreed that it could work forever.
In a March 13, 2009, report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, intersections in five cities in Gwinnett County with the cameras were shown to have reduced accidents after a state law was passed that mandated yellow light duration be increased by one second. Three months after the lengthening of yellow lights was put into effect, red-light running had dropped off so much that the cities were forced to take down the cameras due to a lack of citations being handed out.
"Over the long term, it does go back to the way it was," Bedard said. "People know they can run the yellow longer."
The city of Loma Linda, Calif., lengthened its yellow lights, which reduced accidents so much that the city terminated a red-light camera contract.
"Lengthening yellow lights has produced a tremendous drop in violations," Councilman Rhodes Rigsby of Loma Linda said. "That is tremendous improvement in safety. We're talking about huge success of lengthening the yellow lights. … We could have had that safety with lengthening the yellow four years ago instead of installing red-light cameras."
One Oviedo councilman questioned whether the cameras would mostly ticket drivers who didn't stop completely at the stop bar for red-light turns at empty intersections, which Police Chief Jeffrey Chudnow agreed posed less of a risk for accidents.
"My concern is giving folks code enforcement violations on a simple right on red," Councilman Dominic Persampiere said. "There isn't one of us in this room who comes to a complete stop when there's no traffic. For us to send violations to people … I'd have a bit of a problem with that."
Bedard said that may be the case with red-light cameras.
"I would say the majority are right-turn violations overall," he said.
When asked by Mayor Mary Lou Andrews whether Gatso USA was only willing to install cameras in cities where they would generate enough revenue to be profitable, Bedard said that his company has in the past studied cities and decided they didn't require the cameras.
"Ideally the people I work for want to see more violations," he said. "Not all cities need the cameras."
Bedard said that in cities with the cameras installed, they can create a "halo effect," which
may reduce red-light running at nearby intersections that are not monitored. They also could provide insight to traffic engineers about traffic flow patterns and data.
The Council voted 4-1 in favor of installing the cameras, which would be preceded by a study to determine if the number of red-light violations or crashes would necessitate them.
There's a flaw in that process, Schenck said.
"I don't like the idea of voting for something that we don't even know we need yet," he said. "This is creating a problem before we even know we have one."
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