If you’re rushing through West Hollywood and the driver in front of you brakes as the traffic light turns yellow, think twice before cursing him out.
He may have just saved you $271.
On May 26, eight cameras will be installed at six intersections in West Hollywood to snap pictures of drivers who zip through red lights. The addition of these cameras, on the heels of similar devices installed months ago in Century City and Beverly Hills, may be the beginning of a region-wide rollout. Both the city and county of Los Angeles are considering installing the monitoring systems on a large-scale basis.
Intersections scheduled to have cameras turned on this week include: Beverly Boulevard and Robertson Boulevard; a sequence on La Cienega Boulevard at Melrose Avenue and Sunset Boulevard; and another sequence on Fountain Avenue at Crescent Heights Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.
You can’t say they didn’t warn you. The West Hollywood City Council has had signs posted at each of these intersections for the past month to inform drivers that they are approaching a monitored traffic signal.
Photographs of red-light-runners are taken at two points, once as the car enters the intersection and again as the car passes underneath the signal.
A picture is taken of the driver and the car’s license plate. Within 48 hours, the owner will get his or her own copies of the photographs and a ticket for $271.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles reviews the photographs taken by the cameras. The tickets then are issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is under contract to provide law enforcement in West Hollywood.
Out of courtesy for those who may not want their driving companion’s identity known, all images of passengers in the offending car will be blacked out.
Lockheed Martin Corp. provides the $50,000 cameras free of charge to municipalities in exchange for a cut of the fines handed out. “There’s no cost for the program for local governments,” said Lockheed Martin spokesman Ron Jury. “We only get paid if there are violators.”
Though he declined to give specifics, the amount Lockheed Martin takes in varies because the volume of fines varies from city to city, Jury said. West Hollywood’s $271 fine is on the high end; in Charlotte, N.C., motorists pay $50 if caught running a red.
In January, Lockheed Martin entered the intersection-camera market by acquiring San Diego-based U.S. Public Technologies LLC, which was widely considered the leader in photo-enforcement technology.
So-called “violation capture” cameras, such as the ones being installed in West Hollywood, already are in operation in 30 cities, including San Francisco, Washington, Denver and Baltimore.
Sensors under the asphalt are energized every time the light turns red. If there is a car in the intersection, these sensors instruct the camera to snap a picture. The cameras are connected to the traffic signal with a protective steel casing, which is apparently quite effective.
Last year in Charlotte, an infuriated driver took out a high-caliber handgun and fired 21 shots into one of the intersection cameras. It didn’t break.
The first month of the West Hollywood photo enforcement program is a trial period during which time drivers will receive written warnings instead of tickets, according to Joyce Rooney, associate transportation planner with the West Hollywood Department of Transportation.
After they are switched on, the cameras won’t monitor all directions of an intersection at all times, Rooney said, but they will be frequently rotated to face different directions. For instance, the camera at La Cienega and Sunset may monitor northbound drivers on La Cienega one day, and eastbound drivers on Sunset the next.
The specific camera layout is for traffic planners to know and the rest of us to wonder about.
“We’re hoping to see a reduction in traffic accidents and an improvement in the gridlock,” Rooney said. “The main objective is that drivers become better and safer.”
In 1998, U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater announced a nationwide campaign to target aggressive driving by encouraging cities to install more of the cameras.
“More and more public officials are recognizing the public safety benefits of photo enforcement,” said Alan Viterbi, vice president of Lockheed Martin’s photo enforcement group. “They know and understand that it can and does save lives.”
The cameras in Beverly Hills and Century City appear to be getting results.
Lt. Al Munoz-Flores of the Beverly Hills Police Department said there is a “learning curve.” When the cameras are first set up, he said, numerous drivers get caught rolling red lights. But as they become aware of the monitoring program, the number of violations decreases.
Munoz-Flores said there has been a 51 percent reduction in the number of violations recorded since Beverly Hills started the program in 1997.
The amount of revenue brought in by the program varies from city to city, depending on how quickly drivers catch on to the photo enforcement cameras. Nationwide, the cameras have brought in $400 million, Jury said.
The cameras also provide savings, he said, by freeing up police officers who would otherwise be camping out on corners, looking for violators.
But old habits die hard, especially for unruly L.A. drivers. Rooney says he has heard a variety of reports about drivers trying to beat the system.
Some motorists zoom through reds at intersections immediately before a monitored light in order to catch the green at the camera-monitored signal. Other drivers speed up as soon as they see a green light at the intersection just to make sure that there’s no chance of being caught rolling a red.
Such antics don’t amuse officials, who believe that by and large the intersection cameras will encourage people to drive more responsibly.
“Yeah, the fine hurts,” Rooney said. “But so does a major traffic accident.”
