Red Light Cameras have become ubiquitous in Hollywood and Los Angeles over the past few years. The charge for various incursions into the Red Light world are now over $500 bucks per offense. There are ingenious violations that have quietly been added to increase the “price of admission”. How about failing to come to a complete stop when making a right turn? How about entering the intersection only to be blocked by someone else and then being nailed for Blocking the Intersection?
Costa Mesa and Santa Ana seem to be the two locations in Orange County that consider “their automated police officers” a good identification for “cash cows” and the ability to keep getting those Public/Private Funds working overtime. Last year Huntington Beach determined after some serious study that the 18 locations they had suggested as test sites for Red Light Cameras – including nine located between Pacific Coast Highway and the 405 Freeway on Beach Blvd. were probably going to cause more harm than good. The cost for each camera going into Huntington Beach was $6,000 dollars a month. If you put four cameras at each intersection……the Red Light Camera provider is making $24,000 per intersection per month.
The Huntington Beach City Council in June of 2009 grasped the concept that between lost revenue from tourism, the lack of a definitive safety relationship based on Red Light Cameras……….the system was just not going to pencil out. We applaud the wisdom of the Huntington Beach City Council and were amazed when our Red Light Camera Detector – from SkyMall for $199 dollars told us that the nine Red Light Cameras on Beach Blvd. that had been suggested were no longer in the mix of active Red Light Cameras in Orange County. Actually, the initial test called for a total of 18 Cameras Citywide! Red Light Detector? https://www.skymall.com Item # 77670
Costa Mesa is loaded with Red Light Cameras. Lots of them on Harbor Blvd. and all were created under the last Police Chief…giving the current Police Chief cover for their continuation. There is a rumor that Costa Mesa may at the end of the contract determine, much as Huntington Beach did – that Red Light enforcement is fraught with short yellows, misguided automated equipment and overpriced upkeep on the equipment. Let us pray that Costa Mesa once again becomes a great place to go to purchase goods and services without those egregious, invasive and dangerous Red Light Cameras.
*From the Orange County Register:
“Vehicle code violations are $466, with an additional $50 for traffic school, and roughly a third of that amount goes directly to the city. Administrative citations are much lower, roughly $100 for a first time offense, with fines that increase with each violation.
Laguna Woods is one of more than 40 cities in California that uses red-light cameras at intersections.
Seven Orange County cities, including Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, San Juan Capistrano and Los Alamitos, use red light cameras at a total of 36 intersections. In his budget proposal, the governor has included a plan that would allow cities and counties to upgrade existing red light camera devices, an estimated 500 devices statewide, to capture photos of violators. Tickets would be sent by mail.”
==============================
It seems that Costa Mesa is still fully in the mix at this writing and we are astounded that their stupidity continues unabated, in spite of a class action suit that made the city pay back millions in fines that were collected illegally.
Hollywood and Los Angeles are both desparate entities and the best way to keep those pesky tourists out of those communities is to make those Red Light Cameras ubiquitous and keep increasing the cost of the fees! Nonsense! Who wants to go to Los Angeles anyway? How many Red Light Cameras are there in Los Angeles and Hollywood? Soon, too many to count! http://www.photoenforced.com/
So, to all those Police Chiefs that will be retiring and are looking for a little after retirement rebate cash…….set up those Red Light Cameras on every corner of your jurisdiction. For those City Council Members who think they can make a killing for City Revenue from stupid tourists and drunk locals…..go right after those Red Light Cameras. To those bleeding hearts that think that a two second yellow is enough notice and who cares whose insurance rate goes up or whose bank account falls flat……go right after those Red Light Cameras.
For the rest of us……we will work for Recalls and for throwing those stupid government officials…out on their ears! In 1950, Engineer Bill Stulla was on Channel 5 in Los Angeles. He wanted us keeps to drink our milk. He wore a Train Engineer cap and said is correctly: Red Light…..put your milk down…Green light – drink it all up!
people / drivers who stop for RED lights do not get tickets.
Who would have known?
I there Little Engineers.
This is Engineer Bill saying welcome to the channel 9 roundhouse ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzvdlE45XEI
If you have a red light camera ticket in Santa Ana, fight it. Take it all the way to a trial – the judge is dismissing all pre-December Santa Ana camera tickets, at trial. But you have to put up the bail and take it all the way to trial – asking at arraignment won’t do the trick. This is happening because of recent appeal decisions.
In California, that need to identify the actual violator has led to the creation of a unique investigatory tool, the Snitch Ticket. When the police encounter a face photo which is clearly neither the registered owner nor another licensed driver residing at the owner’s address, at least 38 California police departments mail the registered owner a document that looks like a real camera ticket (but in fact is not, and has no legal weight whatsoever), in an effort to fool the owner into identifying the driver responsible for the offense. If in doubt, Google the term Snitch Ticket.
Cook,
Let me know the next time you get a “short” yellow and end up over the limit line or slightly into the crosswalk and see that big bad flash. Then talk to me about stopping for red lights.
*Great comments all….but the real story is not only the “stress related emotional and psychological ailments” created by these lights..but the ramp up to the English Style which is bound to follow…which includes one mile an hour over speed limits, illegal lane changes, road use taxes, City access fees and a plethora of Vehicle Code Violations….all added by edit…anytime the bureaucrats need another tax buck for their latest meeting or training session out of state! Maybe Toyota can fix their accelerator pedals first?
The fines should be an enforcement tool and not an Extra Revenue raiser.
What should the fines be? I don’t know.
“get a “short” yellow”, Anonplus, try driving at or below the maximum speed limit.
Actually fines were originally designed to reinforce the rules of the road to promote driving safety and based upon the expense to enforce that law. Revenue was an afterthought in some politicians office.
In todays world few cops are out there with the primary thought of promoting driving safety via tickets. They are out to prove statistics to justify their job performance. While quotas are illegal ask any officer what would happen to his review if he gave out warnings all month instead of tickets for borderline infractions.
As for “short” yellow lights; they are designed to defeat the speed vs weight vs distance and cohesive ratio to stop within a certain amount of space. In other words defeat the ability to stop legally at the posted speed limit. It’s not rocket science and it’s why some judges and cities are revisiting these gadgets.
I got a redlight ticket at Harbor and GG Blvd in Garden Grove. 6:30 in the morning and I was turning right onto Harbor coming off the 22E. Absolutely no one on the roads at that time. The light started to turn yellow as I approached, with no one on the road though and the fact that I was making a right turn I wasn’t really concerned about the light, rather I was making sure there weren’t any cars that were going South on Harbor. So while in the process of checking traffic (which the video shows) I slow down to like 2 or 3 mph and then make the turn.
If it was an actual Police Officer instead of a stupid camera, I am sure I would not have gotten a ticket. The worst part though was that I had to attend traffic school on two weeknights (which was a complete and utter joke) and when I got there I realized my fine of over 500 bucks was like 2 and 3 times more than people who blew threw red lights going straight and idiots caught going like 95 on the freeway.
Luckily me and my wife are both college educated and do alright for ourselves, although 500 is still A LOT for us. Had many friends and family in my life gotten a 500 dollar fine I know it would have set them back a ton. Heck I know a ton of hard working people who make about that much every two weeks after taxes. Also the 500 dollars they took from me would have been donated to non-profits had I not had to send it to pay for GG Police Officer’s overtime and their underfunded retirement…..
The whole experience also really soured me on our society. Before that ticket I felt far more apart of our society, now it feels much more like the government is against us and I really don’t want to do anything to help it. Maybe that’s wrong, but I’m just telling you how the whole thing made me feel.
*Anonplus….ridiculous isn’t it? Well, we just need to let elected know that “Red Light Cameras” or “Speed Cameras” can’t rationalize, can’t grasp the overall and have no conscious awareness – except bringing in revenue.