Do Red Light Cameras Prevent Accidents or Just Generate Revenue?

The city will tell you they prevent accidents. A review of the statistics at intersections with red light cameras tells you something different - at most intersections accidents are up (from CBS2 News):

Videos, provided to us by companies that sell red-light camera systems, show gruesome accidents and red light violators caught on tape. It is images like these that sell cities on the use of red light cameras.

The pitch is that these cameras will increase safety and reduce accidents. Also, the cities will make some money on the side at more than $400 a ticket!

In Los Angeles the LAPD claims accidents are down after they installed cameras, but are they telling the whole truth or just trying to make money off motorists?

We crunched the numbers and the results may surprise you.

"Your data is shocking to me," Sherman Ellison said.

Ellison is a ticket attorney and part time judge, who believes the cameras are there for one reason.

"No question. Purely a revenue generating device," Ellison said.

Is it money or safety? We wanted to know actual numbers of accidents at red light camera intersections to see if they really went down.

When we asked, the LAPD became very defensive. The sergeant in charge told me in an e-mail, "The city would hope that it is the goal of KCBS/KCAL to discuss the positive aspects of the photo red light program."

So we filed a public records request. The department charged us more than $500 for a computer run. When we got the numbers back, they told a different story.

We looked at every accident at every red light camera intersection for six months of data before the cameras were installed and six months after.

The final figures? Twenty of the 32 intersections show accidents up after the cameras were installed! Three remained the same and only nine intersections showed accidents decreasing.

At Manchester Avenue and Figueroa Street, accidents more than tripled from five before the cameras were installed to 16 afterwards. Westwood Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard tripled from three to nine. At Rodeo Road and La Brea Avenue, collisions nearly tripled from seven in the six months before the cameras were installed to 20 in the same period afterwards.

The reason?

"People see the light flash and they slam on their brakes," Ellison said. "That's just human nature. As a result, more accidents, more rear end accidents."

Certainly the rear-enders caused by the lights are less serious than a high speed T-bone accident that running a light might cause, but I'm guessing that most of these rear-enders never would have happened without the presence of the cameras. Those people would have proceeded safely though the intersection and gone on without incident.

Red light and speed cameras are all about raising revenue - everything else is a smokescreen. Here in my town we have a number of hills with long downhill slopes. Where do you think the cops sit with their radar guns? At the bottom of the downhill sections where they can write tickets all day because cars will pick up speed on downhill sections, often without the driver realizing it or intending to speed. It's not only a speed trap, it's a money trap.

I personally don't think our town is any safer because some motor officer is picking off moms in minivans going 8 over the speed limit on a downhill section.