The Murrieta City Council gave the green light to expanding the city’s red light camera program late Tuesday evening.
In a 4-0 decision council members asked the city manager to draft an agenda item that will expand the red light cameras from three to five intersections. No vote was given because it was a discussion item but Council man Douglas McAllister expressed his concerns. Councilmembers said the public safety of residents outweighed any concerns about the city using the system to generate revenue and violating residents’ privacy.
The two new cameras will be placed at Interstate 215 southbound off-ramp at Murrieta Hot Springs and the Interstate 15 northbound off-ramp to Murrieta Hot Springs Road. The city will keep cameras at Murrieta Hot Springs Road/Whitewood Road, Murrieta Hot Springs/Margarita Road and Clinton Keith Road/Nutmeg Avenue. City officials decided on keeping the two lower performing red light intersections with the hope that the two new intersections would subsidize the lower performing.
Council members said the program has succeeded in Murrieta by lowering the number of red light violations and broad side collisions.
“If we could prevent one person from dying from a red light runner the program is working,” Councilman Alan Long said.
The city chose the three intersections in 2006 because at the time they were the busiest. A short study was done, with police placing small cameras at the intersections and on a random work day they caught 40 to 55 cars running red lights.
Since the lights were installed that number has dropped to less than one a day at the Murrieta Hot Springs/Margarita and Clinton Keith/Nutmeg intersections. The Whitewood/Murrieta Hot Springs still has five to six violations a day. The intersection is one of the busiest in Murrieta with 66,000 vehicles traveling through the intersection daily.
The city also did a study on the number of broad side collisions at the red light camera intersections. Over the past three years there were 14 accidents at the intersection. The police took a look at the same three-year period on the three intersections to the east and found there were 45 broad side collisions.
The police suggested taking cameras from the Murrieta Hot Springs/Margarita and Clinton Keith/Nutmeg intersections and adding them to Interstate 215 southbound off-ramp at Murrieta Hot Springs and the Interstate 15 northbound off-ramp to Murrieta Hot Springs Road. The new cameras would raise the lease rate from $4,850 per month to $5,395 a month.
Since the start of the cameras the city has made in revenue, after paying the $58,200 per quarter lease to ATS, $261,750. The amount does not include time spent by Murrieta officers to review possible citations, according to the staff report.
The city issues a $476 fine for running a red light, whether it is issued from a camera or a police office. Of that amount $158 goes to the city. The city is able to subsidize the camera program with three violations a day, Froboese said. The city needs at least two violations per intersection to fund the cameras.
The fine amount is not set by the city but by the state legislature.
A handful of residents attended the meeting and spoke for and against the red light cameras.
Temecula resident Tom Stoba came out to the meeting to speak his concerns.
“I never got any speeding ticket so I don’t have an ax to grind,” he said. “I just don’t like the concept. I don’t believe it’s the safety factor and have a problem with revenue factor.”
Cathy Bearse came out to support the program. She lives near the Whitewood/Murrieta Hot Springs interchange and had a neighbor involved in a car crash in 2004.
“Red light means to stop,” the Murrieta woman said. “I think they are needed. I feel safer in my neighborhood because we need them.”
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It is a complete revenue enhancer for the city. I haven’t received a ticket in over 21 years but this is aggressive tatics. I avoid Murrieta altogether becuase of the lights. I’m not the only one that does. I wonder what that does to the potential sales tax revenue for Murrieta.
Something had to be done. Dozens of cars were blantly running red lights at each of those signals every day.
Hundreds of other drivers every day were choosing to run yellow lights when they clearly had time to stop smoothly and making it past the stop line by only a few feet before the red started and thus were dangerously going the rest of the way on red but not counted as a red light violation.
The police in this city are abiding by the state law for red lights by setting yellow light timing at or longer than the state standars set by the state agencies.
For example 3.0 seconds yellow for 25 mph or slower.
3.2 seconds for 30 mph speed limit roads.
3.6 seconds for 35 mph
3.9 seconds for 40 mph
4.3 seconds for 45 mph
4.7 seconds for 50 mph
5.0 seconds for 55 mph
5.4 seconds for 60 mph
5.8 seconds for 65 mph
A major problem has occured because some cities several years ago were setting yellow light times delibertly shorter to cause more red light tickets including those issued by traffic officers.
The CA legislature passed a law stating red lights cameras could not be used unless the city set the yellow light timing minimum to the above.
But some cities failed to do this.
Councilman Gibbs suggested the city donate all excess money, if any, the city gained over the contract period into the designated city fund that the city contributes to recognized charities. This would get rid of complaints this city is doing it to raise money.
This was not voted on.
There is no assurance the city will make sny money from this. When first installed they brought in more that the monthly cost, but as the number of violations decreased the surplus was used up to very close to breakeven over the past five year contract.
The police in this city DO NOT ticket cars turning right safely on RED at 10 MPH or less as a matter of policy.
Anyone cited with this system is sent the still photos, and a link to see the video of onlt their citation during the full time period before during and after the violation.
They can look at it from home over the internet or if they prefer can make an appointment to view it at the police station.
If they have questions or want to discuss it with one of three traffic officers trained to work with the system they can do so by appointment mon-fri.
If they want to contest it in court they can do so.
wnat to get more explanation
can see the video of thier
One of the important considerations is that the red light camera company does NOT decide to issues tickets. It decides to send to the Murrieta police department recoded appearent violations for review by one of three sworn city police officers who have been trained in use of the system and city policies.
The traffic officer marks each candidate violation as send a citation, or do not send a citation, and sends it back electronically to the red light camera company which is authorized to send the official notice to appear at the specified court etc, and includes directions the person can follow to view the video of the incident.
One council member told about someone who complained to her about a ticket was issued for a right turn violation but she was going carefully under ten miles per hour.
With her permission she looked ast the video and the driver was rolling the stop at 15 MPH, talking on a hand held cell phone and not even looking to see if there was traffic comming on the green.
THE POLICE OFFICER AND THE COUNCIL EXPRESSED CONCERN THAT THE FINE SET BY THE STATE LEGISLATURE WAS WAY TOO HIGH.
NOT MENTIONED WAS THAT IN THE 2010 LEGISLATURE A BILL WAS INTRODUCED TO LOWER THE FINE FOR A RIGHT LANE TURN VIOLATION TO LESS THAN HALF OF A STRAIGHT THRU VIOLATION,, BUT IT DID NOT PASS, PROBABLY DID NOT GET OUT OF COMMITTEE.
My own opinion there are some corners where a drver from a side street with a red light can see both ways on the main street clearly and see the crosswalk and sidewalks clearly and can stop, or pass through safely.
But at the busier multi-lane roads where there are traffic signals and squeezed-in right turn lanes, and frequently a SUV or van waiting at the crosswalk, a driver must nearly stop behind the line and go cafefully forward before the driver can see whether or now a pedestrian, a small child, a skate boarder, a wheelchair, a slowly walking elderly or handicapped person is still in the cross walk to theleft or about to step off the curb top the right.
AND
Look at the cars crossing from the left, and/or cars about to be on comming doing their left turns into where you want to turn (they have the right of way), and also at some corners where cars from the right can make their u-turns into the lanes where you want to turn, only then after checking all of these is it safe to roll the red light for a right turn. Proceeding thru is safe ONLY if all these things are checked and found to be ok, so probably 3 or 4 mph might be safe for an experienced driver being careful.
We are told thast careful driver would NOT get a red light camera ticket in Murrieta.
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I don’t understand why people are opposed to the cameras. Why not use technology to catch people who put the rest of us in danger. Plus they will free up officers to attend to other crime. Thanks should go out to the council for not bending a knee to the vocal minority.
We have turned in the intent to circulate a petition in Murrieta to remove all traffic enforcement cameras. The petition will be ready to circulate the first week in March. Cameras do not make intersections safer. Changing the length of the yellow and adding a 4 sec red light interval does make the intersections safer. If the city council was worried about safety, they would change the red light interval.
Paul said:” Hundreds of other drivers every day were choosing to run yellow lights”…
Can you “run” a yellow light? Isn’t the point of a yellow light set at the right speed/seconds to reduce jamming on brakes to avoid unnecessary accidents? Slowing down to stop is fine if you have ample time, the congestion allows and you are not going to end up in the middle of an intersection. Oh yeah..that’s why we have Green, Yellow and Red and not just Green and Red!