When TV host Allen Funt told unsuspecting people in the 1960s to “Smile, you're on Candid Camera,” the inevitable result was a lot of laughter and a sigh of relief. But when the city of San Bernardino says it to unsuspecting motorists, the result can be two weeks of anxiety, followed by a hefty fine and increased insurance rates.

Since August 2005, the city has used high-tech video camera equipment, known as red-light cameras (RLC), to document drivers who run red lights, or edge into crosswalks while the light is red, at a growing number of intersections.

San Bernardino's RLC program is similar to systems in 13 other California cities and 19 municipalities in eight other states that are provided by the city's vendor. It is one of several companies supplying the service to more than 100 cities nationwide.

City officials say the RLC program is designed to decrease accidents, injuries and deaths caused by red-light scofflaws. But to some mountain residents—who currently encounter two of the spy-in-the-sky systems before they even get to the 210 freeway—the enforcement tool may seem more like it's aimed primarily at lightening their wallets.

Local drivers aren't the only ones to question the fairness, or the wisdom, of San Bernardino's program. The Internet boasts numerous sources that seek to poke holes in the safety argument, the very theory underlying all RLC systems.

HIGH FINES

That violators pay dearly for cruising through camera-equipped intersections is a matter of record. According to a San Bernardino Police Department spokesman, fines for conviction of a red-light offense are based on state mandates. “The current amount, including all fees plus the penalty, is around $400,” the spokesman said. Internet sources indicate California may have the highest penalty of any state for red-light violations.

The amount such a ticket may increase insurance rates depends, of course, on the offender's driving record, the rules of the company that issued the policy and whether the driver attends traffic school. But even after school completion (costs range from around $12 to as high as $24.95, according to an Internet check of schools in San Bernardino County), the driver still must pay the ticket.

Back in 2005, San Bernardino city fathers looked at the city's traffic-accident statistics and decided something had to be done to reduce them. Emerging technology, in place in New York City since 1993, promised a solution. The city issued a request for proposals. Several companies replied, but the city concluded the bid by Nestor Traffic Systems of Providence, R.I., featured the best technology, so Nestor won the contract.

The first intersection to be equipped with the technology, which the company calls CrossingGuard, was Waterman Avenue and Hospitality Lane, at the heart of the burgeoning commercial strip on the city's south side. It's an intersection carrying heavy traffic to and from the San Bernardino Freeway, as well as shoppers headed for places like the Home Depot, the big-box stores and the city's restaurant row.

Since then, the city has added the camera systems at four other intersections—Highland and Arden, Mt. Vernon and 9th Street, and two corners used by many mountain residents in their daily commutes, 40th and Waterman and 30th and Waterman.

MORE CAMERAS COMING

Within the next year, San Bernardino plans to install the systems at six more intersections: University and Kendall, Tippecanoe and San Bernardino, Waterman and 9th, Waterman and Highland, Orange Show and E Street and Mt. Vernon and Rialto Avenue.

For each intersection where the technology is installed, the city and Nestor sign separate contracts, said a police spokesman. The cost depends on how many “approaches” to the intersection are to be governed. For example, at Waterman and 40th, only north and southbound traffic is monitored, so that corner has two approaches. The installation cost per intersection runs between $4,000 and $5,000, depending on the phase of the overall program in which the corner was equipped.

Those funds come from the city's general fund, and revenues collected from tickets, which are a portion of the total fine, as determined by the judge, go to that fund.

Judges also have discretion in the amount of fines levied. This fact is significant since the underlying law, Section 21453a of the California Vehicle Code, covers a range of red-light-related violations, some arguably more serious, and life threatening, than others. They include passing through an intersection after the light has turned red, turning right on a red light without making a full stop, and coming to a stop beyond the limit lines of a marked crosswalk.

Currently, the city assigns one full-time officer and one civilian employee to operate the system. Before it went on line, citations could be issued by any police officer, so the total manpower commitment devoted to red-light enforcement is impossible to calculate.

HOW IT WORKS

CrossingGuard operates on a simple principle. The cameras record video pictures of above-mentioned violations; drivers will know their actions have been recorded if they see a bright flash emanating from the system. All these videotaped events are screened by Nestor personnel to eliminate cases where there was no violation. The remaining instances are reviewed by a police officer, who determines whether to issue a ticket.

Generally, less than two weeks will pass between a driver's seeing the dreaded flash and receiving an even more dreaded ticket in the mail. Typically, about 47 percent of flashes eventually translate into tickets, a police spokesman said.

That two-week period can be a time of anxiety, especially for motorists with already shaky driving records; it's rather like waiting for the other shoe to drop in the apartment above, and not knowing whether the man who will drop it has one leg or two.

When a camera flashes it doesn't just mean the driver has a better than 50-50 chance of not being cited. It may also mean the system is malfunctioning or that inclement weather has caused a glitch.

On rare occasions, the spokesman said, an unexpected problem “has caused the flash to go off when nobody was even present at the intersection.”

Industry statistics indicate a very low percentage of drivers—perhaps as little as 3 percent—fight their tickets in court. “Of those that do contest the citation, few are successful since the violations are actually video and not still pictures,” the spokesman said.

FIGHTING TICKETS

For those who want to go before a judge, the process can be daunting. “Red-light camera citations are sent off to a side room (at the courthouse) where the violator is shown the video evidence (many violators do not realize that video is presented as evidence). Once shown the video, some violators choose to change their plea on the violation,” the spokesman said.

Contrary to perceptions by mountain residents that the red-light enforcement may unfairly single them out to be a cash cow, San Bernardino Police Department Public Information Officer Lt. Scott Patterson said that for the first intersection mountain drivers reach, just the opposite is true. At 40th and Waterman, he said, 90 percent of citations are actually issued to northbound traffic, and the bulk of those go to drivers turning left, onto westbound 40th.

Since the department does not keep records of the zip code or city of origin of violators, it is impossible to determine how many of those northbound offenders might be mountain residents, perhaps stopping off at Stater Bros. on their way home from work.

Authorities contend the program has been successful in making San Bernardino's streets safer. “In all cases evaluated, the collision stats, as they relate to red-light violations causing the collision, have been reduced,” the spokesman said. “For instance, at 40th and Waterman (closest to the mountain), there were 23 collisions in 2005, 24 in 2006 and 13 in 2007. The cameras were installed in late 2007. Other locations have seen similar results.”

Not everyone agrees with that kind of safety analysis, however. In fact, numerous studies have concluded that red-light camera enforcement, while netting huge revenues for the cities that install it, actually causes more injury accidents than it prevents.

CAMERAS CAUSE

ACCIDENTS?

An article titled “Red Light Cameras Part 1: Smile,” available on the web at http://indg.wordpress.com, cites a 2005 study by the Washington Post that concluded Washington, D.C.'s RLC program, dating back to 1984, “increased collisions at RLC-equipped intersections. Injuries and fatalities from collisions went up 81 percent, and right-angle collisions went up 30 percent at intersections with RLC.”

However, RLC did generate $15.5 million for Washington, D.C.'s coffers in a 30-month period, according to “Inside the District's Red Lights,” published in the politically conservative website of The Weekly Standard in 2002.

The “Smile” article cited similar accident findings in a 1995 study of RLC in Melbourne, Australia, as well as a March 2008 article in the Florida Public Health Review that also said RLC increase accidents and injuries.

Another rap on the use of RLC is the statistical information used to justify their deployment is biased. The “Smile” article reports that much of the testimony often cited in favor of RLC installations traces back to a man named Richard Retting, a senior transportation engineer for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), often referred to as the “father of the red-light camera movement” in America.

The article notes that IIHS “is an organization financed and supported exclusively by the insurance industry,” and calls its data collection “subjective and selective,” focusing only on accidents occurring between the crosswalks in intersections “and ignoring rear-end collisions in front of the intersection, where most occur.”

Regardless of who is right, RLC are a force to be contended with—or driven around, if alternate routes through nearby residential neighborhoods can be identified—for the foreseeable future.

Whether San Bernardino's experiment with eye-in-the-sky technology becomes a permanent fixture of the city's driving scene remains to be determined, and may ultimately depend on whose version, and whose vision, the city council adopts.

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