Red-Light Runners on Film

Flash, flash, flash-it looks just like Oscar Night as car after car speeds through the intersection on a red light. Those of us calmly awaiting the next green shake our heads-“Can you believe that guy?”

Each year, more than 1.8 million intersection crashes occur, according to the Federal Highway Administration. In 1998, red-light running accounted for 89,000 crashes, 80,000 injuries and nearly 1,000 deaths. The public costs add up to more than $7 billion.

But now, thanks to the installation of cameras at many California intersections, red-light runners aren’t getting too far. The program has been a very
successful deterrent, decreasing the number of traffic accidents; thus decreasing damages, injuries and fatalities; thus decreasing claims and payouts. This makes everyone happy (with the exception of the driver with the ticket in her mailbox).

So why isn’t everyone, especially the insurance industry, going all out to get these cameras in place? To date, only California, Hawaii, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia have passed bills allowing the use of red-light cameras statewide; and in six other states, the cameras are permitted in individual communities.

States and communities using the cameras have reported a big drop in red-light running crashes. A study of programs in Oxnard, Calif., and Fairfax, Va., found that red-light running dropped more than 40 percent at intersections where the cameras were installed.

Interestingly, red-light running also decreased at intersections that did not have the cameras. Is that because people are afraid there might be cameras, or is the social stigma of running red lights becoming more distasteful? A recent Insurance Research Council poll shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans favor red-light cameras, demonstrating society’s eagerness to ban an activity that has become as uncool as smoking (look for more states to follow California’s example there as well).

Currently, 16 states are considering bills that would permit some form of red-light camera use or would modify existing laws, according to the NAII. Washington State’s legislature just passed a red-light bill in the Senate requiring that the cameras take pictures of the vehicle and license plate only, not the driver or passengers.

This is a good antidote for the protest that the pictures are an invasion of privacy. Really, as Dan Kummer, director of auto insurance for the NAII, puts it: “A car speeding through a red light at a busy intersection is not a private domain. It’s a public place with devastating public consequences when other motorists or pedestrians are injured or killed.”

Fortunately for drivers and the insurance industry, the red-light camera is an idea whose time has come. We need to get behind it all the way.

Topics California Auto