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Toledo's Red Light Special
The controversy surrounding more red light cameras shows no sign of stopping
published May 14th 2008
Everyone has done it. Cruising along at 45 mph, you suddenly realize that the light ahead of you has already turned yellow. A split second decision leads you to push hard on the accelerator and hold your breath. No time to check the intersection for police cars, you sail past that red glow hovering over you.
Now there is a new visceral reaction to add to that experience: the stomach drop as you see the flash go off behind you. The knowledge that a red light camera has just caught you is still a new and jarring sensation that has many drivers up in arms. The controversy around Toledo’s red light cameras is about more than just errant motorists angry that they got caught breaking the law; it’s about safety, fair play, money and even freedom.
Toledo setting the tread
Toledo was the first city in Ohio to use red light camera technology, starting with ten intersections in 2001. They entered into a partnership with Scottsdale, Arizona-based photo enforcement company Redflex Traffic Systems.
“At that time, there was only one company with digital technology,” Toledo Chief of Police Mike Navarre said of Redflex. “Most of the other companies actually put film in the cameras and then sent someone out to retrieve it. So we went with Redflex.”
Since then, the number of intersections using red light cameras has gone from 10 to 26, with a new contract signed in December 2007 that could have the number at 40 cameras by 2012. The five-year contract also included upping the fines from $90 to $120 per ticket, and capping Redflex’s percentage of that fine at $55. The former agreement had Toledo keeping only 25 percent of the ticket revenue; the new one has the city collecting 55 percent.
Many citizens don’t really understand the technology or how it is used. Getting a picture in the mail of your car flying through the intersection of a light you don’t remember running may seem like black magic unless you understand the science behind it. A car triggers the camera by passing over in-ground sensors that are connected to the traffic signals. Multiple photos are taken both when the car first triggers that sensor and as it goes through the intersection, along with a 12-second video clip capturing the act. If a car stops and backs up, it will not be cited for running the light.
After the photos are taken, they are digitally recorded and sent through a secure transmission to be viewed by at least three Redflex employees. If these employees find any reason not to issue the citation, such as an unclear photo or error in the camera equipment, the photos are discarded and never sent to the Toledo police department. As Michael Ferraresi, associate marketing manager at Redflex, pointed out, there are actual humans checking for mistakes and looking over the evidence.
“Automated citations are not about a robot just pumping out tickets,” he explained.
From that point, police officers in Toledo review the pictures to make sure plates are legible and the citation is valid. Citations are then sent out in the form of civil fines, which are not criminal violations. This means no points on your license or warrants for your arrest if they are not paid; however, unpaid tickets are turned over to collection agencies and may prevent a driver from renewing their license or registration.
'Civil'-ized violation
This idea of a “civil fine” is the first controversial aspect of these red light cameras. Since tickets are usually sent out weeks after violations occur, drivers rarely remember the exact date and time. This can make the appeals process more difficult if a driver does want to fight the ticket. Also, many view this automatic ticketing with no police officer in sight as a violation of constitutional rights. It is assumed that the registered owner of the vehicle is guilty of running the light, and the ticket is sent out without an opportunity for the person to appear in court.
“If you are pulled over by a cop and get a ticket, and you choose to fight it, the officer has to come into court and prove you are actually guilty,” explains Jeffrey Gamso, legal director of the Ohio ACLU. “With this civil fine, you can’t take it to court. There is only an appeals process where you have to go in and prove you are innocent.”
In this sense, Gamso said, it upsets the fundamental idea that we are innocent until proven guilty of breaking the law. Another critic of the cameras, The National Motorists Association (NMA) decries the backwards style that red light cameras use to ticket drivers. Bonnie Sesolak, development director for the NMA, noted that since most states have up to 90 days to notify drivers that they have been ticketed, the NMA has been receiving a lot of calls from drivers who have moved and never knew they had been ticketed. When they attempt to get a new driver’s license, they find out that not only will they not be issued a license, but that they have an unpaid ticket floating around at a collection agency somewhere.
“It is an inconvenience to the motorist,” Sesolak maintained. “There is no certifiable witness, there is no accuser for the motorist to confront. If it is not hand-delivered, a ticket can cause a lot of problems and photo enforcement puts the burden of proof on you.”
Legal action that centers on the constitutionality of this technology has upheld the citie’s rights to use these cameras. An Akron woman contested the constitutionality of civil fines being issued for what would otherwise be a criminal citation, if ticketed by a police officer, and the idea that the car’s owner is ticketed instead of the driver. In January 2008, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the home-rule authority of local governments to use these cameras, just as former governor Bob Taft did in 2007 by vetoing a bill that would have restricted camera use.
Safety first
Supporters of the red light cameras cite safety as the main reason to allow these civil fines to be issued. Red light cameras’ main goal is to cut down on intersection accidents and fatalities by deterring drivers from running lights. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety listed fatal crashes in 2006 for Ohio at 1,141, with 1, 238 deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported nearly 9,200 killed nationwide in 2005 in intersection-related crashes. Side impact crashes, or T-bone accidents, are assumed to be the most dangerous kind of intersection crashes and are often directly caused by red light running.
Leslie Blakey, executive director of the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running, explained that the need for new technology has grown with the expanding jobs of police officers.
“Since 9/11, police have had an added overlay of responsibility,” she said. “Police are doing more with fewer personnel, and people believe they can get away with aggressive driving because police enforcement has been stagnant. Better technology can reduce the problem without additional burden on the police.”
But the issue of safety is not necessarily a cut-and-dried one. Studies have sprung up in many states that question whether red light cameras truly reduce the number of accidents at intersections. A 57-month study done at the North Carolina Urban Transit Institute by researchers Mark Burkey and Kofi Obeng found that crashes were not reduced at intersections with cameras, and in fact, rear end crashes went up. A study at the University of South Florida College of Public Health found that red light cameras might increase accidents at red lights and also lead to higher automobile insurance rates.
Even proponents of red light cameras admit that rear end collisions may rise as a side effect of this technology. Drivers fearing tickets slam on their breaks at the last minute, and the car behind them occasionally ends up imbedded in their bumper. Chief Navarre said the same trend did take place in Toledo as well, with rear end collisions jumping up at first. However, statistics from Redflex show that Toledo has recently seen a decrease of 20 percent in accidents at camera-installed intersections.
“We did see an increase in minor rear end collisions, but we still saw an overall drop in accidents,” Chief Navarre explained. “The thing about these cameras is that every single intersection has shown a decrease in violations.”
Blakey, who admits that the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running’s major funding comes from photo enforcement industry leaders ACS (Affiliated Computer Services), Inc. and Redflex Traffic Systems, pointed out that rear end collisions are rarely as serious as side impact crashes.
“The societal benefit far outweighs rear end crashes,” she said. “Not to mention, under no system in the world is the car in front responsible for a rear end collision. What causes rear end collisions is that the car behind is following too close, not the red light camera or the car in front.”
Pain by numbers
In Toledo, fatality and injury accidents have dropped by almost half in ten years, from 4,659 in 1997 to 2,838 in 2007. However, this has been a gradual decrease, with no noticeably larger drop around 2001, when cameras first went in. Accidents with that level of severity have steadily declined by one or two hundred each year, with the biggest drop happening between 1997 and 1998.
Looking at statistics from the intersections where cameras have been installed, there are few examples of momentous change. There are also few examples of huge jumps in rear ends collisions, and a long-term look at this phenomenon is limited because manner of impact collision records taken by the Toledo police don’t begin until 2002. It is possible, however, to measure these manner of impact collisions using the intersections where cameras were installed after 2002.
For instance, at the Douglas and University Hills intersections, where cameras went up in 2005, rear end collisions numbered only four or five a year between 2002 and 2005. Starting in 2006, rear end crashes jumped to 15, followed by 13 accidents in 2007. Yet, at Cass and Heatherdowns, where cameras went up in 2005 as well, rear end collisions went from averaging just under 10 a year, to zero in 2007.
Sylvania and Talmadge’s cameras went up in 2004, and rear end accidents spiked from 11 in 2003, to 28 the next year. They then dropped to 18 in 2005, backing up the theory that collisions like these tend to jump as people first become aware of the cameras, and then stablilize. At Douglas and Laskey, when cameras were installed in 2005, accidents went from 19 or 20 in 2003 through 2005, to 31 for consecutive years in 2006 and 2007.
As for side impact crashes, though statistics are also available only from 2002 on, it is apparent that at intersections like Cass and Heatherdowns, and Laskey and Lewis, side impact crashes have tapered off since installation of red light cameras. However, Sylvania and Talmadge saw side impact crashes go from 10 in 2004, when cameras went up, to 32 the next year. Anthony Wayne Trail and Western had cameras go in up in 2004 as well, and saw side impact crashes spike from 13 that year to 22 in 2005, only to drop to 8 in 2006.
Besides these specific incidents, however, both side impact and rear end collisions at most of these intersections didn’t fluctuate significantly based on cameras being installed at the locations. This also holds true for the number of fatality or injury accidents at these intersections throughout a ten-year span, from 1997 until 2007. Accident data shows that overall, fatality and injury accidents have dropped from 240 in 1997 to 150 in 2007 at these specific intersections.
These numbers do not represent a steady decline, however. In 2004, the year that many of the red light cameras were installed throughout the city, fatality and injury accidents totaled 219, the highest since 1998. And though some intersections have seen a decrease in the average of accidents of this severity, others have risen since the installation of the cameras. Front and Main Street had cameras go up in 2002, and from 1997 to 2002 were averaging 14.5 accidents a year. From 2003 until 2007, that average has dropped to 6 accidents per year, evidence that red light cameras have worked there.
Cherry and Summit has seen accidents go from 12 in 1997, to one in 2007. When the red light camera was installed there in 2001, serious accidents numbered at 10 that year. The numbers have steadily decreased since then. But these do not represent the whole picture. Alexis and Lewis has seen their average accidents go up from 16.2 a year between 1997 and 2001, when the cameras were installed, to 18.8 a year between 2002 and 2007, with 32 injury or fatality accidents in 2004.
Just like with rear end or side impact collision accidents, however, the data for injury and fatality accidents show that the numbers do not radically change after red light cameras are installed. Most of the records from the Toledo Police Department show that some years will contain as many as 20 accidents at an intersection, a few years later only 5, and then again back up 19 a few years after that. As Chief Navarre pointed out, weather conditions and myriad other variables go into why accidents occur. Blaming red light cameras, or conversely, giving credit to them, for affecting accident patterns and how safely people drive may be a futile way to measure their worth.
No stopping for money
There may be a more insidious trend popping up across the nation. There have been several reports of municipalities decreasing the time on their yellow lights in order to increase revenue from red light cameras. Though not widespread, even a few of these cases look bad for red light cameras, especially fueling critics who insist they are less about safety than about revenue-generation. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a refund of $8800 was issued to motorists after a judge tested the yellow light timing at an intersection and found it to be almost a full second shorter than the minimum of 3.9 seconds.
Lubbock, Texas was outed before cameras were even installed at their intersections, when a local television station uncovered the city’s short timing of yellow lights at eight of twelve intersections where cameras were supposed to go. The red light cameras went in despite the bad publicity, only to be taken out after accidents spiked by 52 percent. The city also saw no profits from the operation, partly because a new state law required 50 percent of the profits to go to the state.
Money has been a controversial issue in the case of red light cameras in Toledo, as well. Chief Navarre made it clear that the caution cycle (yellow light timing) was not changed at any intersections in Toledo, but that revenue is a still a part of what makes these cameras work.
“In a perfect world, we would not make a nickel because everyone would obey the law,” he said. “But revenue is a fortunate by-product of enforcement. Fines deter and sanction against inappropriate behavior.”
In fact, with the new Redflex contract came to a vote in City Council to change the amount of the civil fines and the percentage that Toledo gets from each violation. Previously, the $90 fines were split between Toledo and Redflex, with 75 percent going to the photo enforcement company. Now that the vote has passed City Council, the new contract ups fines to $120 and allows Toledo to keep 55 percent of that money. Projections are that Toledo will make $2.5 million this year from red light camera and speed enforcement ticketing, up from around $600,000 in 2007, when 23, 595 citations were issued.
Doing simple math on these numbers shows that the city of Toledo is not planning on red light cameras decreasing the number of red light runners; it is only planning on making more money off of them. Increasing ticket prices, along with the percentage of the tickets they receive, and adding seven additional cameras this year will not serve as a deterrent to aggressive drivers, but only allow the city to cash in.
This money will all go to the general fund, since nothing in the ordinance specifies how the money is used. Council member Betty Schultz, who voted against raising the ticket prices and percentage, expressed a concern about how much of the money made by these tickets isn’t going back into Toledo.
“I’d like to know how much we’ve made for Redflex,” Schultz questioned. “Why should we send Toledo dollars out of Toledo? We should find a way to put money into putting more blue uniforms on the street, so we would not have a shortage of officers to begin with.”
Toledoans might well wonder why red light camera technology is outsourced to an Arizona company. Training people to run the technology involved, and keeping the systems up and running, is more expensive than simply paying a company to do it for you in the short run. However, in the long run, more Toledo-based tech jobs and the ability to keep 100 percent of the profits in Toledo could outweigh the start-up costs. As Jeffrey Gamso of the Ohio ACLU pointed out, public safety should be the government’s business.
Is Big Brother watching?
“It’s harder to hold a company like Redflex accountable because they are not here,” Gamso said. “It’s cheaper up front to contract out than do it yourself, but is it the proper thing for a government to be doing?”
Gamso also wonders about the use of information by both private companies and governments. The operation of these cameras allows them to take license plate numbers and, if tweaked, to be saved as records of where people are as they drive through the city. Giving fodder to conspiracy theorists is not Gamso’s motivation, however.
“Their position is ‘we don’t save these pictures’ and I believe them,” he said. “But sooner or later, it’s going to occur to somebody that we can keep tabs on people.”
He cited incidents of cameras on toll roads taking pictures of every license plate and running them through the National Crime Information Database, to intercept drivers with warrants. In Columbus, police cars are being outfitted with license plate cameras to take pictures as the cars drive in traffic. Even more prevalent is the practice of businesses collecting information about what customers buy using membership cards, storing this information in a database and using it for marketing purposes.
In a world where scanning your Kroger card can be used to track your preferences and store information about you, are red light cameras really a big deal? As Michael Ferraresi from Redflex pointed out, surveillance technology is used everywhere, even at the grocery store.
“One misconception is that the government is arbitrarily surveilling the area,” he said. “But drivers who are not in violation have nothing to worry about.”
The argument that there is no reason why the government would keep unnecessary photos is easily countered by the argument that there is no reason why they couldn’t be saving all this information. We have to trust that technology with the sole purpose of collecting data, won’t be misused either purposefully or accidentally to harm citizens. Right now, government abuse of red light camera data may be the least viable reason not to use them in every city. But just as the long-term safety and revenue-creating effects of these cameras is still debatable, so is their use in information gathering.
“We are living in a world where we are more and more subjected to constant surveillance,” Gamso said. “In some sense, it comes back to what kind of people we want to be because freedom, to some extent, is curtailed by surveillance.”
Red Light Cameras
Reynolds and Airport Hwy.: 2001
Alexis and Lewis: 2001
Alexis and Jackman: 2004
Anthony Wayne Trail and Western: 2004
Summit and Cherry: 2001
Hill and Byrne: 2000
Front and Main: 2002
Reynolds and Heatherdowns: 2001
Dorr and Secor: 2001
Secor and Laskey: 2001
Secor and Monroe: 2002
South and Anthony Wayne Trail: 2001
Talmadge and Sylvania: 2004
Douglas and University Hills: 2005
Laskey and Douglas: 2005
Heatherdowns and Cass: 2005
Alexis and Detroit: 2006
Laskey and Lewis: 2005
