Red Light Cameras: Which Town Will be Next to Say No?

Fremont, Newark, and San Leandro seem to be making money with Red Light Cameras (RLCs). Emeryville, Union City, and Hayward were not and they terminated their camera contracts. 

Oakland has had trouble figuring out if they were making or losing money. 

A public hearing on the issue of photo enforcement is scheduled for April 9th at City Hall. 

The discussion will no doubt include how Oakland found out that simply extending the length of yellow lights achieved a major reduction in red light running.  Discussion will include how many accidents still occur. 

Are the cameras doing the job? What about right on red tickets? Each camera towns relies heavily on income for massive enforcement of this type of violation. 

But will the results echo what the Hayward Police learned?  (these right turns seldom result in accidents and therefor, massive enforcement was not really about safety but revenue. 

Newark relies heavily on right-on-red tickets - over 88 percent are issued to right turners. 

If you received a ticket at one approach at Cedar and Mowry, know that fewer than 1 percent of tickets are issued traveling straight through. 

One of the Hayward Council members said, in effect, these tickets were never mentioned when we initially signed the agreement.  hey were NEVER mentioned. I had no idea we would be enforcing these at nearly $500 a pop.