Abstract
Violating red lights is a serious safety issue. In recent years, awareness of this problem has become especially acute in the United States. In San Francisco, California, with its compact driving environment and dense network of signalized intersections, red-light running reached a political crisis in 1994. The city and county of San Francisco recently completed a pilot red-light photo-enforcement program. The number of vehicles photographed violating red lights at the photo-enforced locations dropped by more than 40 percent just 6 months into the pilot. Recent statistics indicate that San Francisco’s combined efforts to combat red-light running have resulted in a significant decrease in the number of annual collisions caused by red-light violators citywide. Based on the success of the pilot and supportive state legislation, San Francisco is moving forward to expand the red-light photo-enforcement program. This collaborative effort involving several agencies soon will be one of the largest programs in the United States, with 26 cameras rotated through 36 intersections. San Francisco’s experience with red-light photo enforcement is valuable for all jurisdictions considering the use of automated enforcement. Discussion includes the level of preparation required to initiate a program, the legal framework, the cost-effectiveness of automated enforcement, the criteria for site selection, and suggestions for increasing citation issuance rates. Recommendations from San Francisco’s experience stress the importance of creating partnerships within your agency and without, combining engineering and enforcement efforts with an educational campaign, and influencing local legislation.
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