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Roadguy: Red-light cameras are a deeply personal issue

By JIM FOTI, Star Tribune

Last update: May 3, 2008 - 9:32 PM

The courts switched them off and legislators have yet to turn them back on, but red-light cameras continue to fascinate Roadguy -- and he has his reasons.

In 2002, my car was totaled by a red-light runner in downtown Minneapolis. In 2006, my replacement vehicle collided with a red-light runner talking on his cell phone. Neither offending driver got a ticket; the police didn't witness the crashes.

A photographic record of what happened in my crashes might have helped me with insurance claims. Or perhaps the presence of cameras would have prevented the accidents in the first place.

I'll never know. But I do know that PhotoCop once captured me running a red light.

When the letter arrived, I remembered exactly what I had done. As the light had turned red, a panhandler was jumping around and acting oddly in the median, so instead of spending the next minute with him outside my window, I proceeded with my (illegal) left turn.

There was no officer present to hear my attempted explanation, which was probably for the best: the incident occurred just before the end of PhotoCop's test period, so no fine was levied.

The cameras at 12 Minneapolis intersections have been turned off since 2006, when a Hennepin County judge found they violated state law, a ruling later affirmed by the state Supreme Court. In the ensuing years, I've had plenty of time to read about the effectiveness of photo enforcement. Studies tend to find significant drops in right-angle crashes, and lesser reductions (and the occasional increase) in rear-end crashes.

A few weeks ago, the Department of Public Works sent me accident data for the 8 1/2 months that the cameras were operating in Minneapolis, plus data for two comparable periods the year before they were in service and the year after.

Before the cameras went into service, the intersections saw a total of 104 crashes. While the cameras were in use, the number dropped to 69.

And after they were turned off? Sixty-one.

"We don't have enough data -- it was just nine months' worth -- to really say whether there's been any long-term change in the behavior of people," says Dallas Hildebrand, a longtime city traffic engineer.

The cameras are still lurking around town (it would take a change in state law to put them back in operation), and perhaps many drivers don't know they're turned off.

I won't tell if you don't.

Jim Foti can be reached at 612-673-4491 or roadguy@startribune.com.

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