Violating red lights is a serious safety issue. In recent years awareness of this problem has become especially acute in the United States. With its compact driving environment and dense network of signalized intersections, red light running in San Francisco 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% just six 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 will soon be one of the largest programs in the United States with 26 cameras rotated through 35 intersections. San Francisco's experience with red light photo enforcement is valuable for all jurisdictions considering the use of automated enforcement. This paper contains discussion of the level of preparation required to initiate a program, legal framework, cost effectiveness of automated enforcement, 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. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting