The City Council has approved a police department suggestion to install three red-light-running cameras, and three school zone speeding cameras in our city. These are cameras which take a picture of the license plate of a vehicle which is either failing to stop for a red light, or failing to abide by the school speed zone. The owner of the car is then mailed a non-moving infraction with a high fine…sort of like a $124 parking ticket. The camera system can not issue a moving violation in our state, because it is not allowed to take a picture of the driver’s face, and therefore can not be assigned to an individual….only to the owner of the vehicle.

The photos are checked by a representative from law enforcement (either a police employee or a contractor) before violations are mailed out, to verify that there was not a problem with the camera or a legitimate issue that caused the red light violation (such as a motorist getting out of the way of an emergency vehicle, or stuck behind an accident, or something like that)

The school speed zone cameras are tentatively scheduled to be placed in front of McKnight Middle School, Renton High School, and Benson Hill Elementary. They will be active during the hours that children are present in the schools, and there will be signs and flashing lights warning motorists that there is camera speed enforcement. It is expected that they will simply be set a nominal amount above the speed limit (just a few miles over…not a lot above), and that a ticket will be mailed to the owners of any cars that exceed this margin in the camera-enforced area.

The locations for the red light enforcement cameras have not been decided on yet, but they will be placed at the intersections that show the most violations. Maple Valley Highway and Sunset is a finalist for instance, as is Rainier and Grady. These will ticket any vehicle that has not entered the intersection the moment that the light has turned red. Note that while it is best to clear the intersection completely on the yellow light, the camera will ticket only those who enter the intersection on the red light. These violations usually occur when drivers are in a long queue waiting to get through the light, and they don’t stop entering even when the light turns red. The other way these violations happen, which is even more dangerous, is when a driver sees a green or yellow light a distance ahead, and steps on the accelerator to get through the light. Both of these situations will lead to a ticket in the $124 range.

The goal of the Renton Council and the Police is not to earn money, but rather to save lives by reversing increasingly dangerous driving habit; habits that are predictably getting worse as a result of frustration with all the traffic and congestion.

I know there are some members of the public who really favor this, and some who are opposed on orwellian (big brother is watching you) grounds. For me, the issue came down to statistics which say we will save lives. These lives might be yours and mine, or the lives of our dear loved ones. For this reason, I and the entire Renton council voted to take this step.

See the reader comments on Renton WA Myspace on this topic

Here is the link to last week’s council minutes which approved the use of thes cameras