Why has the city of St. Petersburg implemented a traffic safety camera program?
Red-light running is a serious problem. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, nearly 2 million crashes annually occur in intersection. In 2009, 676 people were killed and 113,000 were injured in intersection crashes. In St. Petersburg alone, over the past three years, 13 of 21 fatal collisions at signalized intersections or 62% were directly attributed to red-light running. We believe that a traffic safety camera program will reduce the number of red-light collisions and injuries associated with these crashes in St. Petersburg.
A red-light running violation occurs when a motorist enters an intersection after the traffic signal has turned red. However, motorists already in the intersection when the signal changes to red, waiting to turn for example, are not considered red-light violators. No citations will be issued for vehicles entering the intersection on a green or yellow light,
Traffic studies show that red-light running is a problem at several intersections in the city of St. Petersburg. Studies across the country prove that traffic safety camera programs are successful at reducing the number of red-light runners and increasing compliance with traffic laws, thus making roadways safer for all drivers and pedestrians.
The city of St. Petersburg has implemented common red-light running collision deterrence methods that involve the Three E's: Education, Enforcement and Engineering. Other more focused engineering countermeasures include retiming of signals within the city, in accordance with the national standards for yellow and all-red intervals. These modifications can reduce the lure of running a red-light to a hurried motorist as well as provide additional safety in case motorists do challenge the yellow signal and fail to make it across the stop bar before the signal turns red. The Traffic Operations Department also works city-wide to reduce the amount of delay along corridors through coordinated signal timings. Reducing driver delay can improve motorist's trip and allow them to make less hurried choices when encountering red-lights. Finally, the city of St. Petersburg has invested in white enforcement lights to offer a more straightforward and safe alternative to police officers for enforcing traffic signal violations.
These steps demonstrate the city's continual commitment to increasing safety through red-light running deterrence along with their initial endeavor to inhibit red-light violations through conventional means. Overall, these investments in safety programs and adjustments to policy have been wholly worthwhile, however overall injury crashes and injury crashes at all 298 signalized intersections have not decreased. Red-light running collisions are usually angle type collisions, which are generally more severe. This leads to the assumption that signalized intersection injury crashes correlate directly with red-light running violations and the city is striving to reduce these costly injury collisions.
In some cases, intersection countermeasures, public education programs, and increased law enforcement are not enough to stop red-light running. Once these options have been exhausted, it is time to consider a red-light photo enforcement program. Photo enforcement is most effective when coupled with good legislation and a well defined process. A red-light program will be most successful when public education and law enforcement coalesce with photo enforcement to engender the ideas of fairness and honesty in the system.