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Seeing Red

Many drivers are livid about photo-cop systems.

It's the kind of surprise mail that nobody likes to receive: a ticket for running a red light. Drivers don't even have the opportunity to try to wheedle out of it in a face-to-face encounter with police. The ticket is issued and mailed after a camera automatically snaps a photo of the vehicle going through a red light.

Many localities have instituted red-light cameras to catch violators at busy and dangerous intersections, and many more are considering using them to cut down on traffic accidents and fatalities. Each year, people who run red lights cause the deaths of more than 800 people and injuries to another 200,000, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

In recent months, however, some of those captured on film have begun fighting back, questioning the accuracy and legality of photo enforcement and taking steps to muddle the camera's evidence by pulling down visors or holding their hands up to their faces as they go through intersections.

San Diego, one of several jurisdictions facing a backlash against its red-light cameras, is incurring not only the wrath of ordinary citizens but also of cops who've been caught on camera running red lights. That has led to the creation of the Red Light Camera Defense Team, a corporation formed less than a year ago to fight the tickets. "It is my personal passion to run the cameras out of the county," says Coleen Cusack, a lawyer for the corporation, which has more than 300 clients.

In the Washington, D.C., area, the AAA Mid-Atlantic has joined the fray. The association believes the cameras have great potential to cut down on serious injury and accidents. But AAA doesn't like the fact that a private company--in this case, Lockheed Martin IMS--gets a portion of every ticket paid. "Our concern is that [tickets] not be used as a revenue source but to make intersections safer," says spokesman Justin McNaull. "There's a profit incentive to have a large number of cars violate the light."

San Diego has had to deal with hundreds of challenges to the tickets it issues based on photo enforcement. The city's cameras are snapping from 2,500 to 5,000 violators a month. Each ticket is $271 and the vendor, Lockheed Martin, gets $70 of those that are paid. Everett Bobbitt, a police association lawyer defending several San Diego officers who got ticketed, is one of several people who charge that camera enforcement is used as a revenue generator.

That's a "backward" way of looking at it, argues Martha Woodward, deputy city attorney in San Diego.Red-light running is against the law whether an officer stops a violator on the spot or a camera catches someone. "The reality is, there's a fine for running red lights," she says. "The way for us to stop making more revenue is for people to stop running red lights. That's our goal."

Cusack charges that the government is taking liberties and shortcuts with its photo ticketing, such as sending a ticket to a male driver, based on the license plate registration, even though the driver in the photo is clearly female. The registered driver then must "snitch" on the person who was at the wheel or pay the fine himself.

In addition, Cusack complains, the photos don't actually show the red light. They show a car in an intersection but not the traffic signal. Therefore, it is the vendor's word that a violation has taken place, she claims, based on information from the vendor's systems.

Kathleen Dezio, a Lockheed spokeswoman, says that it is mechanically impossible for the cameras to be triggered on a green light; they are hooked up to the amber and red light signals. And there is a two- second grace period. Moreover, a San Diego police officer reviews each citation before it is issued and the cameras are inspected twice a week for accuracy.

Bobbitt argues that if officers were writing the tickets, they might offer a warning instead, depending on the circumstances. Woodworth counters that because there is no discretion by the cameras, it's a less biased system. Police officers have been escaping penalties for years because their buddies won't write them up, she says. Now they must prove in court that they were doing police business. "It is a red-light equalizer," she says. "It doesn't look at who you are."

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