New push for speed cameras in California
Author says it will save lives; opponents point out implications for privacy
California cities could soon set up automated cameras to catch and ticket speeders on their most dangerous streets, if lawmakers pass a bill being introduced today that is sure to reignite debate over speed cameras in a state where they are effectively banned.
Street safety advocates and the bill’s author, Assemblymember David Chiu, D-San Francisco, say the cameras can help reduce the number of deaths on California’s roads, where more than 1,000 people are killed each year in speed-related crashes.
But the technology typically draws a fierce backlash from drivers, who view the cameras as a cash cow for local jurisdictions that want to bust anyone who strays above the speed limit. Civil liberties groups often raise concerns about the cameras’ implications for privacy, creating an unlikely alliance against the technology with rank-and-file police unions who say the more effective way to make roads safer is with traffic stops conducted by officers.
Opponents defeated a bill Chiu introduced in 2017 that would have allowed San Jose and San Francisco to launch speed camera programs.
Since then, Chiu says, our streets have only gotten deadlier. Researchers estimate traffic deaths nationwide increased in 2020, even as people drove less because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And pedestrian fatalities have been rising for years as Americans buy bigger and heavier SUVs that are more likely to kill or severely injure anyone they hit.
“We need to address the epidemic of traffic violence on California’s streets that has continued unabated,” Chiu said in an interview. “These deaths are completely preventable.”
Also known as automated speed enforcement, the cameras measure the speeds of passing cars and snap photos of those going a certain speed over the limit, then mail a ticket to the owner. Unlike the flashing roadside signs encouraging drivers to slow down, they typically don’t display a driver’s speed in real time.
Supporters say the cameras can be particularly effective on high-speed arterial streets where serious crashes are common. Drivers would be less likely to blast through an area they know has cameras, the thinking goes, and while speeders wouldn’t be stopped in the moment, getting a ticket in the mail would make them slow down in the future.
“This fixes the problem we are seeing on our streets, which is that speeding is killing people who are biking, walking and driving,” said Janice Li, advocacy director for the San Francisco Bike Coalition, a sponsor of Chiu’s bill.
Speed-related crashes killed 182 people on Alameda County roads between 2015 and 2019, the most recent year that data is available, and another 161 in Santa Clara County, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
Several Bay Area cities have used similar cameras to catch people who run red lights. But state law as it’s currently written doesn’t authorize automated cameras to enforce speed limits. As a result, courts have found that tickets issued with the technology — which San Jose, Campbell and a few other California cities have tried to use in the past — are not enforceable.
The legislation, which is also sponsored by the city governments of San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, would authorize local transportation departments and Caltrans to use the cameras in pilot programs, and set up a state work group to create policies for the technology.
Chiu’s bill also lays out a set of what he called “ground rules” for the program.
Among them are caps on citations generated by speed cameras to make tickets less severe than those written out by police. While conventional speeding tickets in California often cost hundreds of dollars and add “points” that could lead to the suspension of a driver’s license, fines generated by the cameras under Chiu’s bill would not generate points and would be capped at a total cost, fees included, of no more than $125.
Chiu says the goal of his bill isn’t to create speed traps that catch drivers unaware. Instead, he said he hopes the cameras trigger fewer tickets over time because people drive at safer speeds.
“This has never been about revenue generation, this has been about changing driver behavior,” Chiu said. “This is about saving lives and improving safety.”
His bill also limits who can access photos, bans the use of facial-recognition technology in the cameras and requires programs to provide a diversion option for less-wealthy drivers who can’t afford to pay their fines.
It would be up to the state work group to decide other key details, such as where revenue from the tickets would go, whether the cameras would issue warnings and their speed threshold — how high above the limit someone would have to drive to get a ticket.
Chiu’s 2017 bill had the support of city governments and top law enforcement officials in San Jose and San Francisco, but never made it out of the state Assembly’s Transportation Committee.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California declined to comment on the bill Monday. The Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents more than 70,000 police officers, is registered against Chiu’s latest bill, President Brian Marvel said. The group also lobbied against the 2017 bill and generally opposes speed cameras, Marvel said, warning they could be used as “revenue generators.”
American Automobile Association spokesman Sergio Avila declined to comment specifically on the legislation in California, but said the organization recognizes automated speed enforcement can improve road safety and recommends it be used “as part of a comprehensive traffic safety strategy that involves engineering, education and officer enforcement.”