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Just like they eventually did with the Orange Line, Metro is beginning to install red light enforcement cameras along the Gold Line. By the end of August, the agency expects to have installation complete at a few intersections along First Street. An opening date for the new light rail line between Union Station and East LA has not been announced.
In total, 14 will be installed along First Street at Mission, Anderson, Utah, Clarence and Lorena streets and on Third Street with crossings at Gage, Downey, Eastern, Ford, McDonnell, Arizona, Mednik, Civic Center Drive and La Verne streets, in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles. Locations were based on risk and potential for accidents, Metro says.
If you're caught running a red light, the cost will be $445 for an adult and $435 for those 18 and younger. Two photographs will be taken--one before running the red and one after--and a ticket will be mailed to the car's registered owner. Unlike the cameras under the jurisdiction of the LAPD, these cameras run by Metro and the LA County Sheriff's will not include video as proof of violators running a red light. Before tickets are sent out, Sheriff's will have a 30-day grace period when warnings will be mailed.
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Red light cameras are kind of against my sense of fair play. But if this could stop one more MTA accident I'm all for it. I wish they could have stronger barricades that couldn't be driven around.
2,000 lbs. vehicles smashing into pedestrians is against my sense of fair play, or 1 driver injuring or killing many in a bad train derailment. If red light enforcement cameras reduce accidents by even a small margin I am all for them being put all over the place. Police don't have the numbers necessary to keep intersections safe.
They could perhaps have those parking lot style tire spikes pop up on red lights at train crossings.
I was trying to imagine how that would work, treeVerb and decided the possibility of careening and disabled cars is probably just as much of a dnager.
umm,
perhaps,
nerf ball filled trap door subterranean parking ramps then?
Last time I drove down 1st in that area, like 2 or 3 weeks ago, there was a hilarious number of cops either in the process of giving tickets, or hanging out in a speed trap to write tickets. LIterally saw 5 cop cars / motor cycles in a 10 block stretch.
Aren't the Red Light cameras being installed to avoid drivers from running the light and getting smacked by 50,000 lbs of train? I know some people prefer the Blue Line method of "Darwinism", but if one idiot's life is saved because of the cameras, isn't it worth it?
No. In life there are certain decisions you have to make. Some are mundane (like deciding what to have for lunch) while others may cost you your life. If you make the decision to try to beat a train or you aren't paying attention while driving and you end up getting squashed by a Breda P2550 or a Siemens P2000, I have absolutely no sympathy for you.
18 and youngers get all the breaks.. hmmppphh.
Costs about $100 more when you add in traffic school... I learned the hard way.
Readers also need to know about Snitch Tickets, which are fake/phishing red light camera tickets sent out by the police in an effort to bluff the registered owner into identifying the actual driver of the car. (Local cities using this "social engineering" tactic are Bakersfield, Corona, Garden Grove, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Laguna Woods, Los Alamitos, Maywood, Riverside, Santa Ana, Santa Clarita, South Gate, Upland, and Victorville.) Snitch tickets have not been filed with the court, so they don't say "Notice to Appear," don't have the court's address and phone # on them, and usually say, on the back (in small letters), "Do not contact the court about this notice." Since they have not been filed with the court, they have no legal weight whatsoever. You can, and should, ignore a Snitch Ticket. If in doubt, Google the term.
my only problem with this is that the fine is very very steep. For everyone who isn't rich. Traffic fines should be on a sliding price scale so that a millionaire feels the pinch as dearly as someone who works at Starbucks.
Some countries in Europe have a sliding price scale fine for traffic tickets. I think it makes a lot of sense, some say it is unfair, but what is fair about a rich person in a sports car that can pay a speeding ticket like it is the price of admission on a ferris wheel while it could seriously complicate things for someone living paycheck to paycheck. I think it was in the Netherlands, but in Tom Vanderbilt's book Traffic it mentions a famous speeding ticket given to a CEO that was something like $70,000 due to the sliding income scale.
This new red light enforcement is about revenue and has little to do with safety. The new traffic signals are very confusing to start with and at least “they” could do is give warnings and let drivers get used to all of the new and confusing signals. Do you think that there will be many drivers receiving obscenely expensive tickets that purposely run the red lights? Would there be many drivers that receive the tickets that the high amount of the fine that would have kept them from “running the red light”? The people that the cameras catch are confused and the fine would make no difference.
If they were concerned about safety they would have sheriffs at the confusing intersections to assist drivers in getting used to the signals and issue warnings not tickets. Tickets can be issued by sheriffs officer after a grace period to people who internally ignored or ran the red signals and help the drivers that were confused.