Spokane – On the heals of yesterdays ruling in Seattle traffic court by judge Francis deVilla that put into question Seattle’s red light camera program, Spokane’s system has come out with their results after a year of operation and the results are surprising.

The main argument for many municipalities across the country for installing cameras at major intersections is to discourage drivers from running red lights. On average across the nation red light running kills more than 800 people and injures up to 200,00 per year. Public knowledge that they will be ticketed for running the red light regardless of the presence of law enforcement officers, in turn, causes accidents from running red lights to lower. Since incidents of running red lights also have a very high injury rate as people who run red lights are usually speeding up to do so, it just seems like common sense right?

The Thin Line Between Common Sense and Reality

As in life, sometimes what seems to make sense on the surface doesn’t always reflect statistical reality, and for Spokane, the research isn’t panning out. They had an annual average of crashes caused by running red lights at 11 leading up to the implementation of the program. This number held steady for the first year of the program, but in 2009 it went up to 14. That’s a 22% increase! How could this happen?

According to the Seattle Times today, traffic safety experts caution that crash statistics fluctuate every year and that it’s difficult to prove cause and effect with only a year’s worth of data. Police say they’re confident that crash numbers will fall as the public becomes more aware of the cameras.

The Hard Numbers

According to the Virginia Transportation Research Council 2007 report, it may not be the fact that there is a camera at the intersection, but the intersection itself.

They conducted a 7 year study between 1998 and 2004 on intersections in six jurisdictions. Over the 7 year study they found that red light running crashes decreased by 8%, but rear-end crashes increased by 27%. That is a demonstrative increase. Rear-end crashes are far less likely to be fatal they could lead to long term spinal injuries and other health concerns.

Speaking to the Spokesman Review, John Miller, associate principal research scientist at the Virginia research council said, “You have to work very hard to decide the right locations where they should be used.” He went on to say, “Factors for choosing locations include ensuring that the intersection doesn’t already have a significant problem with rear-end crashes since they might get worse after installing cameras.”

This means that just because the intersection has a large volume doesn’t exactly mean that it is at risk for more red light running accidents and may in fact be more prone to rear-end collisions even prior to the installation of the cameras. This requires more research, which takes time and money. Time and money the cities need once they see the revenue the cameras yield.

Municipal Cash Machine

According to public records submitted to the Spokesman Review, Spokane issued 5690 tickets over the 13 month time period in three main intersections resulting in $419,000 in revenue for the city. The good intentions of the program has not yielded results. Even in light of the numbers, the city council chooses the numbers that suit them.

If we’ve got 6,000 people running red lights in this city, it’s a concern,” City Council President Joe Shogan told the Spokesman Review. “You never know if we would have had more accidents without the red light (cameras).”

As the council inflates the number and doesn’t address the real issues of whether the cameras actually aid the citizens, the Seattle city council also has some issues to address. Hopefully they don’t gloss over the research in the blindness caused by the revue. The city attorney’s office has already stated, they choose revenue over the citizens.