Los Angeles Red Light Cameras Lead To Increased Accidents
Thanks to an excellent piece of investigative journalism by David Goldstein of Los Angeles television station KCAL, motorists are getting the real accident numbers at Los Angeles camera-enforced intersections.The city has claimed that the cameras reduced accidents by 34%, but a little fact-checking proved this assertion wrong:
Is it money or safety? We wanted to know actual numbers of accidents at red light camera intersections to see if they really went down.
When we asked, the LAPD became very defensive. The sergeant in charge told me in an e-mail, “The city would hope that it is the goal of KCBS/KCAL to discuss the positive aspects of the photo red light program.”
So we filed a public records request. The department charged us more than $500 for a computer run. When we got the numbers back, they told a different story.
We looked at every accident at every red light camera intersection for six months of data before the cameras were installed and six months after.
The final figures? Twenty of the 32 intersections show accidents up after the cameras were installed! Three remained the same and only nine intersections showed accidents decreasing.
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