Inglewood Docs - Main Page - Red Light Cams

Some of Inglewood's tickets can be ignored. If your "ticket" does not have the Superior Court's name and address on it, it is what I call a "Fake Ticket." For more details, see the Fake Ticket section on the Your Ticket page, and footnote 8 to Docs Set # 2, below.

Details of recent trials and arraignments of Inglewood tickets are at: Inglewood Chronology.

Inglewood Contacts
City Hall, 1 Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, CA 90301
(3/4 mile east of 405 freeway)
Councilmembers' email addresses are:
Mayor Roosevelt Dorn - mayordorn@cityofinglewood.org
Judy Dunlap - jdunlap@cityofinglewood.org
Eloy Morales - emorales@cityofinglewood.org
Ralph Franklin - rfranklin@cityofinglewood.org
Curren Price - cprice@cityofinglewood.org
Council meetings: Most Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Opportunity for public to speak: Near end of meeting. Call (310) 412-5301 to confirm council meeting date or to leave a message for the mayor or councilmembers.

Inglewood Chamber of Commerce
330 E. Queen St., Inglewood, CA 90301
inglewoodchamber@sbcglobal.net
(310) 677-1121

Inglewood Docs Set # 1
Missing Warning Signs - Prairie / 111th

After the arraignment session of Aug. 17, 2004 I drove around and looked at some of Inglewood's camera installations. I noticed that at Prairie and 111th, there were no warning signs on 111th either side of Prairie. They are required to be visible to traffic approaching from all directions. See Defect # 4 on the Home page.
On August 17 and 18, I took pictures down the length of 111th near Prairie, to document the absence of the signs. Those pictures are below. If you tell the judge about the missing signs and the judge wants to see photos, give the judge a copy of this page, or provide the link so that he or she can look at the photos on their courtroom computer.

[5] Data has been requested but has not yet been received.
[6] The camera enforcement is on traffic on the first-named street, but the direction of enforcement (north, south, east, west, thru, left) is not yet available.
[7] Camera-by-camera data for these months has been requested but has not yet been received.
[8] According to the IPD (see the staff report linked in Set # 4, below), Crenshaw/108th camera enforcement was discontinued as of Sept. 7, 2004. The probable reason why ticket issuance continued for several months after that date is the delay inherent in the City's use of what I call Fake Tickets - see the 'Snitch Tickets: Do They Issue Just a Few, or a Lot?' subsection on the Your Ticket page.
[9] According to 2004 courtroom testimony by IPD officers, the left-turn yellows at all intersections except Florence/Centinela were increased from 3.0 to 3.6 seconds on Dec. 9, 2003. In 2005, the left-turn yellow for Florence/Prairie may have been increased from 3.0 to 3.6 on April 4 (see also Docs Set # 6, below).
I believe the approx. 40% decrease in ticket issuance seen by Feb. 2004 was due to the Dec. 9 increase in the length of the left-turn yellows. Inglewood makes extensive use of Traffic Violation Notices (see Fake Tickets/Snitch Tickets on the Your Ticket page), so the approx. 1-month delay in the appearance of this decrease (in the Total column above) could be because the City is not billed by RedFlex until a real citation is issued.
[10] Totals are by highwayrobbery.net
[11] Oct. 2003 to Feb. 2004 camera-by-camera figures are estimates, calculated as follows. During the six months (Mar. to Aug. 2004)
for which the City has disclosed camera-by-camera data, the following cameras accounted for the noted percentages of the total 8735 camera tickets issued citywide during those six months (according to the IPD, Crenshaw/108th camera enforcement was discontinued as of Sept. 7).
Crenshaw/108th, northbound - 2030 tickets, 23.2%.
Crenshaw/108th, southbound - 2432 tickets, 27.8%.
The assumption used for making the estimates for Oct. 2003 to Feb. 2004 is that these cameras accounted for the same percentage of tickets citywide during those months, as they did during the later months.

Inglewood Docs Set # 4
April 2005 Report to City Council about Crenshaw / 108th

This staff report contains a wealth of information, including ticket counts for all cameras.
It was heard at the April 19 city council meeting.
http://www.cityofinglewood.org/AgendaStaffReports/04-19-05/ca-2.pdf
The report contained the following comments about Crenshaw / 108th:
"On September 7, 2004 the City shut down the two red light enforcement systems at Crenshaw and 108th." (Page 1.)
"In 2004 there were some adverse issues and inconsistencies encountered with the court, specifically with the bench officers [judges] assigned to our traffic court. Much of this centered around the Crenshaw and 108th intersection, where our bench officer began to summarily dismiss any citations brought to trial. As mentioned previously, the two systems at the Crenshaw and 108th intersection were shut down in September, 2004. However, there are still citations from the intersection set for trial. In early 2005, the bench officer assigned to our traffic court was changed and trial proceedings have stabilized significantly. The lingering Crenshaw and 108th citations continue to be dismissed, with the court's reasoning being that the previous bench officer set a precedent by dismissing these citations in 2004. It is expected the program will continue to stabilize in 2005." (Page 2.)

Inglewood Docs Set # 5
Another Missing Sign - Florence / Centinela

On June 1, 2005 a reader sent me the following note and photo.

"This legally mandated warning sign at the westbound approach to the intersection of Florence Avenue and Centinela Avenue... is not totally invisible. It is on the center median, however, behind a freshly trimmed tree. The sign is visible if you really look for it to your left from the first and second lanes of through traffic but much too close to the intersection. In fact, by the time you would be able to see it, you should be looking at the intersection itself."

"Before the tree was trimmed, the warning sign was even less visible. Compliance with the spirit and letter of the law requiring such signs would have been complied with by placing the sign in front of this particular tree where it would have been, as it should be, clearly visible to oncoming traffic underneath the foliage of the taller, more mature trees in the median."

On June 9, that reader sent this follow-up.

"...the red light camera warning sign was moved [sometime between June 1 and 9] from the median to the north curb of Florence Avenue visible to all four lanes of west bound traffic approaching Centinela Avenue."

The photo was taken May 31. The warning sign is partly behind the leftmost tree. See also Defect # 4 on the Home page.

Inglewood Docs Set # 6
Yellow Lengthened at Florence / Prairie?

On April 4, 2005, the left-turn yellow for Florence/Prairie may have been increased from 3.0 to 3.6.
So far as of July 2005, I have a signal timing chart indicating some kind of revision on that date. The City is dragging their feet very hard to delay full disclosure, so if you want to use this defect in your trial, I suggest that you subpoena the documents. In early Sept. 2005 I received ticket counts for the intersection (see Set # 2, above), which show a big decrease in the number of tickets at Florence/Prairie.

Inglewood Docs Set # 7
Yet Another Missing Sign! Century / Doty

A reader sent me the following photo, taken July 18, 2005, showing that the required sign for the southbound exit from Hollywood Park is behind a pillar (I have added a white arrow).

Inglewood Docs Set # 8
"Guidelines" Presented at Court

At the trial session of Sept. 16, 2005 a defendant asked the Inglewood officers if they had guidelines (per Defect # 10, on the Home page). They offered the document below. The defendant made a motion for dismissal, lack of guidelines. He noted the following problems with the City's document.
1. The document was undated, so could have been created after the ticket was issued to the defendant.
2. The document described itself as being "For courtroom testimony purposes..."(highlighted below) thus did not prove that the City had written guidelines that they actually used when "screening and issuing violations" back at the police station.
3. The document did not contain guidelines for "selection of location," as required by CVC 21455.5(c)(2)(A).
(He also could have asked who wrote the guidelines - the camera company is prohibited from doing so - and for the "procedures to ensure compliance with those guidelines," as required by CVC 21455.5(c)(1), but did not ask either question.)
The judge asked the officers if the public could access the guidelines for selection of location. The officers responded that they could be obtained via a public records request to the Public Works Department. In a decision that I do not agree with, the judge denied the defendant's motion for dismissal, saying that the guidelines were a public record that the defendant could, and should, have requested from Public Works beforehand.

Inglewood Docs Set # 9
More Coming

There may be some more Inglewood information posted in the next few weeks. Mark your calendar to remind you to come back here and look!

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