Los Angeles City Docs - Main Page - Illegal Red Light Cameras

City of Los Angeles Documents
(and Information)

Los Angeles, pop. 3,900,000, has a land area of 470 sq. miles.

Is your ticket really from the City of LA?
To add to the confusion already surrounding red light camera tickets, some City of LA tickets
show "Van Nuys" as the city issuing the ticket. Please note that Van Nuys
is not a separate city - it is a district, or community, within the City of LA,
and is policed by the LAPD. As is San Pedro.

If you have a City of Los Angeles ticket for a rolling right
at an intersection where a green right turn arrow is displayed some of the time,
please be sure to contact the editor of this site.

(Red Light Violations Recorded, Citations Issued, Right Turn Citations Issued, Speed Warnings Issued)

Month-by-month red light ticket data was first received Nov. 29, 2004, and is
posted in the table below.
Speed warning notice data was first received on Jan. 19, 2005.

Los Angeles Docs Set # 2
2007 Tickets

Your 2007 Los Angeles ticket may have a number of unusual things about it.

One of those could be that the street address and phone number for the court may be missing.
Like this ticket that gives only a post office box to send the money to.



Leaving the court's phone number and street address off the ticket makes
it harder for defendants to have their day in court.  See Defect # 8 - C on the Home page.

The next unusual thing is that in nearly ever other California city, the red light camera fine
is $340 - $400.
The $159 fine shown above is because LA chose [until Aug. 2008, see Set # 4, below] to cite right
turns under CVC 21453(b) instead of 21453(a).
The (b) violation, not usually used for camera tickets, never had its fine
increased like (a) (straight through violations) and (c) (left turns) did.

For reference, here's all three.

21453.  (a) A driver facing a steady circular red signal alone shall
stop at a marked limit line, but if none, before entering the
crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then
before entering the intersection, and shall remain stopped until an
indication to proceed is shown, except as provided in subdivision (b).
(The "base" fine - before surcharges - for (a) is $100.)
   (b) Except when a sign is in place prohibiting a turn, a driver,
after stopping as required by subdivision (a), facing a steady
circular red signal, may turn right, or turn left from a one-way
street onto a one-way street.  A driver making that turn shall yield
the right-of-way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk
and to any vehicle that has approached or is approaching so closely
as to constitute an immediate hazard to the driver, and shall
continue to yield the right-of-way to that vehicle until the driver
can proceed with reasonable safety.
(The base fine for (b) is $35.)
   (c) A driver facing a steady red arrow signal shall not enter the
intersection to make the movement indicated by the arrow and, unless
entering the intersection to make a movement permitted by another
signal, shall stop at a clearly marked limit line, but if none,
before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection,
or if none, then before entering the intersection, and shall remain
stopped until an indication permitting movement is shown.
(The base fine for (c) is $100.)

I believe that 21453(b) was written to be used where a motorist makes a full 
stop on the red - so he has not violated (a) - but then he 
makes a  right turn and gets in the way of someone coming from 
the left who has the right-of-way (ROW) because his signal is green.

Be sure to read Set # 4, below.

Los Angeles Docs Set # 3
More Details

April 2004 - LA's Move for More Cameras Provides Some Figures and Statistics

(This item is about LA's first camera system.)

In the LA Times of Apr. 13, 2004 Staff Writer Patrick McGreevy reported that the LA city
council is considering adding more red light cameras. The article said that the city currently
has cameras at sixteen intersections, and that they have issued 48,062 citations in three
years, of which approximately 3600 have been challenged in court, with 159 having been found
not guilty. The article said that there were another 16,000 violations that did not result in
citations, because the camera failed to capture the necessary photos (mostly cars with
no front license plate). The article quoted Councilmember Cindy Miscikowski (during the April 12
Public Safety Committee meeting) as saying: "Obviously this is a program that is well-received.
Let's really look to accelerate the program."

The article said that there had been a one-year decrease of 9.8% in accidents at
camera-equipped intersections. That claim seemed low compared to the (approx.) 40% reduction
claimed by many other cities, so I called the LAPD and spoke at length to Sgt.
Steve Foster, who runs [ran] the program. Among many things, he explained that there had been
a 10% decrease the year before, 2001-2002, which was the first year of operation.
He also mentioned figures indicating that at the two intersections where
the red light cameras had been equipped to also generate warning notices for speed
in excess of 65, the one-year (2002-2003) reduction in accidents had been (approximately)
25% and 33%.
That drop indicated to me that the speed warnings are very effective in reducing accidents, perhaps
more effective than even the red light tickets! Despite that effectiveness, there is no plan in
the works to expand the use of the speed warnings.

The dollar amounts mentioned in the Times article didn't depict the true magnitude
of the city's program. In its sole mention of overall operating figures, the article said only:
"In the last three years, the city has collected $490,000."
The article did not specify that that figure was not the gross revenue collected but in actuality
was a net profit on the program after all salaries, expenses and capital costs (including
start-up) were paid. Here are some figures I derived from information provided in the
article and by the sergeant.

Estimated cost to cited motorists of the 48,062 tickets: $14,400,000.
Estimated gross revenue to the city from those tickets: $4,000,000.
City's net profit as percentage of gross revenue: 12%.
Estimated gross revenue to camera supplier ACS ($60 per ticket): $2,880,000.

On the question of how LA determines its yellow times, Sgt. Foster referred me to the city's
Department of Transportation. LADOT personnel said that they most often use the posted
speed limit plus 5 mph do the look-up in the CalTrans table. Or, where there is a speed survey
available, they round the 85th percentile speed from that survey to the nearest 5 mph
increment (up or down), and then use the higher of that number or the posted plus 5.
Thus, for example, a Los Angeles camera on street posted 35 mph would have a yellow of at
least 3.9 seconds - compared to the 3.6 seconds provided by Culver City on their cameras.

Update, 5-21-04: On May 11 the LA City Council voted to go out to bid for more cameras. I
now have tapes of the hearings, and some information from one of the tapes is now
posted under Defect # 9, Churning, on the Home page.

Los Angeles Docs Set # 4
No More Mr. Nice Guy - Rolling Right Discount Ends
(The 21453(a) vs. 21453(b) Controversy)

Until Aug. 2008 the City of LA cited its rolling right turns under Subsection (b) of CVC 21453,
instead of (a), which resulted in a much-lower fine - $159 including all fees.
But an Aug. 16, 2008 LA Times article revealed that LA's fine for rolling rights
would more than double, effective immediately,
to the same fine as for straight-through movements - nearly $400.
The Times article, by Rich Connell, said that police spokesman Lt. John Romero said that raising
cash for the cash-strapped City was not part of the motivation. The Times estimated
that the change could bring an additional $2 million to the City.
The article also mentioned that the City issued about 30,000 camera tickets in 2007, and
that about eight in 10 of those were for rolling rights.

The Times article also mentioned a "detailed formal opinion" from the city attorney. I wanted to
know more about their decision, so I sent the LAPD an email:

I assume the formal opinion is in writing, and would like to get a copy. But if it was not provided to or shown to the Times or otherwise made public, and cannot be provided to me, then I would like to get all the other correspondence and records from the decision making process and announcement. That would include press releases, tabulations of the number of tickets issued in the City (overall and broken down right turns vs. straights and lefts, and further broken down by location), statistics, analyses and/or projections of the effect of right-turn enforcement upon accidents and/or traffic flow and/or fuel consumption in the City, any explanation or discussion as to why consistency (the higher fine) is necessary, and estimates of the additional revenue from the increase.

Their reply letter, which came promptly, said, in part:

The correspondence from the Office of the City Attorney is confidential attorney-client communication pursuant to Evidence Code Section 950 et seq. and therefore exempt from disclosure. Staff from the Traffic Coordination Section has indicated that there are no other materials that were utilized in determining the appropriate Vehicle Code Section to cite for failing to stop for a red light prior to making a right turn.

Staff from Traffic Coordination Section and Media Relations Section has indicated that no written materials were provided to the Los Angeles Times regarding the aforementioned newspaper article.

If, as Lt. Romero told the Times, the motivation was not money, what was it?

Los Angeles Docs Set # 5
Other Reports Available

To see examples of standard reports generated by Nestor (which would be obtained by making a
request to the City), see the reports received from the City of Fullerton (also a Nestor
customer), Set # 4 on the Fullerton Documents page.

Los Angeles Docs Set # 6
2009 KCBS-2 KCAL-9 Report

On Nov. 9-10, 2009 KCBS and KCAL aired a two part report in which they compared the number
of accidents before and after the installation of LA's red light cameras. Those numbers are
available on the stations' websites, via an interactive version of the map displayed below.
Or, you can see them in Set # 1 above.
Direct links to video: Part 1 Part 2.

Here is the City's response to the TV report.

Map by KCBS/KCAL, for Nov. 9-10, 2009 Reports - Go to their website for interactive version.

Los Angeles Docs Set # 7
More Coming

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

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