Fifth Intersection Equipped With Photo-Red-Light System

Los Angeles – On Monday, May 14, 2001, at 12:01 am, the intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Victory Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley will become the fifth intersection to be equipped with cameras designed to capture red light violations. The Photo Red Light Enforcement program for the City of Los Angeles is being conducted by the Police Department and the Department of Transportation.
Motorists travel across magnetic loops imbedded in the roadway, which when activated, detects the relative position of the vehicle when the signal turns red. Vehicles failing to stop at the limit lines are photographed and an automated citation is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle. The first four intersections to be monitored in this manner became operational in December of 2000. After a 30 day warning period, the first photo violations were captured on December 31, 2000. Through April 2001, 3243 citations have been issued at the intersections currently being monitored. These locations are Wilshire Boulevard and Westwood Boulevard, 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue, Imperial Highway and Figueroa Street and Winnetka Avenue and Sherman Way.
In a recent article by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (Vol. 36, No.4, April 28, 2001) "significant citywide crash reductions have followed the introduction of red light cameras in Oxnard, California." The article continues to say "[these reductions] represent the first hard evidence that red light cameras enforcement is making U.S. intersections safer." In Oxnard, right angle crashes at intersections with traffic signals, the collision type most closely associated with red light violations, fell 32 percent after camera enforcement began in 1997. Los Angeles currently has over 4,300 signalized intersections throughout 450 square miles. The Photo Red Light Program, when fully implemented by the summer of 2001, will monitor 16 intersections with cameras. The City’s program will evaluate the results from these 16 intersections over three years to determine if the program will impact the deaths and injuries resolution from red light violation crashes in the City. In the year 2000, there were 3,112 collisions directly attributed to red light violations in the City, resulting in 16 deaths, 2,452 injuries, and untold property damage losses. It is anticipated the Automated Red Light Enforcement results in Los Angeles has a similar reduction in red light traffic collisions as in the city of Oxnard.
Sergeant II John Gambill of Uniformed Support Division is the Coordinator of this program. Should further information be needed, he can be reached at,
213-473-7796.