Red Light Camera Citations

The headline of an article in The Ledger this morning reported red light cameras yet to yield any citations. To the casual reader, one might interpret this to mean the cameras have failed to catch anyone running red lights. That is certainly not the case.

We previously posted that citations would be delayed as we send our officers through training to learn how to work the software to review events and determine if a violation occurred. That training was conducted this past Wednesday.

A verbal report at our daily staff meeting this morning indicated almost 1,500 "events" were captured by the red light cameras and forwarded to LPD for review since the cameras went live June 1 at five different locations around the city. An "event" is any incident that might be a "violation" of the red light ordinance. There may be numerous reasons why an event is captured by a camera. It then becomes the responsibility for a police officer to review each event and determine if a "violation" occurred.

There is a specific process that occurs when a recorded event is processed by the company before being sent to LPD for review. That might take a week or so to complete. Once LPD processes the event and determines a violation occurred, the company still has additional work to do before a citation is mailed to the owner of the violation vehicle. It might take up to 30 days to get a citation in the mail from the date of the original event - all told, a reasonable period of time for the work involved in processing events and violations.

Not all events will end up being violations, but talking to some officers who began processing events this week suggests the vast majority of events are found to be a violation and warrant a citation.

To those who were caught running red lights by one of our cameras but think you got away with a violation because you have not yet received a citation, all I can say is stand by - your citation will be arriving at your mailbox soon.

Just be patient with us - these things take time to complete.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Comments

[Bob]

I would like to know why we don't put cameras in every public place so that we can write tickets for jay walking, not returning library books, speeding, etc? If we had cameras in every public place, there would be no crime, right? If someone doesn't like this idea, it's because they are a criminal and have something to hide.

[LPD Asst Chief Bill LePere]

This is a common question, so thanks for asking it here. The answer is - no - entering the intersection on green to await an opportunity to turn left is not a violation if you complete the turn once the light turns red. You may not enter the intersection on red to make a left turn, but you are okay if you are already there when the light turns red.

[Lakelandmom]

I'm wondering if being in the middle of the intersection on green, waiting for the opportunity to turn LEFT when the light turns red will be a violation?