Encinitas will look into starting a red-light camera pilot project, as well as explore other options for improving area traffic safety conditions, the City Council decided Wednesday.
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“I see it as an important piece of solving a much bigger issue that we have,” said Councilmember Joy Lyndes, who made the motion to ask city staff to research the pilot project proposal and return later with more information. She later added, “If it saves one life, it’s totally worth it.
This January, a new state law changed the requirements regarding red light camera use, reducing ticket costs and increasing privacy standards related to how the cameras photograph red-light running vehicles. Any violations caught by the cameras now will be civil penalties, rather than conventional traffic citations. The tickets will be $100 for people who have not had a prior violation in the last three years, $200 for people with one prior violation in the last three years, $250 for two-time violators and $500 for those who have three or more violations within the three-year period.
Also, the new camera systems take pictures of “the rear license plate, rather than the driver, and the notice is issued to the registered owner,” a city staff report states. “Facial-recognition technology is prohibited, and a violation does not result in a driver’s license point or suspension.”
The City Council’s vote to research options was 4-1, with Councilmember Jim O’Hara opposed. O’Hara repeatedly said that he had concerns about privacy issues and he suggested that Encinitas explore other options to improve roadway safety that “won’t infringe upon our rights as Americans,” such as redesigning intersections or adding rumble strips to slow vehicles.
“If you build a system of mass surveillance, you will be mass surveilled,” he said, adding that he trusts the current head of the San Diego County Sheriff’s station in Encinitas to use the camera data properly, but less honorable people also could gain access to it.
Mayor Bruce Ehlers, who has previously said that he wasn’t sure whether red light cameras would significantly improve area traffic safety conditions, said Sheriff station Capt. Shane Watts provided information Wednesday that showed how Encinitas could benefit from using the cameras. Watts told the council that it is difficult for his deputies to use traditional methods to pull over vehicles and give out tickets to red-light runners dashing through the city’s busy, multi-lane intersections.
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After Watts made his comments, Ehlers said he might support putting red-light camera systems at major intersections near schools, and suggested Nardo Road and Santa Fe Drive, as well as Encinitas Boulevard’s intersections with Village Park Way and Balour Drive. Given the high concentration of pedestrians and cyclists at the Balour Drive intersection, “if there are people running red lights there, that would be extremely dangerous,” Ehlers said.
Councilmember Luke Shaffer said he was in favor of at least studying the pilot project proposal. He said he agreed both with O’Hara’s position that privacy was a concern and with Ehlers’ view that if the city proceeds with the effort, it ought to have cameras at more than two intersections.
Councilmember Marco San Antonio, who is running for election to his seat in November, said he wanted to see more data “before we even put a camera at an intersection,” but said he could support the camera program as a tool to improve roadway safety. His opponent in the District 4 council race, Brad Lefkowits, has supported the camera proposal and Lefkowits said during the public comment period that he thinks the data cited by some red-light camera opponents doesn’t provide a valid assessment of the cameras. He strongly encouraged the city to obtain its own data.
Data analysis was a source of disagreement between other public speakers Wednesday. Steve Linke, a former Carlsbad Traffic & Mobility Commission member who recently has been campaigning to get North County cities to reconsider traffic circle roundabouts and separated bike lane projects, told the Encinitas council that his review of crash data indicates that red-light cameras can increase the number of collisions at an intersection and their removal reduces crashes. He said he wasn’t opposed “in any way to a pilot program,” but said he didn’t think cameras would have prevented the death of 12-year-old Emery Chalekian, who was killed last year while walking in a crosswalk one block east of the Encinitas Boulevard and El Camino Real intersection.
Emery’s father, John Chalekian, told the council that’s he’s a statistician and he has concerns about the way camera opponents are doing their data analysis and then contending that removing cameras reduces collisions. He said that every major insurance company has endorsed the use of red light cameras and there’s a good reason why.
If the council does ultimately approve the placement of the cameras, this will be the second time Encinitas has used them. Encinitas had red light cameras at two El Camino Real intersections — the Encinitas Boulevard one and the Leucadia Boulevard/Olivenhain Road one — for some 15 years. The cameras were removed in spring 2020 during the early days of the COVID pandemic, after the City Council decided not to extend its contract with camera operator Reflex. The vote was 3-2, and those voting in favor cited concerns about the high cost of the tickets as a key reason to end the program. Red-light runners were receiving $490 tickets, and much of that money went for court-related expenses. One of the people who voted against the removal — Tony Kranz, who was a council member at the time and later became mayor — said he wanted to keep the cameras because Sheriff’s deputies said the cameras made enforcement efforts easier.
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