The Laguna Woods Rant

I would like to share with you an email exchange I recently had with the City Manager for the City of Laguna Woods regarding their red light cameras and a violation that we received.

Here is the email I sent to the City Manager for the City of Laguna Woods:

The City of Laguna Woods has become a spending-free zone for us. My wife received a traffic "violation" from your camera at Gate 12 -- I am sure you know the one because it makes you a lot of money. Her second traffic violation in a decade and it cost us $433 with traffic school. This is literally "parkway robbery" and you should be ashamed of yourselves for sticking it to people who drive through your city at a whopping 29 mph and miss a yellow light by seconds. We are residents of Aliso Viejo and rest assured that we and anyone we know will no longer be spending ANY of our dollars in your city, we hope to a sales tax loss for your city of the tune of way more than the $433 that it cost us for that traffic ticket. I am sure there are legitimate ways for the your city to make money without sticking it to the hard working people that support it.

Here is the City Manager's response to me:

If any part of your wife's car had entered the intersection before the light turned red, she would not have received a ticket. If you enter on yellow and the light turn red before you are through, you do not get a ticket. The only way to get a ticket is if the light is already red before you enter the intersection. I am sorry, but that is simply against the law. If there had been a deputy at the corner, he or she would have issued a ticket. If the light is red, one needs to stop. We have had many accidents at both the intersections at which we have red light cameras. We placed these cameras after a car ran a red light and hit an ambulance in route to Saddleback Hospital. In December, one of our councilmembers was driving in another city and a car ran a red light and broadsided her car - her car was totaled and she was lucky to walk away with only 4 broken ribs. The driver of the vehicle who hit her said the light turned from yellow to red only a second before he entered the intersection. Using your logic, he would not receive a ticket because there wasn't actually a police officer on site when he "ran"the redlight. The City of Laguna Woods believes firmly that the redlight cameras save lives. We do not make any money on the citations from these cameras - the cost of the equipment and the deputy who views each video before a ticket is issued costs the City more than a $100,000 a year in excess of ticket revenue.

This is not quite the response I was expecting, but it got me thinking about something.

First and foremost, I did not mention in my email that I felt these cameras are unfair because there is not an officer present -- the City Manager inferred that I meant that, probably because of other emails or arguments that they have heard. Obviously, my email got lumped together with all of the other complaints.

Getting lumped together with all of the others is the problem I have with these red light cameras. There is not consideration of each particular situation -- there is no interpretation by a human being as to what the conditions were and what the situation was for this particular occasion.

Yes, there is an officer reviewing the video, but all you can see is the intersection from the one point of view -- you do not see opposing traffic, and you do not have the same perspective that an officer on-site would have.

I have been and will always be opposed to this mechanized form of law enforcement. While the accidents that have occurred at these intersections are unfortunate -- why should I be paying the price today for an accident that occurred years before I entered the intersection?

As I have said before, this is a fundamental flaw in our traffic enforcement policies. Are all drivers equally skilled? No, but the laws assume that we are equally unskilled. We post a numbered speed limit that is determined to be what is a safe speed, on average, then blanket everything with a clause that says that number might not always be the safe speed, so if we interpret that speed to be lower than the posted speed limit, we can ticket you anyway. You have some laws that are open to interpretation, but then also nail people with traffic cameras that leave room for no interpretation. Seems like they want to have their cake, eat it too, and take our money while they're doing it.