RED LIGHT CAMERAS
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If
you haven't already done so, please read the
Modesto section on the Camera Towns page City of Modesto Documents
Many RedFlex towns send out "Snitch Tickets," which
you can ignore. A Snitch Ticket will not have
the Superior Court's name and address on it. For
more details, see the Snitch Ticket section on the
Your Ticket page.
Do you live in the South end of
Alameda County or the North end of Santa Clara County
- State Sen. Ellen Corbett's former District? In late 2014 Sen. Corbett termed out,
and was replaced by this person R.A. Wieckowski,
Author of the anti-motorist bill AB 666 Please don't vote for him. Docs Set # 1 This map
shows the locations as of Nov. 2009: Docs Set # 2 Total
Violations Recorded (some months), and
Notices Printed [4] New 11-13-10,
updated 7-18-15
This table made by highwayrobbery.net, using official reports provided by the City under the California Public Records Act. 2005
official report, 8 months [7] [ ] indicates a
footnote. Ticketing
Highlights - Mostly Left Turns Modesto's annual
report for 2014 (required by CVC 21455.5(i))
disclosed that 79% of that year's tickets were for left
turns. Perhaps Modesto should have a look at the
actions the City of
Santa Clarita recently took to reduce left turn
violations. Docs Set # 2 The City provided bar graphs of Late
Times, etcetera, for all of its cameras. Docs Set # 3
The Contract (Re-Opening?) The City's contract with RedFlex includes an illegal "cost neutrality" clause, whereby the city will not have to pay RedFlex the full rent if there aren't enough fines to cover the cost. (For other cities with similar clauses see Subsection B of Defect # 10, on the Home page.) The 2004
main contract with RedFlex (staff report)
set the monthly rent for each camera at $6030. A Feb. 2007 staff report
from the police to the City Council's Safety Committee
showed an increase in collision injuries at three of
the four monitored locations. The contract contains an escape clause (Section 6.3)
which allows the City to cancel the contract with ten
days' notice and no penalty (once the cameras are more
than 60 months old). The report also discussed planned new camera locations
- which are shown on the map, above. Invoices
received in late 2013 showed that the City was
currently paying $5658 per camera. In Dec. 2013 Ars Technica published an article
("Perfect Enforcement: On the ground in the red
light camera wars") including information about
Modesto's cameras. (archived
copy) Program Suspended! In Aug. 2014 we found out that in May 2014 the program
was suspended for six months. Later, the suspension was extended another six months, to May 2015. According to an Oct. 31, 2014 article (archived copy) in the Bee: "The Police Department has decided to keep the
red-light camera program on hiatus as it continues to
talk with the camera provider – Redflex Traffic Systems
– about paying less for the cameras under a new
contract." In April 2015 the suspension was extended
again, indefinitely. Thus, the cameras could
come back alive with little advance
notice - or they could be gone, forever.
A May 7, 2015 Modesto Bee article
(archived
copy) said that a new reduced-rent contract would
come before the city council "in several weeks."
There also was a May 8 KRCA story. At the May 12 meeting the Council decided to continue
the matter to a later meeting, to allow the police to
obtain a better price. The police may try to explain away the too-high $3400
price by saying that RedFlex is going to upgrade the
cameras to HD or something like that. That's the
explanation offered in other cities. But how are
four new cameras worth $426,000? (Elsewhere, the City of Baldwin Park allowed their
RedFlex contract to expire in May 2015, possibly a
tactic to negotiate a lower price - like Modesto appears
to be doing.) As of Dec. 7, 2015 the matter had not come back to the
Modesto council, and in response to a public records
request for copies of Apr. 10, 2015 or later
correspondence between the City and RedFlex, the City
said that there was none. May 2016: Discussion
of Re-Opening Coming Soon! An article
in the May 23, 2016 Bee (archived
copy) said that the chief and the council would
soon discuss the possible re-opening of the camera
program.
Docs Set # 4 I could not find red light camera
program info on the police department's website. The MPD
letter in reply to my Oct. 2010 records request
contained a lot of information. Docs Set # 5
Docs Set # 6
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