By Joy Bergmann
Nods rippled around the room at a recent NYPD 20th Precinct Community Council meeting as an Upper West Sider decried the prevalence of red light running. “Every single day for the past several weeks, I have almost been hit by a motorcycle running through a red light,” said the UWS resident. “Why wouldn’t you install a camera that can take a picture and find these people? The camera would pay for itself in a month!”
The answer to that question lies in Albany.
Although New York City pioneered the nation’s first red-light camera program in 1994, the state legislature has been stingy about the number of cameras it’s allowed to operate: only 50 at first, then 100 in 2006. The legislature authorized the current number, 150, in 2009. That remains New York State law, even though the city has 13,543 intersections with traffic signals.
But proposed legislation now seeks to increase that number, from 150 to 1,325 red-light cameras citywide.
“The current 150 cameras is a pittance compared to what’s needed to even partially address the need for safer streets,” says State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents the Upper West Side and is a co-sponsor of the bill. “Red-light camera enforcement is cost-effective, accurate, unbiased, and available to us right now if Albany gets behind it.”
Do red-light cameras promote safer streets?
“Red light safety cameras have been shown to reduce both red light violations and crashes,” says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) via its website. The national nonprofit funds and evaluates research to improve traffic safety. An IIHS study found that “cameras reduced the fatal red light running crash rate of large cities by 21%.”
IIHS notes that some studies report increased risk of rear-end collisions at camera-equipped intersections (fine-averse drivers may make sudden stops to avoid tickets), but says such crashes “tend to be much less severe than front-to-side crashes, so the net effect is positive.”
Though there are relatively few cameras at NYC intersections, they do have an impact where they are in use, according to the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT). “The Red Light Camera Program has been effective at deterring drivers from running red lights,” a spokesperson told WSR via email. “The average daily number of red-light running violations issued at camera locations has declined by over 77 percent since the program began in 1994.” DOT favors expanding the camera program, according to the spokesperson, “so more of the city can benefit from its life-saving effects.”
Why do some legislators resist allowing more cameras in NYC?
Despite the safety statistics, some lawmakers say they’ll vote against any further expansion.
“The only thing [cameras] do is provide a money grab and an alternative tax method on New Yorkers who are suffering already,” says State Senator Simcha Felder, who represents Borough Park, Brooklyn. “If they want to really deal with safety, get rid of the cameras, stop taxing New Yorkers, and do things the way they used to get done: have the cops stop people who are speeding or driving recklessly, and that will do the job.”
Hoylman-Sigal says cameras complement policing and rejects the taxation-by-citation reasoning. “It’s a spurious argument. It’s a tax you don’t have to pay if you follow the law.”
Why do reps from Elmira or Poughkeepsie get to decide on NYC’s cameras?
Blame Article IX of the New York Constitution which dictates how municipalities may exercise “home rule” over local operations. “It shouldn’t be Albany’s purview in my opinion,” says Hoylman-Sigal. “I favor home rule on traffic issues.”
But for now, he says, the next best thing would be for members of the New York City Council to pass a resolution known as a “Home Rule Message” endorsing the bill for more cameras. “Councilmembers should make it a legislative priority for the coming 2024 session. Passage is unlikely without the city specifically asking for it.”
State Senator Patrick M. Gallivan, who represents Buffalo’s outskirts, underscored the influence of such requests. “I have supported similar legislation in the past, particularly when it comes at the request of a local government entity,” he said via email to WSR.
How do red-light cameras work?
According to a DOT report, when a vehicle runs through a red light, sensors embedded in the road trigger a digital camera situated about 50 feet back from the stop line. A series of photos captures the vehicle, the intersection, and the red-light signal. Human inspectors determine if the photos provide adequate evidence to issue a Notice of Liability, aka a ticket.
Camera enforcement relies on capturing a legible license plate from the offending vehicle. The proposed expansion would not impact red-light-running e-bikes or e-scooters because they do not require registration and plates, though some councilmembers are advocating regulation for such e-vehicles.
Gas-powered mopeds require plates, but often do not have them. Hoylman-Sigal has sponsored a separate bill requiring point-of-sale registration for mopeds.
Further frustrating enforcement is the growing problem of untraceable vehicles with obscured, defaced, or fake license plates known as “ghost cars.” The DOT did not respond to WSR’s question asking for the percentage of camera violations that are dismissed due to illegible or fraudulent plates. But recent reports put it at 4%, 5%, or 7%.
What are the penalties for a red-light camera ticket?
The vehicle’s registered owner is responsible for paying a $50 fine, regardless of who was driving through the light. Much like a parking violation, red-light camera tickets do not levy points against a driver’s license, nor do they impact someone’s insurance rates. (Drivers ticketed by an NYPD officer for running a red light receive three points on their license and face at least $278 in fines, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.)
According to the city’s Department of Finance, during fiscal year 2023, owners received 672,142 red-light camera violations totaling $33.6 million in fines; the department collected $31.4 million in fines, which was put toward the city’s general fund. Owners contested 2.5% of red-light camera violations, with only .3% ultimately being dismissed following hearings and appeals.
The red-light camera program has more than paid for itself, according to city officials. From its inception in 1994 through June 2021, the city has received $333.8 million in net revenues after subtracting the cost of equipment and staffing, according to the most recent DOT report.
What about extra punishment for repeat offenders?
“Your vehicle can be booted if you owe the City of New York more than $350 in camera violation tickets that are in judgment,“ a finance department spokesperson told WSR via email. “Your vehicle may be towed if you do not pay the violation judgment debt and related fees within two business days of booting.”
The city supports another pending bill that would call for suspension of a vehicle’s registration if the owner gets five or more red-light camera tickets in a year.
Hoylman-Sigal says he backs escalating the penalties. “Safety has to be paramount.”
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There should be many, many more of these and driving with defaced, obscured, or fraudulent license plates should mean automatic impoundment of your car. No exceptions, NYPD included.
Agreed. But there is also an efficiency argument: Catching “ghost cars” simply for having obscured license plates will deter their later running red-light cameras, driving into the dreaded Congestion Pricing forbidden zone, and other violations.
It’s unlikely that any driver obscures his or her license plate *without* planning at some time to evade camera detection. You can’t penalize someone for planning to break a law, but you can penalize them for obscuring their license plate. So why not catch them that way, before they break other laws where they won’t be caught?
Absolutely – there’s no excuse for having an obscured plate. I see 2-3 of these a day just walking to/from my kids school, baffling to me why NYPD is not willing to enforce this
Oh, that’s easy. It’s because members of the NYPD are among the worst offenders. Just as they believe that they can park wherever they want without penalty (and use placards, real or fake, to get out of parking enforcement), so too do they believe that they can speed, run red lights, and evade tolls without penalty.
The state should make a legible license plate a requirement to pass inspection – right now you don’t need any license plate at all. Start a citizen enforcement program like they do for noise and idling complaints. Let NYPD parking enforcement give out tickets for missing or damaged plates and give the agents a ten dollar bonus for every one they write. There’s a lot more that could be done.
I got a ticket in NJ because my “Manhattan Motorcars” dealer frame “obscured” maybe the bottom 1/16″ of the word “Excelsior” at the bottom of the plate. I’m thinking the traffic cop was incentivized to give out tickets and correctly assessed that it would not be worth it for an out of state driver to fight the $50 fine.
This! Yes! Please!
NYPD traffic agents can and do issue tickets for missing or defaced plates. Or even if the plate is improperly displayed. I got a ticket one day time because someone parking knocked my plate off. My wife put the plate on the dashboard until I got home from work to reinstall it. But they ticketed us before then. The ticket was dismissed because I sent pictures of the reinstalled plate on the same day the ticket was issued with an expired explanation of what happened.
That would lead to intentional defacing of license plates by those seeking to cash in on such a program.
Not a bad idea to reward enforcement officers for writing legit tickets but I would like to see them write tickets without ignoring those who park illegally and display a safety vest in the windshield. I saw a vehicle like that parked at a fire hydrant this morning and there should be zero tolerance for that. I’d like to see a citizen program to report that violation for a reward. It’s easy to find out which traffic officer was assigned to that area and ignored the situation.
Non-driver/pedestrian/bus-subway rider/parent/lifelong resident here….
Please – it is regular bicyclists especially Citibike riders and racing bicyclists who regularly endanger me and my family.
They go through red lights, go the wrong way, ignore bike lanes.
And, the bikes still don’t have license plates.
1) Cyclists are not required to be in bike lanes. That does not excuse them running lights or going the wrong way, but they have the right to all lanes of traffic.
2) Cars kill far more people than bicycles. We have the data, and its not even close
Because cars are far more prevalent than bikes. Not even close.
Are you suggesting that if there were as many bikes as there are cars then there would be as many deaths caused by bikes as there are deaths caused by cars?
Of course not. But there would certainly be many, many more.
It’s true that bike riders (especially motorized ones) are far more likely to run lights and do other stupid things but that has nothing to do with the need to rein in lousy drivers. It’s not about one vs the other.
Great article. One point that was not mentioned is that cameras allow the law to be enforced without police interacting with drivers. This is generally safer for both police and drivers. It also allows police to be redeployed to higher priorities. Why waste the cops time on a job that should be automated?
Because the plates are obscured or falsified so often.
The technology isn’t infallible and has already been gamed left and right for the automated bridge tolls.
Cars need to be impounded and licenses need to be suspended to have an actual impact
We need red light cameras everywhere, and we need speed cameras everywhere.
And we need a lot of car boots to immobilize cars with phony/defaced/etc plates.
And I say this as someone who has owned a car for 50 years.
Lin is correct about bikers accounting for the majority of red-light-running reckless driving. But how do we punish them, given that the don’t have to have a driver’s license?
Police officers can give cyclists tickets for running red lights or other traffic infractions. No license needed for a ticket.
Not every article is about bikes
Lin is not correct – the vast majority of traffic injuries are caused by cars, not bikes. Someone makes this assertion in every discussion about traffic safety and it’s just not anywhere close to being true. Maybe they see it repeated so often in comments that it starts to feel true?
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/traffic_data/mnacc-en-us.pdf
Josh P:
My comment was that bicyclists endanger me and my family.
I did not mention or discuss “traffic injuries” etc generally – so actually your assertion is incorrect.
Maybe bikers are on here pretending that bikers aren’t a problem in NYC.
This article glosses over and ignores so many problems. Are they needed and do they work? Depends on your definition. Generate revenue? Yes. Decrease crashes? No. And we know this not from the info above but from what the info above IGNORES. RLCs can only deter intentional light running. If intentional RLR is a factor in most crashes at a specific intersection, then a traffic engineering study will show this and extra enforcement can fix it. The reality is THERE ARE NO STUDIES that show this. Just because many people run red lights doesn’t mean it’s causing crashes and often may indicate a traffic engineering defect: intersection design, light timing, visibility, or something else. Without a study you can’t even begin to fix a problem. I’ll ignore the most glaring deficiency is a positive identification of the driver (not the car owner). In a just society you can’t go around accusing people because their property was used in the commission of a crime and because their photo resembles another photo. We would never convict a bank robber if all we had was photos. But somehow it’s OK when it’s “just” a revenue ticket.
You are 100% incorrect! Please delete your FALSE information. See this for real facts: The average daily number of red light violations issued at camera locations has fallen by over 77 percent since the program began. Right-angle or “T-bone” crashes at camera locations are down 80 percent, and rear-end crashes are down 61 percent. More information about red light cameras can be found in the NYC DOT annual report.
“We would never convict a bank robber if all we had was photos.”
I’m pretty sure if we had photos of someone robbing a bank we would definitely convict them?
Actually, the law does say that a vehicle owner is responsible for the conduct of the driver of the vehicle. So it is totally legal.
And the data is most definitely in existence. You take an intersection and look at the past crash data. You add a camera to the intersection. You then compare the crash data after the installation of the camera to the data before the installation. You then compare the change at the intersection to the overall trend in the city to see if it matches or differs from the overall trend. Study done. And the data is out there. Which is what is discussed in the article. Red light cameras lower the number and/or seriousness of crashes when employed compared to intersections where cameras are not employed.
Why aren’t there more cameras everywhere period like in Europe.
I was about to write the same thing. Without any law enforcement anywhere, we need to have cameras everywhere for our own general protection and security.
To be extra careful, we should even post security cameras inside people’s homes to be sure no one is preparing to rob a weed store or commit other antisocial crimes. Once the electronics are in, we could pair the cameras with video screens so officials can communicate directly with someone planning to break the law, and so prevent the societal conflict rather than need to deal with it after it happens.
Yes, we need cameras, everywhere. Maybe someone should write a compelling novel about it?
the cameras don’t matter, since so many plates are partially obscured or fake.
if we are going to pay for tens of thousands of police officers, they need to conduct TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT. Or give up that responsibility to another agency
Yes we need more traffic cameras and more enforcement in general. For the first time in my lfe I agree with State Senator Hoylman.
Red light cameras won’t help if most cars are compliant but scooters and e-bikes with no plates aren’t.
One correction to the article – electric scooters ARE required to have license plates, not just gas powered scooters. The law is based on the top speed and whether or not the vehicle has pedals. Not the engine type. Just too many owners of these vehicles do not have plates and the NYPD is not doing enough about that.
Most criminals have fake paper plates. There are way too many and you would need a police force just dedicated to stopping these people. It’s become pervasive since Covid, there is no regulation around them and people just print off a new one, not only blowing red lights, but also avoiding paying tolls and parking tickets. Scooters and motorcycles without plates is a whole other issue, and again you would need a whole force just dedicated to the thousands and thousands of these on our city streets. The NYPD does sporadic operations where they will seize many of these bikes, but it’s just a drop in the bucket. These delivery bikes are the real menace right now. They drive around the city at high rates of speed, breaking every single traffic rule with impunity.. Police can’t chase them down as they drive on the sidewalk. So next time you order your delivery from your local restaurant, think how you were contributing to this problem. Apps like Uber eats, etc. have increased this problem a hundredfold. I often feel like I’m in one of these 3rd world countries where thousands of scooters roam the streets
Since it’s difficult to catch these people, the city Council has to think of more creative ways. Perhaps anyone that works as a delivery person for Uber etc. needs to be licensed and prove whatever vehicle they’re using is registered. Just thinking off the top of my head. I know when the revel motorcycles first came out there was an issue with reckless driving and they changed a few things which made a big difference.
Am I the only one who remembers the GAZILLION of TAXPAYER dollars that we were soaked for to install a “ring of steel” network of ALPR (Automatic License Plate Reading) cameras approaching, and inside, the NYC limits in the WAR ON TERROR?
Even Sixty Minutes got into it, with a puff piece interview of the NYC Deputy Commissioner of Technology describing how if the cameras saw a plate that was registered to a Red Volvo but was on a Green Chevy approaching the GWB, the cops would get flagged and pull it right over.
Yet somehow all these cars with damaged, missing, covered, or fake paper plates get right through.
So what the [deleted] happened to all that money?
I’ll take my meds now. Thank you
These gas powered, unlicensed mopeds must be confiscated. I have never seen one wait for a red light to change. There has been at least one fatality on the UWS and recently a police officer was deliberately struck by one while trying to arrest a person for stealing a moped
“The only thing [cameras] do is provide a money grab and an alternative tax method on New Yorkers who are suffering already,” says State Senator Simcha Felder, who represents Borough Park, Brooklyn.” What a nutty thing to write. If people break the law, they should expect to pay for it.
It’s ridiculous how many comments complain about things that are actually covered in this (well researched) article. Like actual data about the percentage of obscured plates, requirements for plates on mopeds, why there aren’t more red light cameras, etc. It’s almost as if these commenters didn’t bother to read the article…