The red light traffic enforcement cameras at two Santa Maria intersections are coming down, but that doesn’t mean drivers are going to have it any easier if they run a stoplight.
“Whether you get a ticket from a camera or an officer, the fine is still $406 for running a red light,” city spokesman Mark van de Kamp said. “And we’re still going to have traffic officers out looking for people running red lights.”
The cameras are going to be removed, explained senior city engineer David Beas, because Nestor Traffic Systems Inc., the company contracted by the city to provide them, filed for bankruptcy in June of this year.
City officials had hoped American Traffic Solutions—the company that acquired Nestor’s assets in September—would continue the contract, but, according to Beas, that’s not the case.
“They looked over all the contracts and determined which to keep. Unfortunately, they decided not to keep Santa Maria’s contract,” Beas said. “Really, it took us by surprise, and, frankly, the city was disappointed because we didn’t receive any correspondence before the contract was terminated.”
“ATS elected not to purchase the contract because the violation rates in Santa Maria were low enough that we felt our technology was not needed there,” said American Traffic Solutions spokeswoman Teresa Benton. “We want to apply our technology where it’s most affective.”
Up until now, Santa Maria has been the only city in Santa Barbara County with a red light traffic enforcement camera program, city spokesman van de Kamp said. The cameras were installed at the intersection of Betteravia and Miller in June 2007 and at Miller and Stowell in June 2008. The city negotiated a provision that it wouldn’t incur any costs for the program.
“We would have liked to have done more, but that probably won’t happen for a while now,” van de Kamp said.
Dave Whitehead, director of public works, explained that the contract with Nestor was similar to a lease, except the city didn’t pay any leasing fees to have the cameras installed or operated. The city, he said, didn’t make a profit from the fines generated by the cameras.
“I always thought it was an odd way to run a business because when [the cameras] did their job of decreasing the number of people running red lights, the company lost money,” Whitehead said.
Now the city is in the process of deciding what to do about the contract termination.
Senior engineer Beas said city officials from the engineering department, police department, and city attorney’s office are considering several options, including “looking into the legalities of the situation” and “possibly looking at other companies.”
Whitehead said when a driver runs a red light “it can be a very dangerous and chaotic situation” that puts the public and police officers at risk.
“We’re not going to give up on this. We’re going to keep addressing the problem as best we can,” he said.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 3, 2009.