To: Honorable Mayor and Members of City Council
From: Jennifer Gonzales, Police Chief
Prepared By: Aaron Medina, Sergeant
TITLE:
Title
Red Light Camera Program
LABEL
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Recommendation
Authorize the Police Chief to issue a competitive request for proposals (RFP) to select a vendor to provide a red-light camera enforcement program, and return to City Council at a future meeting to consider approving a contract to implement the program.
Body
DISCUSSION:
This report is in response to direction from City Council during its meeting on October 19, 2021, to "look into the impacts of adding back in a red light camera enforcement program and provide a report back to Council."
Automated Enforcement is authorized by the California Vehicle Code 21455.5 and has been upheld by courts. However, a governmental agency that proposes to install or operate an automated traffic enforcement system shall not consider revenue generation, beyond recovering its actual costs of operating the system, as a factor when considering whether or not to install or operate a system within its local jurisdiction. Red light cameras are in use in many jurisdictions throughout California.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), nationwide in 2019, 846 people were killed in crashes that involved red light violations. Over half of those killed were pedestrians, bicyclists and people in other vehicles who were hit by the someone failing to stop for the red light. In 2019, an estimated 143,000 people were injured in red light running crashes.
According to the data from the Local Roadway Safety Plan initiative, there were 1,207 injury collisions between 2016 and 2020 in Napa. Of those, 80 resulted in fatal and severe injuries. Eleven percent of the 1,207 injury collisions were caused by a traffic signal or sign violations. In 2020, Napa had 6 fatal collisions, a record high. For the most recent year available for rankings (2019) by the C...
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