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Red Light Camera Bill Fails On Issue Of Lives V. Money

Posted May 2, 2009 by William March

Updated May 2, 2009 at 07:16 PM

After years of rejecting the idea, the Florida Legislature decided this year, because of increasing numbers of red-light runners and resulting accidents, that cameras at intersections for enforcement were a good idea.

But a bill to authorize the cameras statewide still failed—not because of a concern about traffic safety, but because of a disagreement over who would get the resulting money from fines.

“For several years, I’ve been the reason it hasn’t passed,” because of concerns about “the intrusion of Big Brother government,” said Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, chairman of the Senate’s Civil and Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee.

Crist said he lifted his objections this year because of what he called “a growing epidemic of infractions with the death rate climbing. The need has come to outweigh the fear of government intrusion.”

The bill included safeguards to prevent local governments from abusing the program. Among them: a requirement for the federal standard, slightly longer yellow light at intersections with cameras; for local governments to report to the state each year on the results of the program; and for a grievance procedure if citizens think the cameras are being used to take advantage of motorists.

Both the Senate and the House passed the bill during the legislative session now nearing its end in Tallahassee.

But the two houses amended the bill repeatedly, changing the distribution of the money from the fines it would generate—some going to the local government operating the cameras, some to the courts and some to the state.

In the end, it failed, said House sponsor Rep. Ron Reagan, R-Bradenton, because some House members wanted all the money to go to the state.

“It’s preposterous,” Reagan said. “This is supposed to be about highway safety. I would hope there would be no money at all because people wouldn’t run red lights.”

He said 51 Florida cities or counties have at least nascent camera enforcement programs, and the law would have standardized their operations.

Hillsborough County is now developing a program; Temple Terrace already has cameras at two intersections, and has been considering expanding it to several more.

The bill’s failure is also a bitter disappointment to Melissa Wandall of Bradenton, whose husband Mark was killed in 2003, two weeks before the birth of their only child, when another motorist ran a red light.

Each year since then, Wandall has come to Tallahassee to lobby the Legislature for a red-light camera bill. The bill was named for her husband.

As of late Friday afternoon, she thought she had succeeded—only to find as afternoon wore into evening, and both houses of the Legislature raced through bill after bill to meet the recess deadline, that the House had rejected the Senate’s final version.

She said she’ll keep trying.

But Reagan had another idea—“I’d strongly suggest that all the local governments institute their own programs,” he said. A state law isn’t required for them to do that.

“Then they can keep all the money.”

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