http://ktla.trb.com/news/ktla-redlights,0,1973759.story

L.A. Red Light Cameras Clicking for Safety or Revenue?
By Rich Connell, Los Angeles Times

May 19, 2008, 5:50 AM PDT

L.A. Red Light Cameras Clicking for Safety or Revenue?

Unlike some drivers facing fines, the 29-year-old homemaker had not
risked a deadly broadside by sailing through a stop light -- the
principal safety problem cameras were intended to address. Her $159
citation came after she braked at a Manchester Avenue intersection,
checked for cross traffic and made a right turn.

"I looked to make sure," she said. "I wasn't being unsafe."

In Los Angeles, officials estimate that 80% of red light camera
tickets go not to those running through intersections but to drivers
making rolling right turns, a Times review has found. As London
realized that day in court, her turn was illegal because she did not
completely stop before turning.

"I've never . . . seen any studies that suggest red light cameras
would be a good safety intervention to reduce right-turning
accidents," said Mark Burkey, a researcher at North Carolina A&T State
University who has studied photo enforcement collision patterns.

Some county cities with photo enforcement opt not to target right
turns. Others limit camera use for those citations.

"We're kind of very leery about right turns. . . . They're not really
unsafe per se," said Pasadena's senior traffic engineer, Norman
Baculinao. Only one of that city's seven camera-equipped intersection
approaches is set up to monitor right-turn violations, he said.

"This is intended to be a traffic safety program. People who make
right turns generally are going at a low speed," and resulting
accidents tend to be a "sideswipe at most," he said.

Emphasizing those violations, Baculinao said, would be "more for
revenue generation" than safety.

[...]