You Can Run (Lights) but Can’t Hide From Big Brother

Big Brother or Big Deal?

A letter this week has Street Smart thinking.

Since July, the city of Oxnard, with the help of a private firm, has been sticking cameras at hot spot traffic intersections where people seemed insistent on running the red lights and causing accidents.

Now it doesn’t take a police officer to catch you. All it takes is a little film and a flick of an automatic camera.

The ticket comes in the mail.

Oxnard traffic officers say the cameras are a godsend, leading to more than 2,200 citations that have withstood every court challenge levied against them.

Red-light runners are one of the biggest causes of vehicle collisions in the city and the No. 1 cause of traffic fatalities. Early figures show that the cameras--or maybe just the warning signs posted a few hundred feet away--seem to be significantly slowing the collision rate.

Still, some people take offense.

They don’t like the idea of the government taking snapshots of them as they drive along city streets.

Even Caltrans has gotten into the act lately, snapping photos of license plates at the base of the Conejo Grade and sending out questionnaires to the car owners to gauge driving habits and potential ridership on Amtrak rail lines.

Big Brother or Big Deal?

Street Smart wants to know what you think.

One reader has already formed an opinion.

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Dear Street Smart:

During a recent weekend trip to Temecula, I was amazed and a little uneasy as I drove through the city and was confronted by warning signs stating that Big Brother was watching me through the eyes of traffic cameras.

The following weekend I decided to have dinner at a very popular Mexican restaurant in Oxnard and decided to take a shortcut by driving south on Rose Avenue as I came off the Ventura Freeway. And it happened again! A warning sign right smack on the corner of Gonzales (Road) and Rose.

I made a vow to myself that as soon as the sun rose the following day, I would call Oxnard City Hall and find the culprit or culprits responsible for the installation of the Oxnard traffic control cameras.

The answers to my phone questions were all graciously replied to by Senior Officer Don Mulville of the Oxnard Police Department, who also indicated interest in my letter in hopes to better inform our citizens in regards to justification of the installed cameras.

During my phone conversation I requested a city (list) of camera locations, and that went over like a lead balloon.

Big Brother is on the move again. Guess I’ll trade my new car for a horse.

Fred Camacho, Camarillo

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Dear Reader:

Like them or loathe them, the cameras and their associated warning signs seem to be doing what many drivers refuse to do themselves: keep from running red lights and endangering other drivers.

Mulville, the same gentleman you spoke with, said the main goal of the cameras was not to generate cash for some company, but to cut down on the biggest collision factor and biggest killer in Oxnard.

Mulville said preliminary figures show that collisions due to red-light runners will decrease 20% after six months of the cameras being in place.

Street Smart isn’t exactly crazy about all the hidden cameras that seem to be popping up lately, either.

But understand, a guy named Street Smart has a tough time complaining about safer roads.

The tickets are also feeding government coffers with a whole lot of money.

For every $104 ticket the 11 cameras around the city have generated, the city gets $14. Ditto for the company, United States Public Technology, that installed the cameras at no charge to the city. The state court system gets the difference.

Soon, the fine will rise to $276, of which Oxnard will get $86, the company about $25 and the courts the rest.

None of this will make your fears of Big Brother’s electronic eyes go away, dear reader. But again, how can Street Smart argue? It’s working.

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Dear Street Smart:

Every time I drive down Avenida de Los Arboles between Moorpark Road and the Moorpark Freeway in Thousand Oaks, I get upset with the three-way stop at Calle Bouganvilla.

At least a thousand cars must stop going east or west on Arboles for one or two that come in from Bouganvilla.

There is a stop sign (three-way) just three blocks west at a small shopping center and a stop light two blocks east at the freeway, so there are adequate breaks in the traffic to allow those one or two cars to enter Arboles.

It isn’t fair to inconvenience so many for so few.

Can something be done to remove this stop on Arboles?

Faith King, Thousand Oaks

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Dear Reader:

City Traffic Engineer John Helliwell tells Street Smart that you are not the only one to complain about that three-way stop, which at peak commuting hours can back up with the Moorpark Freeway. Your only recourse is to start a petition drive in the area to get rid of it.

But be prepared for a fight.

The stop sign was approved by the City Council 10 years ago at the request of area residents.

If you think that stop sign is frustrating, wait until you try dabbling in local politics.