Despite the fact that many people find them invasive and intrusive, if not illegal, the red light cameras that 14 of the country’s largest cities have installed actually did save 159 lives between 2004 and 2008, says a recently-released study study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. In fact, they say, had such cameras been in operation in all large cities in that time period, up to 815 deaths could have been avoided.
IIHS president Adrian Lund said, “The cities that have the courage to use red light cameras despite the political backlash are saving lives.”
Researchers compared 99 American cities with populations greater than 200,000, looking at the differences between those with red light cameras and those without. They looked specifically at the number of fatal crashes after the introduction of the red light cameras, which required identifying two specific time periods, 1992-1996 and 2004-2008. Cities that had cameras in the earlier period were excluded from the analysis, as were cities that only had cameras for part of the latter one.
The researchers found that in the fourteen cities that had the cameras during the period from 2004 to 2008, the combined per capita rate of fatal crashes caused by people running red lights fell 35 percent as compared with the 1992-1996 period. In the 48 cities that did NOT have camera programs at all, the fatal crash rate also fell, but only by 14 percent. Based on this data, the IIHS researchers determined that the final rate of fatal red-light-running car crashes was 24 percent lower in the camera-using cities than it would have been without the technology in use.
However, the IIHS is quick to point out that because of the cameras, there was also a fourteen percent drop in all fatal crashes at intersections with signals (not just those from running red lights) and a seventeen percent fewer fatal crashes at intersections with signals in the 2004-2008 period than had been expected in the camera cities, while there was a two percent increase in crashes in cities without cameras.
That translates into 159 fewer deaths because of the automated enforcement programs, and shows that the red light cameras have a huge benefit in reducing all types of fatal crashes at intersections, said a representative from the Institute. They believe that this may be due in part to red light running fatalities being underreported when there are no witnesses, as well as the likelihood that drivers are more cautious when they know there are cameras present.