Photo radar helps augment traffic safety, as well as that of pedestrians and neighborhoods. A tweaking of the current policy to improve safety will not cost the state any money, and in fact will raise money while at the same time lowering emergency room health care costs. Speeding cars in our neighborhoods continue to remain an issue. The City of San Jose does what it can to manage speeding on our streets with the dollars we are able to allocate.
The City deals with speeders cars in two ways. One is enforcement with our Traffic Enforcement Unit (TEU). TEU are police officers on motorcycles that split their time in neighborhood “hot spots” where speeding is reported. You can report speeding in your neighborhood by clicking this link.
The SJPD aggregates the complaints and then tries to prioritize them as a way to identify the hot spots. The other portion of traffic enforcement’s time is spent at intersections with the highest rate of car accidents. Of course, as pointed out last week on my blog, we only have a limited number of police officers covering a city of a million people.
The other City tool is our Department of Transportation (DOT), which has a small but dedicated group committed to traffic calming who work with a limited budget and are mandated to follow state law. The state determines signage, street markings and the actual speed limit on San Jose streets.
San Jose previously had photo radar: a van parked on streets that took pictures of car license plates that were speeding. However, due to issues at the state level, the program was eliminated. Data from the DOT showed that photo radar reduced speeding on neighborhood streets. Gov. Schwarzenegger has recently proposed an expansion of photo radar.
Drivers who speed are dangerous. Time and time again we have a tragedy of some innocent pedestrian getting killed by an irresponsible driver. Currently, red light running cameras are legal in California; the idea is to also allow that same camera to give out speeding tickets. There is also speculation of allowing mid-block radar as well.
If you believe speeding is a problem in your neighborhood please contact your state representative this week and tell them you support the expansion of photo radar.
Police cannot be on every street 24/7, but technology can help fill the gap. We need our limited police resources for actions that only a police officer can do like investigating violent crime, property crime, gangs and community policing.
On to other matters: On Friday, we released the mid-year budget review. We had less revenue than expected so we drained $4.5 million out of our $10 million economic uncertainty reserve. You may remember an October 2009 blog when a Lobbyist came to the council meeting lambasting the City to spend the reserve instead of saving the money. Individuals are told by financial planners to save six months of living expenses in case of unemployment, so our City, having a one percent reserve is the minimum and should be higher. Going forward we will have $5.5 million left out of an approximate billion dollar budget.
Also worth noting from the report was the annual Hayes Mansion subsidy from the city was $5.9 million which is equivalent to approximately 50 police officers or approximately 40 police officers and opening all of our libraries citywide on Sundays. Take your pick.
Finally our Building & Structure Construction Tax decreased 50 percent—from $8 million to $4 million. It’s important to note that affordable housing in San Jose is exempt from paying these fees that go towards the paving roads. As market rate housing is in the tank the only housing going forward are affordable housing projects that sadly do not provide parks either, again an exemption made by the city council. Think of that next time you buy new shocks or tires for your car.
The City of San Jose Budget Prioritization Survey, available by clicking this link, closes Feb 5.
Bad idea. Lose the photo radar.
I received one of those citations several years ago and it was one hundred percent gotcha and zero percent deterrent. I also think it is ultimately of very dubious legality.
So, what happens if the photo radar robot is set up in a “minority” neighborhood? Why, it’s targeting minorities.
What happens if it is set up across from Home Depot? Why, it’s monitoring illegal aliens (or as they are known inside the PC bubble, “undocumented workers”).
What happens if it happens to take pictures of someone holding up a Seven Eleven? Or picking up an “undocumented worker”? Or, littering? Or jay-walking? Or, parking illegally? Or looking in the window of the Ferrari parked in front of your condo? Or, loading your shotgun into the back seat of your car within 1000 feet of a school? Or, smoking within twenty-five feet of the entrance to a restaurant? Or…, or…, or ….
Call me a worry wart, but I DO NOT want to live in a surveillance society.
If the City Mothers and Fathers are truly interested in reducing speeding and improving public safety, a far, FAR, FAR superior solution is the speed reporting radar devices which simply display the measured speed of a vehicle back to the driver.
Such a device is frequently deployed on Blossom Hill Road near Los Gatos School and it does a fantastic job of making drivers aware of their speed AND ACTUALLY INDUCING THEM TO SLOW DOWN!!! Which is the whole point.
And, I’m sure the radar speed indicators are far cheaper to procure and operate than the photo radar ticketing systems.
Instead of investing in photo radar ticketers and achieving little benefit in speed reduction or safety, it would be of far greater benefit to install PERMANANT speed reporting devices at every school speed zone.
Would love you to say this paranoid rant in front of someone who is now in a wheelchair because of an imbecile driving a speeding car. Or maybe to the kids in Almaden Valley whose parents were killed last year by a car speeding out of control.
And what purpose would that serve other then providing YOU a physical objective for your ignorant malignant bile?
The city’s fear based, after the-fact photo radar citizen surveillance system would not have prevented these tragedies.
To “Fear Based”…
You name off every good reason to have cameras… and then you complain that that you don’t like “surveillance society”??
I watched my neighbors house get robbed one early morning (in the 80s), without realizing what was happening. Because of that, and my description and all, the police were able to apprehend the burglers within one hour of asking for my help (due in part to the burglers relatively incompetence and idiocy).
Now… did I “spy” on my neighbors? Was I doing “surveillance”? No. I happened to be in the right spot and the right time, which helped my neighbors immensely (getting everything returned).
But I’ll tell you… I don’t care for the speed trap cameras myself… but if it catches a pedophile near a school, or a rapist, or a burgler, or drug trafficking, then I am completely for it. My personal “need to speed” can be put to rest if it creates a safer overall neighborhood.
My other thought is… the only real people who worry about being “watched” are usually those who have plans to possibly do something they don’t want seen. It’s not like anyone is peeking in your bedroom or bathroom. Keep your nose clean and there is no problem. It doesn’t have to be Big Brother or “1984.”
Regarding speed indicators… let’s be real here… Telling you you are speeding is one thing… but forcing you to pay a ticket no only angers you enough to think twice, it also puts money back into the cash-strapped city.
Just an opinion…
It is unfortunate that a former Lieutenant for the Santa Clara Police Department got a ticket for speeding in San Jose and then challenged the ticket and won because it was issued by an automated photo radar system set up in a van on Hicks Ave. I heard that is why San Jose dropped this program. Speeding kills and maims other drivers and I hope San Jose can re-institute this program.
Wow, Pierluigi, why didn’t you stop with the last batch of good ideas? You were on a roll until you became the champion of Big Brother speed traps.
Why don’t we just become a city of kids jumping around in slow moving minivans?
Maybe the cops at Flames can be persuaded to take turns on the corner of fourth street with a radar gun?
If we want to improve safety, let’s trim the trees before the next one falls on a three-year-old.
Then again, if your pot dispensary plan goes through, everyone will be driving under the speed limit anyway….
Bring on the radar. I live by Leigh High School and deal with speeding cars all the time.
I’ve observed that a lot of people think that a stop sign is a “slow down a little bit” sign, and some of them will actually honk at you if you come to a complete stop at a stop sign.
Almost every day I go past a place that used to be a common radar trap, so I am always careful to drive at the speed limit there, which is 35, and quite often I get people honking at me and passing aggressively. But I haven’t seen a cop there for 2 or 3 years now.
This Fall the San Mateo County Appellate Division twice found the typical contract (between County cities and their red light camera camera suppliers) to be illegal, a violation of the Veh. Code 21455.5(g) prohibition of “pay-per-ticket” contracts. (Capitola, Daly City, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Modesto, Napa, Newark, Redwood City, San Leandro, San Mateo, South SF and Union City have these problematic contracts.) I predict it will be just a matter of time before these cities are hit with class action suits demanding the return of all fines collected. In the meantime, anyone having a red light camera ticket from one of these towns should delay, fight, not pay. For more info, Google 21455.5 and the case names, Bullock and Lopez.
2. Everyone needs to know about Snitch Tickets, fake/phishing camera tickets sent out by the police to bluff the registered owner into identifying the actual driver of the car. (Daly City, San Mateo, San Leandro, Emeryville, Millbrae, Newark and Union City do it.) Snitch Tickets have not been filed with the court, so they don’t say “Notice to Appear,” don’t have the court’s addr. and phone #, and usually say (on the back, in small letters), “Do not contact the court about this notice.” Since they have NOT been filed with the court, they have no legal weight whatsoever. You can ignore a Snitch Ticket. If in doubt, Google the term.
Great information!
In a sane society, this would nail the coffin lid on the “photo radar speeding ticket robots.”
But this is not a sane society. It’s San Jose, with a desparate, revenue starved city government.
And moreover, located in the State of California, with a desparate, revenue starved, and TOTALLY LUNATIC fiscally irresponsible legislature.
Sadly, it looks like we’ll have to knock this crazy scheme down one more time.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty.”
I am not convinced that routine and open-ended surveillance of citizens is compatible with a free society.
If the government is going to arrogate to itself the privilege of conducting on-going surveillance of citizens, then it is more than fair that the sovereign citizenry should increase it’s surveillance of its government.
Open meetings are only the beginning. Of course, all public meetings of govenmental bodies—legislatures, councils, boards, commissions, etc.—should be monitored and streamed on the internet.
But so should ALL activities of officials that are engaged in policy making, policy influencing, or conduct of the public’s business. There should be streaming web cams, viewable over the internet, in EVERY public official’s office, car, meeting room, or any place where an official might conduct business, meet with other officials, or meet with lobbyists.
As has been proposed for San Jose Police Officers, public officials should be required to wear head cams so the public an see any potential policy influencing encounter that an official may have.
If they government wants to stick it’s nose in the people’s business, the people should demand visibility into the governments business.
If you do not run red lights and drive the speed limit then you have nothing to worry about.
> If you do not run red lights and drive the speed limit then you have nothing to worry about.
Nothing, that is, but spending tens of thousands of dollars to hire lawyers and expert witnesses, pay court costs, and prove that the government’s photo robot was incorrectly calibrated, pointed at a source of radar interference, misread the license number, or that the city colluded with the equipment supplier who programmed the photo robot to increase the measured speed by ten miles per hour to catch more speeders and raise more revenue.
Nothing to worry about.
None of these things have ever happened before.
A letter from the city to Citizen Carac.
Dear Citizen Carac:
An electronic black box has reported to the city that you owe the city $475.
You have three days to pay up and will be charged twenty percent interest per day, beginning immediately, until this charge is fully paid.
It’s for the children.
Have a nice day.
I agree with my Councilmember on this. Actually in the Netherlands the fine is automatically deducted from your bank account—no need to worry about paying late
! To the people who just complain about upholding their “rights” (to speed, to run red lights, to do whatever in the name of freedom)—what about your *duties* as a citizen and driver’s license holder (to obey the speed limit, to stop for red lights and stop signs) !!! By the way doesn’t everyone also slow down when you see a police car.
I’d vote for this but only if the tickets were issued to drivers who are going too slow as well. A car going 20mph in a 35mph zone is just as dangerous since they are obviously not paying attention to driving or the road they are on – talking on their phone or distracted in some other way perhaps – in addition to the traffic congestion they are contributing to and the potential road rage that can flare up in these instances.