Big Brother Is Watching You
The City of Miami Beach Installs Red Light Cameras at Intersections

By Lee Molloy



Since Monday, Feb. 1 Miami Beach motorists — and their bumper stickers — have been under surveillance.

That’s the date the first of 10 recently-approved red light cameras were installed in the city, with the first batch installed at the southbound and eastbound corners of the intersection at Washington Avenue and 17th Street, and the southbound lane on Indian Creek Drive at 63rd Street. All of the cameras are scheduled to be operational by March 1.

Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS) was contracted by the city last September to install the system, which uses photo and video images of offending vehicles taken in sync with the traffic signal to record the speed of the vehicle both before and after the red light was allegedly run. The images and data are then transmitted to ACS for quality control and then onto the Miami Beach Police Department, where verification of any violation takes place. The system does not take into account who is driving the car however, and the owner is automatically cited.

Upon verification, an infraction notice is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle caught on camera and they have 20 days to either pay the $125 for a first offense or dispute the charge. Second and third offenses increase to $250 and $500 respectively.

However, during the month of February, those caught running a light will not receive a fine, but rather a courtesy notice warning drivers about the new system.

At the city’s Feb. 3 commission meeting, Commissioner Ed Tobin noted that there were “two arguments” given to the commission in favor of installing the cameras: public safety and raising revenue.

Both of these reasons, however, have been disputed in various jurisdictions around the nation.

In 2005, The Federal Highway Administration carried out the most comprehensive study on red light cameras so far, and found that red light cameras resulted in a 16 percent decrease of injuries caused by side-on crashes, while injuries sustained from rear-end crashes increased by 24 percent — a situation thought to be caused by drivers slamming on their brakes for yellow lights in fear of being caught by the camera.

However, the economic cost involved in a rear-end crash is generally less than a side-on accident, therefore it creates an aggregate crash-cost benefit based on the expense of medical bills, insurance costs, damage to vehicles and other expenses, the study showed.

The claim that red light cameras raise revenue is also debatable, because as drivers learn the position of cameras they tend to not run the light. According to a 2002 report by the California State Auditor, “local governments themselves make little or no profit from their [red light camera] programs.” Additionally, two years ago, MSNBC reported that the city of Dallas shut down a quarter of their cameras because they were too effective at deterring the running of red lights and became uneconomical to run.

Courts across the country from state systems to the Supreme Court, however, are seeing more and more cases challenging for-profit red light cameras.

City Manager Jorge Gonzalez, however, is positive the cameras will generate revenue for the city, telling the commission that the $1 million budget is “a fraction of what we expect these cameras to yield,” he said.

In Pursuit of Efficiency
Black and Whites in Miami Beach Could Soon be Green

By Angie Hargot

An item discussing the purchase of 50 new police pursuit cruisers and other vehicles sparked a debate about green police cars – but it wasn’t the paint that commissioners questioned Feb. 3 – it was the cars’ fuel efficiency.

Wednesday, city commissioners approved the purchase of $1.57 million in new vehicles for the city mostly to replace an aging inventory of police cars.

“We are purchasing a number of vehicles to replace predominately police cruisers,” City Manager Jorge Gonzalez told the commission.

In addition to the new Ford Crown Victoria Police Pursuit Vehicles which will replace most of the department’s fleet, the approved purchases also include 18 new Ford Fusions, 3 Ford Focus’ and several other vehicles. Two more Crown Victoria police pursuit vehicles that were “involved in separate accidents and were deemed a total loss,” will also be replaced, city documents show. All of the retired cars will be sold at auction.

Gonzalez said the replacements are long overdue. “We’ve been skipping the [purchases] now for two years,” he said.

Normally the life of the vehicles is five years, but as a cost-saving measure the city pushed the use of the cars to as much as seven, Gonzalez added.

However, soon the maintenance for those cars will exceed their value, he said. Most of the cruisers to be replaced were manufactured in 2003.

But there’s also a time crunch.

Miami Beach is ‘piggy-backing’ on a State of Florida contract for cars which allows the city to acquire new cruisers at a lower price – but there’s a deadline for the purchase order.

During consideration of the item’s approval, Commissioner Jerry Libbin again asked a question that now resurfaces quite often in budget-strained city governments across the country: what about switching to fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles?

“In the past the answer has been you’ve ‘looked at them.’ And the cost-benefit wasn’t really there yet,” Libbin told city staff.

Libbin also referenced a newspaper article on New York City’s introduction of 40 Nissan Altima Hybid cars to their fleet.

According to an April 2009 press release, “at $25,391 per vehicle, the Altima hybrids cost about $1,500 more than the conventional Impala. At 35 miles per gallon for city driving, the hybrid Altima gets double the gas mileage of the Impala, which gets only 16 miles per gallon.”

Libbin made it clear that he didn’t want to stall the department’s purchase of the new vehicles, but wanted to urge the city to pursue the Hybrid option for it’s next round of purchases.  

Commissioner Michael Gongora agreed.

“I asked the City manager privately why we’re not moving toward hybrid vehicles” Gongora said, but added that he also didn’t want to hinder the current purchase “since it sounds like they are so desperately needed.”

Putting off the item’s approval until the Commission’s next meeting would have still allowed the city administration to acquire the regular cruisers at the lower cost via the States contract, however, in that scenario, administrators would only have two days to submit the purchase order. “I’m all in favor of waiting a month on this,” Commissioner Jonah Wolfson said.

Gonzalez was doubtful a deal for Hybrids could be put together in that limited amount of time anyway, and suggested that going forward, the city urge the State to buy the fuel-efficient vehicles as well. New cars are needed in the meantime, city officials reasoned.

The city’s Fleet Management Director Drew Terpak indicated the current condition of existing police cars to be quite poor, with only a few of the cars inspected achieving a grade of ‘fair.’ Terpak added that the Altimas and other hybrid models are not rated for safe police use, and that the Ford Motor Company plans to eliminate the Crown Victoria model in the next year or so. “The car is being redesigned,” to get 26 to 28 miles per gallon he said.

However, if the city was to wait months to investigate buying hybrids, the window on getting regular cruisers from the manufacturer could close.

“The manufacturers have cut-off dates in March for some of their vehicles; May and June for others,” Terpak said. “When we purchase cars today we won’t even see those vehicles for another six or seven months.”

Wolfson, who sits on the city’s Sustainability Committee, pushed to send the item to that body for review.

Gonzalez also added that the city should consult with officers before switching up their vehicles on them, and suggested consulting the “Police take-home vehicle committee.”

The cars are “essentially their office,” he said.

The item passed with Wolfson dissenting and Mayor Matti Bower absent. Commissioner Deede Weithorn also suggested looking at the option of converting vehicles to run on propane.

“I’m only afraid that if we don’t get this going now, we’ll be in the same situation next year,” Wolfson said. “But I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. The green movement has been going on for years, and the cruisers are all gas guzzlers right now.”