Dillon Wants To See Red-Light Details

Arguing that lawmakers need to address New Haven’s superfluous kudzu-like ​“No Turn On Red” signs, a veteran state lawmaker held back Monday from joining a crusade to bring red-light cameras to town.

The lawmaker, state Rep. Pat Dillon, was a conspicuous no-show at a press conference featuring a host of elected officials.

The officials met at the corner of South Frontage Road and York Street to announce a new push to convince the legislature to allow New Haven to start installing cameras that catch people running red lights. The group included state Sen. Martin Looney, Mayor John DeStefano, state Rep. Roland Lemar, and Aldermen Doug Hausladen, Justin Elicker, and Sal DeCola.

New Haven has tried for years to get a law passed allowing the city to install the cameras and fine light-runners. It has failed each year. Looney, the state Senate majority leader, said Monday that he has received assurances that the Transportation Committee will raise the bill this session. (In even-numbered years, committees, not individual lawmakers, must introduce bills.) He said he expects the legislature to pass the bill, now that advocates have gradually succeeded in reassuring lawmakers’ concerns about privacy.

But the ACLU, which has succeeded in helping to kill the bill in past years, is gearing up to try to do so again. And Dillon, who has voted against the idea in the past, said she still needs to be convinced.

The law to be proposed this year would allow cities with 60,000 or more people to experiment with the cameras. People would be fined around $100 or $124 if a camera catches them running lights; they’d have the right to contest fines within 15 to 30 days after the mailing of a notice.

Monday’s press conference took place at the high-speed intersection near Yale-New Haven Hospital where medical student Mila Rainof was killedin 2008. That fatality — along with a collision the following year that killed another pedestrian, 11-year-old Gabrielle Lee—helped spark a citywide traffic-calming movement that has included heavy pressure on lawmakers to get the cameras installed.

DeStefano said New Haven had 5,664 traffic accidents in 2011, eight of them fatalities. He noted that nearly 500 cities and towns in 25 states use red-light cameras to catch and discourage light-runners.

“We are going to keep coming back year after year until we get the right” to do so in New Haven, DeStefano declared. ​“We are not going to go away.”

Awaiting Details

Red-light camera advocates plastered leaflets on telephone polls in Westville this weekend calling on State Rep. Dillon to embrace the bill this year. She has voiced concerns about it in the past. The leaflets made reference to Monday’s press conference and featured her name in large letters.

Dillon said she didn’t show up at the press conference — and hasn’t decided whether to support the bill — because no one has shown her a bill to support.

“I haven’t got a clue what the bill says. I can’t give commitments or comments on bills I haven’t read,” she said.

“A message was sent to me about 5 o’clock on Friday about this event. But there was no legislation attached to it. The details matter.”

While some activists passionately support red-light cameras, many other of her constituents do not, Dillon said. She said she can name ​“100 people in [lower Westville’s] 25th Ward” who oppose it.

In past years the bill died at the state legislature because of objections including concerns over misuse of cameras to invade drivers’ privacy and over the role of camera manufacturers in lobbying for the bill.

Dillon said she has heard another concern from suburban lawmakers.

“The people from the suburbs who are our friends came up to me and said, ​‘You’re trying to trick my constituents and take money out of their pockets,’” Dillon said.

So Dillon wrote an amendment last year that would have existing administrative hearing officers from the state Department of Motor Vehicles hear appeals from drivers ticketed based on camera shots rather than mayoral appointees ​“from the town that wants the revenue.” Sen. Looney said the bill will mandate that cities place signs warning drivers about red-light cameras before they reach intersections that have them.

Dillon’s amendment also called for limiting the cameras to intersections with ​“No Turn On Red” signs.

“No Turn On Red” signs went up all over town decades ago when the city’s then-traffic chief objected to a new state law allowing right turns on red (except where signs prohibit it).

“New Haven is cluttered with ​‘No right turn on red’ signs. We have so many signs, some of which are not even visible. Sign clutter diminishes the [efficacy of] other signs that we really need,” Dillon argued after Monday’s press conference. ​“If we want to have a fair, credible program, we should revisit the whole issue of right turn on red in New Haven.”

Dillon questioned whether the cameras can fairly distinguish whether drivers have first come to a stop before turning or whether they’ve blown red lights.

Click here to read Dillon’s amendment. She said she ended up not pursuing the amendment after both proponents and opponents of the red-light bill objected to it.

Another New Haven state legislator who has expressed reservations about the bill in the past, Gary Holder-Winfield, also did not appear at the press conference. He said later he had a work commitment. And he said that he will vote for the bill this year. He came around to support it last year, too.

“I’m not in love with the thing. I don’t like the potential that there is to use it for other purposes,” he said. ​“But I would vote for it. I have heard enough to understand why red-light cameras are something people want to do. I live at the corner of Winchester and Division, where I’ve had cars get hit and almost come into my yard. So I recognize the issue.”

Dueling Studies

Proponents like new downtown Alderman Doug Hausladen said red-light cameras in other states have reduced the number of accidents and saved lives.

Hausladen (pictured) pointed to this insurance industry-backed 2011 study showing a dramatic reduction of ​“T‑Bone” (front-to-side) car crashes. While the number of rear-end collisions crept up due to people suddenly stopping at red lights, the drop in deadlier T‑Bones prevented far more damage and loss of life.

Connecticut ACLU chief Andrew Schneider, meanwhile, pointed to this 2008 University of Florida study concluding that the cameras may actually increase the risk of accidents and serious injuries; and to recommendations from auditors in Denver and Los Angeles that the cameras be removed because of a lack of evidence that they work.

“I have heard only positive reports from places that have enacted it,” state Sen. Looney responded. ​“Over time, there has been a declining number of accidents.” He also said the cameras have ​“deterrent power. People know they need to be more careful at those intersections.”

ACLU’s Schneider also criticized the use of the cameras — which record license plate numbers and the movement of a car through an intersection, but not faces — for compromising people’s constitutional rights to due process. The cameras don’t reveal who’s driving the car. ​“The driver never has a chance to confront an accuser. Oftentimes it’s a different person who’s driving the car other than the owner,” Schneider said. Even if they appeal a ticket weeks or months after receiving a fine in the mail, drivers can find it ​“hard to remember details.” Such ​“fundamental constitutional conflicts” have led states like Maine and New Hampshire to ban red-light cameras, he said.

Looney responded that the constitutional criticisms would be more of a concern if the law involved ​“criminal violations,” not civil ones. He said the bill will include, as it did last year, a provision that prevents municipally issued tickets from red-light cameras from affecting a person’s driving record.

New Haven’s Hausladen has helped lead the charge for the state enabling law for years, previously through his role as leader of the Downtown-Wooster Square Management Team.

The law to be proposed this year would allow cities with 60,000 or more people to experiment with the cameras.

Bicycling groups and ​“safe streets” organizers have made the law a top priority. Hausladen was asked about concerns raised by those same groups about plans for remaking that same stretch of Route 34 near the hospital as part of a new Downtown Crossing Plan. The groups charged that the city, despite its pledge to support pedestrian- and cycling-friendly ​“Safe Streets,” was pushing through another frightening mini-freeway dedicated primarily to fast-moving auto traffic (the way it did with the widening of Whalley Avenue in Westville). Officials eventually modified the plan somewhat in response to those concerns.

“The latest redesign is actually a good compromise,” Hausladen responded. ​“It’s going to be a great improvement.”