New State Law Brings Safer Streets Within Reach for Santa Monica

Santa Monica has a new legal option to enforce red lights and stop signs. It is an option I think our community needs to make our streets safer for everyone. Street racing and reckless driving impact our community daily, often with dire results.  In October, a reckless driver killed two people and injured two others on Wilshire Boulevard. In December, a reckless driver crashed into a building on Santa Monica Boulevard, displacing a local family and small business.

In October, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that allows cities to use automated traffic enforcement systems to assess fines to owners of cars that fail to stop at red lights or stop signs.  The law modernizes California’s existing traffic camera violation law to reflect what’s been learned over several decades in California and other states.  The updated law is designed to maximize safety benefits while reducing penalties and any incentive for cities to use the law to generate general fund revenues.

The Santa Monica Police Department has reduced traffic enforcement in recent years.  However, after a leadership change in recent months, the interim police chief has made traffic enforcement a priority.  Automated traffic enforcement systems, implemented smartly, will serve as a force multiplier, increasing compliance with traffic safety laws while freeing up officer time to address chronic and emergent traffic safety and community issues. With automated stop enforcement at intersections with a higher statistical likelihood of a crash or where police observed street racing, police officers can focus on other dangerous driving behaviors, such as sudden lane changes, excessive speed, and reckless driving.

The new law improves safety by requiring cameras to be placed only in locations where there is regular street racing or where there have been traffic crashes. The new law is less punitive for low-income people.  While the base fine is $100 and increases up to $500 for the 3rd and subsequent violations within 3 years, the fine is reduced for people who qualify for income-based government assistance programs or earn less than 250% of the federal poverty level. And the new law improves privacy and is far more enforceable, as only a photo of the vehicle, rather than the driver, is required for enforcement. The fine, a civil penalty rather than a criminal penalty, is sent to the vehicle’s registered owner, making a violation in a borrowed car a private matter rather than a matter for the court. 

Research consistently finds that red-light and stop-sign cameras significantly improve road safety by reducing the frequency and severity of intersection collisions. The primary benefit is a substantial decrease in right-angle or broadside crashes, which are among the most lethal types of accidents, with a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showing a 21% reduction in fatal red-light-running crashes. While some data suggests a slight uptick in minor rear-end collisions as drivers stop more abruptly to avoid citations, these incidents are usually much less severe than the high-impact collisions the cameras are designed to prevent. Furthermore, the research indicates a spillover effect where driver behavior improves even at nearby intersections without cameras, contributing to a broader culture of traffic compliance and enhanced public safety.

To get a sense of where the city could place these enforcement systems, I reviewed the city’s Local Roadway Safety Plan and data from the Traffic Injury Mapping System. In reviewing the data, I learned that between 2014 and 2023, Santa Monica experienced 1,743 crashes that were tagged as being at intersections that killed six people and injured 2,323 others. In about 20% of these crashes, the reporting officer cited a traffic signal or stop sign violation as the primary cause. 

The table below shows a sample of where these enforcement systems could be placed.  Intersections in the table below are either identified in the Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP) or had five or more crashes tagged as being at an intersection. 

Note: Several locations identified using TIMS data were also listed in the LRSP and are denoted as LRSP.

The law allows camera systems to be placed in areas with a heightened safety risk, as indicated by crash data (see the table above), or where the police department has received at least four calls for street racing within the previous 2 years.  It’s also possible that the Santa Monica Police Department has data on calls for service for speeding in other locations that do not appear above, such as on San Vicente Boulevard or Ocean Avenue.

What I like best about the law is that revenues from fines can be used to recover program costs, which include not only the equipment and administration but also traffic-calming and safety measures to redesign the road to improve compliance with many traffic laws beyond stop enforcement, but also redesigning streets to reduce speed violations and reckless driving.  

About The Author

Juan Matute

Juan writes a column and occasionally does technical stuff for Santa Monica Next.

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