Image: A speed camera on 7th near Broadway in Oakland. Photo: Streetsblog/Roger Rudick
Malibu is preparing to launch automated speed cameras on Pacific Coast Highway, nearly two years after state lawmakers voted to include the city in the pilot program allowing a handful of California cities to use them.
The cameras are expected to begin issuing citations in late November, although there is not yet a firm activation date. The city began its required public education campaign this week, followed by a 60-day warning period before citations begin.
The program comes after years of concern about the safety of PCH, particularly the 21-mile stretch through Malibu. More than 60 people have been killed in crashes on the highway since 2010. In 2023 alone, there were 220 reported crashes, 93 injuries and seven deaths, according to the city. State data also found that Malibu had 134 crashes resulting in a fatality or serious injury between 2019 and 2023, the highest number among cities with similar populations.
The effort gained renewed urgency after a driver traveling more than 100 mph killed four Pepperdine University students on PCH in October 2023. Malibu declared a local emergency over dangerous driving the following month. That tragedy helped propel legislation by then-Sen. Ben Allen to create a speed-camera pilot specifically for PCH.
Santa Monica briefly appeared to be part of that effort. When Allen introduced Senate Bill 1297 in 2024, the bill initially would have allowed speed cameras on portions of PCH and Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica, as well as Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. But the Senate Transportation Committee amended the bill to focus exclusively on Malibu’s PCH. Malibu remained because of the extraordinary history of serious and fatal crashes on its highway.
The original statewide pilot created in 2023 allowed Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Long Beach and San Francisco.
Meanwhile, the evidence for the technology continues to grow. A new report from Oakland, the first city to implement the camera program, found that the number of vehicles traveling 11 mph or more above the speed limit fell by an average of 70% at the city’s 18 camera locations compared with 2024 baseline measurements—roughly 20,000 fewer speeding vehicles each day. At one Oakland location, speeding 11 mph or more over the limit fell by 90%.
Not All Traffic Cameras Are the Same
The arrival of speed cameras in Malibu comes at a complicated moment for automated enforcement. Across California and the country, a growing backlash against Flock automated license plate readers has raised legitimate concerns about privacy, government surveillance and the potential misuse of camera data. Flock cameras record license plates and vehicle characteristics, creating searchable records that can be used to identify where vehicles have been and, in some cases, track their movements.
But speed cameras are fundamentally different from Flock’s surveillance system. A speed camera is designed for a narrow purpose: determining whether a vehicle is traveling faster than a legally established threshold. California’s speed-camera pilot program places significant restrictions on what the cameras can capture and how the information can be used. The cameras aren’t intended to build a database of where individual vehicles travel, and the program is structured around a specific traffic-safety violation rather than general criminal investigations.
As Calbike’s Andrew Wright noted in a recent op/ed in Streetsblog, “Surveillance systems that accumulate unchecked power deserve opposition. Tools that are narrow, transparent, and built with statutory guardrails deserve evaluation on their merits.”
That distinction has become increasingly important as opposition to Flock has begun to blur the public conversation around different types of automated enforcement. A July Streetsblog analysis argued that Flock’s controversial business model risks making other camera-based traffic-safety programs “look bad by association,” potentially undermining tools intended specifically to reduce dangerous driving.
The concerns about Flock aren’t necessarily an argument against every camera pointed at a roadway. They are an argument for examining what the technology records, why it records it, who can access the information, how long it is retained and what it can be used for.
Speed cameras have a much narrower mission. They are intended to change driver behavior by creating a predictable consequence for excessive speeding, without requiring a police officer to make a traffic stop. That matters because speeding is one of the significant contributors to fatal and serious-injury crashes—and it means the technology can be evaluated in part on whether it actually changes driving behavior.
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