In 1980, only 2200 people lived in Murrieta, California, in the arid southwest corner of Riverside County. By 2010, the population hit 103,466. It’s where families moved when the coastal counties of San Diego and Orange became too expensive. It’s a town where AYSO soccer matters, where the church buildings aren’t as old as the McDonald’s, and where Republicans win the elections. And it’s the site of a major blow against red-light cameras.
In 2005, the city of Murrieta signed a contract with Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions (ATS) to operate automated cameras at three intersections. Critics, such as the National Motorists Association (NMA), have long opposed the cameras. These opponents claim, among other things, that the very foundation of the justification of the cameras is flawed. They say the studies concluding that red-light cameras reduce side impacts are suspect, and that the cameras can actually lead to an increase in rear-end collisions as drivers try to avoid tickets. Additionally, critics argue that municipalities are prone to manipulate red-light cameras to maximize revenue, and that their electronic soullessness eliminates the public’s right to confront accusers under the Sixth Amendment.
In Murrieta, that accuser was sticking residents with a $490 ticket, and courts elsewhere have consistently upheld the constitutionality of the systems. The evidence of their efficacy, however uncertain, has been sufficient to impress many government officials—but not Diana Serafin. A widowed, retired, Tea-Partying 62-year-old grandmother, Serafin led the charge against Murrieta’s cameras. “I went to city council a couple of times, and they said, ‘Nope, nope; this is stopping accidents,’ ” she says. “And the more I researched, the more I found out that it wasn’t true. And they didn’t want to budge.”
The 14 nanny states highlighted in red here make nefarious use of both red-light and speed cameras.
Armed with information from the NMA and other sources, Serafin and about a dozen volunteers gathered the 6200 signatures necessary to get a measure onto the November 2012 ballot that would remove the cameras. It was immediately met with resistance. “I had one member of the council tell me that if anyone died, I’d have blood on my hands,” Serafin says.
Before the public even had a chance to vote on it, Serafin’s initiative, now named “Measure N,” had to survive a lawsuit filed on behalf of a former Murrieta traffic official, a suit allegedly financed by ATS. The suit contended that voters couldn’t change traffic laws by direct election. While a Riverside County Superior Court agreed with that logic, an Appeals Court overturned the ruling, declaring that the suit had been filed too late to remove the measure from the ballot.
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Despite a campaign war chest of $105,000—reportedly $80,000 came from ATS and $25,000 from Redflex Traffic Systems, another Arizona-based camera company—the pro-camera group, “Safe Streets for Murrieta,” couldn’t defeat Measure N, which passed with 57 percent of the vote.
Almost immediately, Safe Streets filed suit against the city on the same basis as the previous lawsuit. And the same Riverside court and judge that had first ruled the initiative illegal did so again. Still, viewing the election as an opinion poll if nothing else, the council kept the red-light equipment turned off. Mostly.
While ATS shut off the cameras, it left on the sensors that trigger them. But instead of being impressed by data the company collected regarding increased red-light running, the council reacted indignantly, as if leaving the sensors on represented a betrayal. On May 7, 2013, in front of a raucous, packed chamber, the council voted unanimously to have ATS remove its equipment. All of it.
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