Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has written extensively about red-light cameras, including changes to state law, the city’s legal challenge and crash rates at intersections with the devices.
By the numbers
46: Auto crashes at camera-monitored intersections in 2015, 12 before the cameras were turned off and 34 after.
42: Police officers the city would need to hire to man cameras under new law.
2,500: Number of citations for running red lights issued at Troy Road and Bechtle Avenue in 2014.
$3.4 million: Collected from citations during life of the red-light camera program.
One year after a new law forced Springfield to shut off its red-light cameras and city leaders feared crashes would increase, traffic data shows that hasn’t been the case.
Crashes at the 10 intersections with cameras were cut in half during the life of the city’s program — from 90 crashes in 2007 to 44 in 2014. In the 13 months since they were turned off, 45 crashes have occurred there.
Looking at comparable months, 12 crashes happened at those intersections through April 1, 2015, when the cameras were still on. There have been 11 crashes at the same spots this year through early May.
These initial results don’t necessarily mean the number of crashes won’t jump back up, Springfield City Manager Jim Bodenmiller said, because people’s habits don’t change overnight.
“There is still a residual effect from having had the cameras,” he said. “Even though the cameras are not currently operational, the mere fact that the equipment is still present at the intersections has an effect on driver behavior … It will likely take a few years before accidents return to where they were before we had the cameras.”
Traffic crashes decreased citywide during the eight years the cameras were active, data shows.
In 2007, Springfield saw 2,245 crashes. That number dropped by 20 percent to less than 1,800 in 2013 and has climbed slightly since then. In 2015 more than 1,900 crashes occurred citywide.
The city turned off its cameras after a state law required an officer to be present when a camera records a driver running a red light. The law took effect last year but has been challenged in court, including by the city of Springfield.
Columbus, which has also filed legal objections to the law, has reported an increase in crashes at previously monitored intersections, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
Crash data from the Ohio Department of Public Safety shows that the number of crashes at 38 intersections in Columbus increased by more than 8 percent and wrecks involving injuries rose 38 percent last year. That’s compared with the average over the previous three years.
But the data also indicates that crashes at intersections throughout Columbus increased by 10.5 percent.
Springfield collected about $3.4 million in fines on 77,000 citations from red light cameras since they were installed in 2006. Under the new law, the city estimated it would have to hire at least 42 officers to run its 17 cameras at 10 intersections.
City leaders estimated they lost about $250,000 in 2015 once they shut off the cameras, but they’ve maintained that the point of the program is safety, not revenue.
Residents remain divided on the use of red-light cameras.
“It’s a good thing,” said Deena Roush, of Springfield. “If they get caught … they’ll stop and think twice.”
She was surprised that the number of crashes didn’t go up after the cameras were turned off, but still believes they prevent accidents.
“It’s a safety thing,” she said.
But for Ben Fuller, of Springfield, it’s a privacy issue. He doesn’t like the cameras and agrees with the state law that a police officer should be present.
“That should be (how it works) … they still run the lights no matter what,” he said.
Three months after the cameras were shut down, police reported they’d seen a 47 increase in red light violation detections, according to Sgt. Brett Bauer. The sensors at those intersections were still reporting violations, but no citations were issued.
Those sensors have since been turned off so it’s unknown how many drivers are running red lights.
The city’s legal challenge centers on the issue of home rule, Springfield Law Director Jerry Strozdas said, and isn’t dealing with the question of whether the cameras are good or bad.
“The principle that we are fighting for is the principle of local control of local issues,” he said. “If the state has the power to ban red light cameras that a city wants to use, it also has the power to require cities to use them even if the city doesn’t want them.”
Springfield's argument against the cameras was rejected by a Clark County judge in 2015 and the city lost an appeal in March. Strozdas has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court and is awaiting its determination of whether to accept the case for review combined with similar lawsuits from Dayton and Toledo.
The city couldn’t provide an estimate of how much it has spent fighting the lawsuit because it’s been handled by staff attorneys who don’t track time spent on individual cases. The city has spent $498 on filing fees to date, Strozdas said.
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