City to lobby for cameras to catch traffic scofflaws

David Kihara

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

North Las Vegas officials want to install traffic cameras at busy intersections in North Las Vegas to monitor and crack down on drivers running red lights, with the hope that they will reduce the number of traffic accidents and fatalities.

A bill draft request from the city asks the Legislature to overturn an existing Nevada law that prohibits the use of cameras for such a purpose, said Kimberly McDonald, the city's chief lobbyist.

"The goal is to change the behavior of drivers, not to generate revenue," McDonald said on Thursday.

The bill draft request, a collaboration between the city and the North Las Vegas Police, would allow the police to install traffic cameras at intersections that would monitor drivers who run red lights, she said.

Any traffic offender caught on camera would receive a citation in the mail, she said.

The traffic cameras would ultimately serve as a deterrent, as drivers would notice them at intersections and obey the traffic laws, she said.

"We want to show drivers that if you break the law, you will get ticketed," said Tim Bedwell, public information officer for the North Las Vegas Police, on Friday.

He said the police in the past have identified intersections with high accident rates, and after placing officers at those intersections and citing drivers who run red lights, the number of accidents often declines.

However, the police often end up "chasing the problem" from one intersection to the next, Bedwell said. By installing traffic cameras in the area, the police are hoping to reduce the number of red-light violators in the same way positioning an officer in the area has reduced the traffic violators, he said.

Boulder, Colo., San Diego, Mesa, Ariz. and at least four other cities across the nation already have such programs in place, she said.

The police in North Las Vegas have already identified four high-incident areas -- Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue, Cheyenne and Losee Road, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Craig Road and North Las Vegas Boulevard and Lake Mead Boulevard -- but have not decided if the traffic cameras would be placed there, McDonald said.

The cameras, she said, would take a photo of the vehicle's license plate if goes through a red light, and the offending vehicle would eventually be ticketed, she said.

Some in Las Vegas, however, are objecting to the traffic camera plan on the grounds that the cameras would be an "unreasonable search" and therefore a violation of the Fifth Amendment, said Mark Warden, a board member of Nevadans for Sound Government, on Thursday.

"It's just a cheap way to make money," he said. "It's too Orwellian and it's '1984' all over again."

Warden said one of the main objections stems from the lack of detail the cameras capture.

The traffic cameras cannot take detailed photos of the drivers of the vehicles -- only the vehicles themselves and the license plates - and therefore the registered car owner and not the driver committing the violation could be the one ticketed, Warden complained.

For example, a family may have one car registered in the father's name, but three children licensed to operate a vehicle may drive the vehicle. If one of those children received a citation, the parent will likely be the one who pays the fine.

Authorities using the cameras could wind up "prosecuting the wrong person," he said.