TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa City Council on Thursday voted in favor of keeping red light cameras in place in the city for another five years.
- Cameras first installed in 2014
- Council chair Frank Reddick voted against extension
- Reddick: "This is a traffic tax for the city ... to generate revenues."
- More Hillsborough County stories
Resident Linda Andreucci came to what is commonly known as “Red Light Camera Court” Friday in Tampa City Hall to protest the $158 dollar fine she received last November when a camera caught her running a red light. It's a citation she says should not have been issued.
“On the ticket, it shows clearly that there are cars still going through the other side while I was trying to carefully make my left-hand turn,” Andreucci said.”
In the end, she lost her case and had to pay the steep fine and $50 in court costs.
“At a low speed, I still got caught in a red light. It just wasn't fair,” she said.
Dissenting vote
Andreucci, 65, was one of more than a dozen people pleading their case to the judge and there will likely be many more in the future, considering the city's vote to extend the program.
Council Chairman Frank Reddick voted against that extension, not only because he says the cameras are in mostly low income and minority areas, but because the city profits from those citations.
“This is a traffic tax for the city of Tampa to generate revenues,” Reddick said.
Red light cameras were first installed throughout Tampa in 2014. Since then, nearly 350,000 thousand drivers received citations.
Those drivers paid out nearly $56 million in fines from those citations, and the City of Tampa collected roughly half of that money.
Small price to pay?
Tampa Police insist the cost is a small price to pay for safety.
It's just like every other traffic ticket that you receive,” said TPD Spokesman Steve Hegarty. “If you speed, it's going to be a very expensive ticket that you get. If you run a red light, that's incredibly dangerous and it will be expensive because we want to discourage that kind of behavior.”
Some drivers are now using GPS navigation, which warns of red light cameras as they approach intersections and roads. Hegarty doesn’t think the navigation deters behavior.
“Even though there are devices that will let you know when someone might be checking to see when you're speeding too much, people are still speeding,” he said. “If we cut out that behavior entirely, we would consider that to be a win.”
Anyone caught running a red light by the camera will be charged $158. The city receives $75 from each citation and the rest goes to the company to help pay for the cameras.