Red light cameras are HERE! (Almost)

Get ready for new enforcement measures against red-light running

By Will Collette

FIND THE RED-LIGHT CAMERA BOX IN THIS PICTURE of the southbound lane of Route One at West Beach Road. Click on "click here to read more" to see where it is.

Over the past several days, work crews finally started to install the long-delayed traffic cameras at two of Charlestown’s four stop-light protected intersections – Route One at East Beach Road and at West Beach Road. There are two cameras at each intersection to cover both directions of traffic.

Most of the basic hardware was in by October 3, though the camera boxes are far from operational and actually seem to be empty. All four units are very hard to spot as you are approaching the intersection they will cover once operational. 

The idea of installing the cameras in Charlestown was spurred by the May 2010 killing of 27-year old Colin Foote of Charlestown right at that West Beach-Route One intersection. He was hit by Laura Reale who ran the light and hit Colin broadside. His mother was following behind Colin in a car. Reale, a multiple traffic offender, was sentenced to serve eight years of a ten year sentence.

Former Chief Jack Shippee started looking into cameras for Charlestown and found there were systems that could be installed at no cost to the town – the vendor would be paid from ticket revenue with the possibility of some extra revenue coming to Charlestown. But the Chief told me the reason he supported cameras was to deter red-light running, not the potential revenue.

The legions of anonymous commenters on the Charlestown Citizens Alliance official website – I call them the “Voices of Greed” – went nuts. The CCA Party posted dozens of comments attacking red-light cameras as everything from, as one person wrote “harbingers of failed socialism” to spawn of Satan. 

The gist of the CCA Voices of Greed was that these cameras would infringe on their personal liberty, presuming their entitlement to ignore traffic rules and endanger others. 

One of them even suggested armed insurrection (clearly a Blake Filippi fan). Classic stuff. 

Most of those comments have been sanitized from the CCA Party site in the run-up to election season, but you can read them here, here, and here.

Here is one of my favorite CCA website anonymous posts on the subject. This person picks up on the fact that traffic control cameras have been in wide use in Europe for years and goes off from there. 

But this issue is one of the rare occasions where the CCA Party’s Voices of Greed did not get their way. In March 2012, the town put red-light camera systems out to bid and received two qualified responses.

The proposals were, at first, shocking because the costs were such that the town would never see any revenue nor would either bidder be able to break-even unless an amazing number of tickets were issued for red-light running.

Chief Shippee told me Charlestown Police issue very few red-light tickets because we don’t have enough chase cars to stake out the lights as well as patrol the town. I had estimated that roughly 1,250 tickets would have to be issued every month for the vendor to break even. 

However, that's not Charlestown's problem, at least in the short run. The proposals offered by both contractors stipulated that they, not Charlestown, would eat it if revenue didn’t meet expectations. If, however, they take a financial beating over time, they reserve the right to pull out the system.

PEEK-A-BOO! This is the camera covering south-bound Route one at
East Beach Road. Two other units are similarly cloaked in foliage unlike
the one at West Beach (shown above) that is hidden by a highway sign.

The Town Council held a special meeting on May 9, 2012 to discuss the costs and mechanics of the system. It was a pretty interesting, and in many ways amusing, meeting. 

The main take-away from that meeting was that even though the money math is still pretty murky, that’s not Charlestown’s problem. Council Boss Tom Gentz (CCA Party) asked the question about who bears the risk so many times that finally one of his colleagues leaned over and said, “Tom, I think he’s answered your question.”

Ultimately, CCA Party Councilors Boss Gentz and Dan Slattery decided to pick Sensys (Gentz kept calling the company “sensei”) over RedFlex because, they said, Sensys is a “local” company.

They based on the fact that their sales rep, Brian Haskell, lives in West Warwick (but was late to the May 9 meeting because he got lost trying to find Charlestown). Once he arrived, Haskell couldn’t get his Power Point presentation to work, which is not a good sign when the guy’s trying to sell a system that’s a tad more complicated than Power Point.

Anyway, in May 2012, we went with Sensys because of Gentz's and Slattery's mistaken “Buy America” belief. Sensys is actually a Swedish company with its US headquarters in Florida. But be that as it may, Sensys was our choice and we’ve stuck with them even though it’s been more than two years since that decision was made.

In April 2013, I reported that it looked like Sensys might have finally figured out how to get the system installed and operational in Charlestown. I recounted the comedy of errors by our so-called “local” vendor but speculated that perhaps they might have the system up during the 2013 tourist season. But nope, that didn’t happen.

In March 2014, I reported that Sensys told Charlestown that RIDOT finally gave its OK to install the system and that there was some hope that it would be up and running in time for the 2014 tourist season. There were just a few little, teeny-tiny details to be worked out.

Now it’s  October 2014, and finally the basic structures are up. I will not attempt to guess when they will finish that part, install and hook-up the electronics and actually start using the system.

Of the four cameras, this is the only one out in the open (at West Beach).
Because of the sign on the left, by the time you see this camera, it already
sees you. If you're running the light, GOTCHA!

Originally, all four of Charlestown’s red-light intersections were going to be covered. Only the lights at East Beach and West Beach will be under the Sensys contract. The lights at Wildflower and Route 216 will not. The light at Warren Road is shared with Westerly and was never part of the plan.

The basic outline of the system is that it will capture an image of the rear of vehicles that are going through the intersection when the light is red. They need a clear image of the license tag number. 

Charlestown Police review the image and then give Sensys a yes-or-no on whether to issue the ticket.

Then the ticket gets mailed to the vehicle owner who either pays or contests the ticket.

Cathy and I lived in the Washington metro area where red-light running used to be a popular local sport (much like high-speed tail-gating is in Rhode Island). We rejoiced when red-light cameras were installed because we saw an easily discernible drop in red-light running along our 15-mile commuting route. I hope we will see similar results in Charlestown.

I am disappointed in the amount of time this has taken. I also wonder if the problem is that SenSys could not figure out how to get the job done. Rhode Island does have its quirky bureaucracy, and contrary to the misconceptions of Gentz and Slattery, they are not a Rhode Island company. 

As the time gets closer to the actual starting date for red-light camera operations in Charlestown – don’t hold your breath – I’ll get you more details on how it will work and affect your drive along Route One.