Sacramento’s red light camera program shut down by sheriff’s office
(FOX40.COM) — A program that operated nearly two dozen red light cameras at intersections in the city and county of Sacramento is no longer in service after sheriff’s officials shut it down in February.
According to a spokesperson with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, the program was shut down after the contract with the vendor ended and it was determined that the program was no longer “cost-neutral.”
“It was designed to be cost-neutral and serve a public benefit on public safety… now it started to lose money, which is why we have cut the program,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Amar Gandhi said to FOX40.com.
The contract with the vendor, Redflex Traffic Systems, included cameras at 23 intersections, 13 in the county and 10 in the city, for $898,000 per year, Gandhi said.
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Red light camera systems include sensors in the roadways that trigger a camera when a vehicle may have passed an intersection when the light was red, and a traffic ticket is mailed to the owner of the vehicle.
Gandhi said that the program in Sacramento city and county was never intended to raise more funds from tickets other than what was necessary to pay for the program itself.
The contract was first started in 2011 and went through several renewals, and for a period in 2019, the program was not functioning while the sheriff’s office worked with a new vendor and ultimately entered negotiations for a new contract with Redflex.
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Gandhi said that the sheriff’s office has requested the Sacramento Superior Court to dismiss any tickets that are “open” or categorized as “failure to appear.”
The cameras and related equipment will be removed from all 23 intersections at no cost to the county since that responsibility falls onto Redflex as part of the contract terms, Gandhi said.
There are no immediate plans to restart a similar program, Gandhi said.
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