Get ready to see those little strobes popping off at Beverly Hills intersections again. The city turned off its red light cameras back in January—Los Angeles ditched them back in 2011 and lots of other cities have decided they're not worth the trouble—but now it's doubling down, because that's sort of its thing. Bev Hills is installing new tech so the cameras can make a comeback in two waves starting next month, and seven new cameras will be added to the existing roster, making a total of 15 cameras watching out at nine busy intersections (including the speed-trappy one near the Beverly Hilton at Wilshire and Whittier, once called LA's worst), says the Beverly Hills Courier.
Drivers will at least have more of a chance to stop than they had the last time the cameras were on. Thanks to new state regulations, the length of yellow lights will be set according not to the posted speed limits (as it was in the past), but according to how fast people are probably actually traveling on the street (the "prevailing speed," or about 5 to 10 miles per hour more than the posted speed limits). Lengthening the time of yellow lights and giving people more time to slow down has been shown to reduce crashes. All lights in Beverly Hills that are slated to have working red light cameras are also slated to have their yellow light timing changed by the time the cameras are operational. LA Weekly previously estimated that these longer yellow light times would lead to far fewer red light tickets than Beverly Hills was getting with shorter yellows. Before, BH was making a whopping $40,000 a month on these tickets.
Expect to see the new cameras in action at these locations, by the listed dates.
On by June 1:
— Wilshire/Whittier (east- and westbound)
— Olympic/Doheny (east- and westbound)
— Olympic/Roxbury (westbound)
— Olympic/Spalding (eastbound)
— Sunset/Hillcrest (east- and westbound)
On by June 15:
— Beverly Drive/Wilshire (northbound)
— Santa Monica/Crescent (east- and westbound)
— Benedict Canyon/Sunset (north- and southbound)
— Crescent/Sunset (northbound and southbound)
For the first month that the devices are on, drivers who are snapped by the cameras will only get warning letters in the mail instead of the very expensive tickets.
· Seven New Red Light Cameras Come To Beverly Hills In June [Beverly Hills Courier]
· L.A.'s Worst Red-Light Camera Under Fire in Beverly Hills [LAW]
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