Of particular interest to me, as I have now received a TWO violations, is
the "No right on red" camera at Bill Owens Parkway and Loop 281. 

I understand the logic behind the cameras as a deterrent for "running" red
lights and decreasing lateral impact traffic accidents.  Having worked as
a paramedic for 16 years and ER nurse for the last 6 years, I am
intimately familiar with the impact that these crashes have.  The
statistics quoted in the original blog here speak to the significance of
lateral impact crashes being responsible for almost all deaths at
intersections and over 50% of injuries.  Therefore, I AGREE, every effort
should be made to decrease the "running" of red lights.

However, the camera system at Bill Owens Parkway and Loop 281 is NOT
designed to capture those people "running" the light.  It is instead there
to capture those who turn right on red off of Bill Owens onto Loop 281 from
either direction. 

Turning right on red is LEGAL in the state of Texas at the majority of
intersections with rare exception where visibility is limited or in the
case of a 5-way or greater intersection of roads.  Drivers who stop, check
traffic and proceed with their turn when clear have obeyed the traffic laws
and may turn "right on red" in Texas.

There is no reasonable explanation why a right on red turn has been
declared a violation at the intersection of Bill Owens Parkway and Loop
281.  Visibility is good from either direction on Bill Owens Pkwy.  I
live near the area and frequently travel those roads and have never
witnessed a traffic accident there in the last 3 years.  The signage
posted to declare to drivers that there is "no right on red" at this
intersection is difficult to see and surrounded by other signage for the
intersection.  In addition, I have witnessed drivers proceed through the
intersection on a red light and no flash was triggered. 

All points considered, this traffic camera is unjustly placed, creates a
nuisance for law abiding drivers and creates an increased risk to the
community from those it was designed to "catch in the act".  There is no
reason to prohibit drivers from turning right on red at this
intersection.  Visibility of the Loop 281 traffic is clear in both East
and West directions from either North or South Bill Owens Pkwy.  The
camera does not consistently capture those who violate the posted signage
making it unfair by its inconsitancy.  In fact, those risk taking and
dangerous driver's the cameras are designed to capture, are now seen
proceeding through the parking lots of businesses located on the corners of
Bill Owens and the Loop in order to avoid the light.  This significantly
increases risk to the customers and owners of these businesses.

If the City of Longview cannot tell its citizens that the cameras are
decreasing accidents and saving lives, then what is the point?  You say
the City does not pay for the camera systems...then who is paying the
"lease" on the equipment?  Has the number of rear-end impact crashes
increased at those intersections with cameras?  If lateral crashes
decrease and rear-end crashes increase, auto insurance is still paying out
and our premiums will continue to increase as a result.  You can bet,
whether you get your picutre taken by the camera or not, we are ALL paying
for these cameras.  The miniscule amount of dollars paid back to the
Trauma System by the state of Texas from "red light camera" funds is a joke
compared to the millions of dollars spent caring for indigent trauma
victims in this state.  Its those same indigent persons that are running
lights while drinking and driving, texting and driving or talking and
driving.  No camera is going to stop that.  The cameras are a waste of
money and are doing more harm than good in our community.  They are a
nuisance to law abiding drivers making otherwise legal right on red
turns. 

If no one can prove that they are making money and saving lives, then I
say take them down...starting with the one at Bill Owens Pkwy and Loop
281.  Use the money to put more officers on the street to catch the REAL
criminals.

Mr. Marsolan,

I would first like to thank you for blogging on our website about your concerns. 

The restriction regulating turning right on red at Bill Owens and West Loop 281 was dictated to us by the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) when they began the median project on the Loop.  TXDOT Engineers recognized there would be a problem with drivers making a u-turn at the intersection while drivers would be turning right on red and asked the City of Longview to restrict the right turns on red (traveling northbound) in an attempt to prevent any accidents from occurring.  I don’t know of a single accident that has occurred there since the medians were installed as a result of someone turning right on red, but then again, we do not want to remove the signs to see if TXDOT’s engineers were wrong and have someone injured or killed as a result. 

With that said, drivers who turn right on red at Bill Owens and West Loop 281 do NOT receive citations from the red light camera at this intersection as long as they make a complete stop before doing so.  However, driver’s that do fail to stop before turning right on red DO receive citations for running the red light.  To be a “law abiding driver”, you must make a complete stop before turning right on red at any traffic control signal in the State of Texas.  This means a complete stop-not slow and then roll into the intersection.

Because the red light cameras are not making money for the City of Longview, doesn’t mean they are costing us money either.  The City hasn’t paid for any portion of the red light cameras, because in our contract with RedFlex, it stipulates that RedFlex would be paid from the fine amounts paid by violators.  So at this point, even though the cameras are operating at a deficit, RedFlex installed and is maintaining the system for the amount of money paid by the fines.

The bottom line is that intersection accidents have decreased in the City of Longview since the cameras were installed.  If you have reviewed the videos from both of your violations and feel the citations were issued in error, I encourage you to contact me so that we can go to the enforcement officer with the errors. 

Thank you for your service as a paramedic and emergency room nurse!

Ok! Im confused, is that guy mad that he got caught and fined, not once but twice or is he trying to blame the city for his own stupidity?

Ok!  So my question is, if the light at Loop 281 and Bill Owens has a BIG sign that say's "No turn on red," can we still turn on red, as long as we come to a complete stop? I would have figured "No turn on red" meant dont turn... If we could stop then turn right shouldnt the sign say "Stop then turn right!" But we are suppose to stop at every red light before making a right turn, so if thats true, why is there a sign up at all?

Ok that makes perfect sense! Thanks

I DO NOT like the red light cameras.

I am not a perfect driver but I went 27 years before my first ticket of any kind.  But two members of my family have been cited by cameras in Delaware. One for a Right-turn on red where she is adamant she stopped, and the other because traffic forced her to enter a toll road with an unmanned toll gate, and she had no coins. She wanted to pay the toll but had no choice but to proceed. She was fined $25. In many cities traffic signs and the way roads are engineered can be confusing, and woe to the driver who then runs afoul of a traffic camera!

I've had red light runners cross my path multiple times when I had the green but I have yet to be T-boned because I practice DEFENSIVE DRIVING. When I get a green light I DO NOT PROCEED until cross traffic comes to a stop.  (I no longer trust that drivers are going to stop nor even turn where their turn signal indicates, due to a couple of near collisions with cars that didn't turn where they were signalling.) 

A good rule: ANTICIPATE THAT A GREEN LIGHT YOU ARE APPROACHING WILL TURN RED,UNLESS YOU SAW IT CYCLE FROM RED TO GREEN.  (But Longview does have some lights with VERY short green cycles) 

At times I've had to risk running a Red because to slam on my brakes would clearly result in either being REAR-ENDED OR coming to a stop within the intersection.  The arbitrary camera system doesn't allow this leeway. It seems to me that we are at the mercy of the DURATION OF THE YELLOW, since even at or below the posted limit the yellow doesn't always seem to give enough time for reaction and stopping distance. Is the duration of the Yellow set taking the posted speed limit into account? At Hwy80&HGMosely I came to an abrupt stop from 45mph and eveything on my passenger seat flew off onto the floor, because I feared the camera when it was first installed. BTW one night this camera flashed at the vehicle ahead of me westbound before the light even turned Red.  At the moment the light turned Red the vehicle was waaay beyond the intersection and did not appear to be speeding. I sure hope he or she was not cited!

I obey the speed limit as much as possible but this provokes tailgaters who are in a hurry and think that slower drivers are "enforcing" the speed limit on them.  I've heard people actually say this. And the speed limit is lower according to road/weather conditions.   (Unfortunately I've seen LPD cruisers being driven over the limit and setting a bad example.  I have been told that the official policy is that if officers have to get somewhere fast they MUST use lights/siren.) TAILGATING is a more serious issue to me and this works against the driver who has no intention of running a light.  Its bad enough when travelling the interstates where many drivers want to do 80mph+ day or night, but drivers tailgate me when I am doing the speed limit on Hwy80 or loop281.  I just learned that in Germany they have surveilance vans with officers using cameras to catch TAILGATERS and send them a ticket!  Seems kinda arbitrary but "there's never a cop around" when someone is tailgating me! I once had a pickup truck tailgating me on 259 in Kilgore and after I got out of her way she proceed to tailgate other vehicles and nearly caused a wreck on Hwy31.  I know that reckless drivers are B.O.L.O.d and seldom intercepted so I didn't call GCSO or LPD. I followed this driver (safely) to her destination and spoke to her calmly but told her I did not appreciate her putting my life and property at risk, and doing the same to other drivers. We were at Regional Hospital where she worked as a Nurse! 

BTW, I think I recently made a "right turn on red" at Bill Owens and the Loop. Maybe not, but I don't remember a sign prohibiting that. I know from listened to LPD& LFD radio traffic since 1987 that this is one of our most dangerous intersections.

Traffic signals are often mis-interpreted. The yellow signal is supposed to inform the driver that they need to slow down and prepare to stop - not hurry up before they are ticketed. I agree with Mr Felming's comment that we all need to practice defensive driving, but I would like to address the comment on the "green cycle."

Traffic signals are present to warn the operator of the motor vehicle of a change in traffic conditions. The laws that are tied to these signals are meant to require actions that have been deemed safe due to the change in conditions. The DOT spends millions each year in evaluating changes in traffic behavior, but they cannot accurately plan for all contingencies due to individual driver behavior. The length of the signal cycles are determined from a formula that involves geographic conditions, traffic conditions, and calculated ideal reaction times of the driver.

With that said, I would propose that we not approach each intersection while thinking about the traffic camera, or green light duration, or our meeting that we are late for, or the driver that is hugging our bumper. Instead, we should approach each intersection with the knowledge that we are entering an area where the chances of being involved in a potentially deadly collision have been proved to be magnified. We should also consider that the other drivers in that intersection are thinking about signal duration, text messages, and eating their cheeseburger - among other things.

I live in Longview. I have lived in East Texas most of my life, and I fulfilled a life-long dream of becoming a police officer a few years ago. I subsequently found that the dream was a nightmare due to the horrific pay and working conditions that our peace officers are required to endure. I guess that I am a proponent of these cameras for that same reason. Their presence frees officers up to fight "real crime" as Mr Marsolan requested. They don't have to babysit intersections, and they are free to then find the criminals that broke into my home and stole my peace of mind last year.

I am no longer a peace officer, because of the conditions and other issues that arose with that profession. However, I would challenge the peace officers that serve and protect their respective areas to adhere closely to their code of conduct. The badge was not created for use as an intimidation tool, and the cruiser was not intended to get you quickly from point A to B.

My mother was ticketed recently for not following seatbelt laws. The officer that she encountered was rude and menacing, and she later tried to report the officer to the city. Upon doing this, she found that the badge number that he provided on the citation was incorrect.

Also, I have observed many of our active duty patrol officers operating their cars while eating and talking on their cell phones. Both of these actions have been deemed deadly by years of research by the law-enforcement community, and that research should be respected. I hate to end on a negative note, but hopefully this will be taken as it was intended.

And if you want to increase revenue and make travel in Longview safer, establish a presence on Eastman Road between the interstate and the loop. The newly completed fire station there has greatly increased the potential for a deadly accident, and people drive like they are in a video game.

Jason,

I encourage your mother to contact our office of professional standards if she has a complaint.  Citation books are issued to officers, not handed out randomly, so even if an officer forgets to write their name/badge number at the bottom, we know who's ticket book it came out of.  She can contact Sgt. Kemper at 903-237-1199, or she can fill out a complaint online by going to the "file a compliment or complaint" section under the "quick links" tab on the left hand side of our home page. 

Thank you for your comments

Generally, I'm opposed to traffic cameras (whether speed or red light) because I don't like the idea of being caught with my pants down! (come on thats the real reason we all don't like 'em:) No seriously: speed cameras we can argue about, but I don't really think that someone who doesn't want them has a case. Maybe if they trapped at any amount over the speed limit, but they usually don't trap until 11 over, so I really don't think there is much of a case there--don't speed. But red light cameras are another issue. 

Speed cameras don't involve a decision making process. Red light cameras do. First off though, lets define what a yellow light means. I once had a police officer tell me in a traffic school a long time ago that yellow meant try to stop, and if you can't then go through the intersection. He bragged about giving a ticket to a school bus driver not for running a red light, but for not seeing his brake lights illuminate before he went through a yellow light! Outrageous! I wondered if he had ever driven anything that weighed over two tons before. Yellow doesn't mean stop at all costs, or try to stop first but if you can't then proceed. It means that the light is about to turn red, so do whatever you have to do to be clear of the intersection when it does. 

A very complex process is going on in fractions of a second when that light turns yellow. It doesn't happen every time, but if you are in just the right place (and that "just the right place" grows a lot bigger then 'just' in the right conditions) when the light turns yellow, you've got a decision to make, and stopping may not be the best one.  There can be many circumstances that would warrant entering the intersection a split second after the light turns red. I've done it many times, and seriously, before God, a huge minority of those times were because I was impatient. Most of the time it has to do with a load that I'm pulling that I don't think I can stop before the line, traffic conditions, road conditions, sometimes I just misjudge the timing, but most of the time, I find its because I looked away from the light for a little bit to tend to another driving task (for real I don't figit with unimportant things like the radio or my cell phone when I'm approaching an intersection and might have to make a split-second decision), and miss the light changing. When I look back its yellow, and the decision I make at that moment is that I can clear the intersection better if I go through it. I have never, ever, even been close to hitting someone because I ran a red light. Never have I even seen people begin to move before I was past them (and I would argue that if you ever did, you made the wrong decision, and should have stopped). But, none of that matters with a camera, I still am just as guilty as the person who blatantly ran the light and killed someone.

With a human police officer, I can explain these things right there with him(or her) before I'm issued a citation. With traffic cameras, of course, I can't do that. Even if I appeal, all thats going to be looked at is the factual things: you were in the intersection when the light was red-here is your fine. 

The main issue is thus: red light cameras absolutely totally remove the human element in the enforcement of a situation that has many, many human factors in its makeup. To me its a matter of spirit of the law or letter of the law. In order to preserve the spirit of the law, in some rare occasions the letter of the law must be broken. But a person is supposed to judge whether this is one of those occasions. Without an unbiased witness to the evidence of the special occasion, the camera wins. 

I think that is unjust and borderline wrong. The only reason I don't march on the court house is because these tickets are not that big a deal, and for the most part are easy to not get. But its in those occasional times when we need someone to understand our situation.

Basically, I don't like red light cameras because when a normal, law abiding citizen is not trying to break the law, but does because of some special circumstance, they make me feel cheated and entrapped and (I hate to use it) disenfranchised by the law that I thought was supposed to prevent people from hurting other people, not trying to catch me and get my money for making an honest mistake or worse, trying to do what I thought the law intended! 

As for reducing accidents and injuries, I wonder how effective they really are. Let me illustrate a situation called a shuttle stop. 

A shuttle stop occurs when two cars are approaching an intersection, and the light turns yellow. The first car starts to brake, then decides to go, then reverses that decision and stops. When the first car decided to go, the car behind has a decision to make: to decide if they can make it through the intersection before the light turns red or not. If they decide that they can, then when the car in front then decides they are not proceeding but are stopping, the second car will hit the first one. It is not a matter of if.

These decisions and reversal of decisions are made within a second or so, and with response times of the physical systems in the vehicles and of the drivers being what they are, even with recommended following distances and perfect weather and road conditions, there just isn't enough time. The second driver, as soon as he made the decision to proceed was setup to hit the first one.

Happens all the time at traffic lights--without cameras at them. Now add in the effect of a camera, and who knows the outcome? I have done this maneuver once. And I did it because of a camera. It took max performance braking to stop before the line, and I wouldn't have ran the red light, not that it would have mattered because there was no one at the intersection at 2 in the morning. Thankfully there was no one behind me either. I wonder if rear-end crashes like this are counted in the statistic of intersection crashes. If they aren't (and I bet they aren't), is the statistic we are given really trustworthy? Have accidents actually increased? Who knows? 

I will concede one thing: I don't think the severity of injuries in a rear end collision like this are anywhere close to the severity of injuries in t-bone type crashes. So I think on this point alone the merit of red light cameras can be debated. 

Should we accept the injustice, inconvenience, and (perhaps) increased accident rate that red light cameras bring in order to bring down the severity of those crashes?

Thanks for your posts and replies, and thank you to the officers that so selflessly serve in our defense.

drivers who turn right on red at Bill Owens and West Loop 281 do NOT receive citations from the red light camera at this intersection as long as they make a complete stop before doing so....

   not true. i have a buddy that has recived 2 right turn tickets.

Steven,

I'm not trying to be confrontational, but if you'd like to provide me with your friend's name or license plate number I would be glad to post up both videos of your friend's violations he was ticketed for.  We could see the actual footage of the violation and those reading this blog could see for their ownselves if he stopped or not before turning right on red.  We hear the same comment a lot, but when the video is reviewed, we find the driver didn't come to a complete stop, even though he/she thought they did.  Thanks

I received a "default notice" today saying that I owe $100 for a redlight violation in Longview plus $25 for paying late. I never received an original notice. I've never been to Longview...or even near it. Not even as far ease as Tyler. I went to photonotice.com and can't log in using the codes on this notice.

Either someone is using the Longview redlight cameras to run a scam or there is a serious error. I even tried to login using my last license plate number in case the number had been reassigned to another car but somehow my address stuck to it - nope - nothing works.

What gives?

Ms. MacKinney,

Please contact our redlight camera administrator, Ms. Vivian Montgomery, at 903-237-1199 and she will be glad to assist you. 

If your are in a intersection and the light was green then traffic stops because of construction , will you get a citation.

Thanks Dustin, I've also heard this before and it isn't true.  We have all been stuck in intersections due to construction, so this is an issue that any motorist can face.  I checked with Sergeant Buddy Molpus of the LPD Traffic Section and he confirmed that inside the City limits of Longview you won't get a citation from a redlight camera or a Traffic Officer for being stuck in an intersection due to construction as long as you entered the intersection with a green or yellow light.  If you entered the intersection after the light turned red, no matter whether it was a construction area or not, you could receive a citation. 

The point of this blog is to dispel rumors about the red light cameras and to get out factual information.  I appreciate that Dustin and several others have spent the time to get on here and bring up these issues.