Peace, D-El Cajon, offered statistics from California's official accident database from 1998 to 2000. However, data from the same time, he said, show no accident reduction. In 1998 and 1999, one accident was recorded each year there for a traffic-light violation. Last year, with the camera, there was one accident. Lockheed Martin officials could not be reached.
Supporters say photo enforcement saves lives.
Injury crashes at intersections fell 29 percent after camera enforcement began in Oxnard in 1997, the report said. Peace said he began looking at red-light cameras last year as chairman of the Senate Committee on Privacy. He also has written a bill, SB-667, to require regular checks of the cameras' accuracy and the timing of adjacent traffic signals. If safety is not the driving force behind the use of these cameras, then we should reconsider their use altogether.