Jacksonville, FL — Jacksonville drivers will no longer face red light cameras, starting at the end of the year.
Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams confirms the current contract on red light cameras is up in December, and JSO will not renew it. Instead, he says the program will go away, because the safety benefits just aren’t there.
"We know through data now that we don't reduce crashes with red light cameras, we know that. And we've got enough of a snapshot of data to say that's not happening," Williams says.
The confirmation was given during a Thursday budget hearing, where one City Council member asked Williams about JSO’s prior statements that the cameras improve safety.
“Not by our administration. We inherited the red light camera program going in,” Williams says.
The first cameras turned on in 2013, while now-Congressman John Rutherford was Sheriff. Since then, cameras have been installed at about three dozen approaches.
Williams says he kept the cameras going mainly as a stepping stone for adding on crash avoidance technology in the future.
“Quite frankly, crash avoidance technology is not there,” he says.
The crash avoidance technology that's been used in Jacksonville- called HALO- is an additional layer to red light cameras. It's designed to detect a potential red light runner and hold traffic in the opposing direction, to try to prevent any collision. JSO's website shows it was installed at several intersections, but is not in use in most of them at this time.
Williams says the vendor will take the red light cameras back when the contract is up at the end of the year. The vendor was responsible for initially installing the equipment as well.
There is no estimated revenue from red light cameras plugged in to the City budget proposal for FY 17-18.
In 2014, WOKV investigated the effectiveness of red light cameras, and found mixed results. At that time, the number of rear end collisions had increased at most affected intersections comparing the time periods before and after installation.
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