Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. said an eastbound traffic camera at Oak Ridge Turnpike and New York Avenue/Lafayette Drive had the third-highest rise in detected speeding violations, a 243 percent increase in the number of drivers traveling at 46 mph or more, after the cameras were disabled April 21. Pictured above is the westbound camera.
The Arizona company that operated traffic cameras in Oak Ridge for five years said reckless driving has increased significantly, average speeds have risen, and there has been an increase in red-light running and speeding violations since the systems were disabled April 21.
The two biggest increases in speeding violations were in school zones on eastbound and westbound Robertsville Road near Willow Brook Elementary School, camera vendor Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. said in a report that could be discussed during a Traffic Safety Advisory Board meeting on Tuesday. The average number of school zone violations jumped from a little more than two per day in the 14 days before the cameras were disabled to 10 or 11 per day afterward.
A school zone violation occurs when a driver is detected traveling at 21 mph or more in a 15 mph school zone.
Meanwhile, detections of red-light violations, which can lead to the most serious accidents, increased from an average of 20 per day at four locations in the three weeks before the cameras were disabled to up to 28 per day in the fourth week afterward, Redflex said.
Redflex data on speeding violations detected in school zones. The red bar is April 21, when the five-year camera contract expired and the black bar is the day that black bags were placed over the cameras.
The cameras had included a mix of red-light and speed enforcement cameras at four locations on busy roadways and near schools: Oak Ridge Turnpike and New York Avenue/Lafayette Drive, Oak Ridge Turnpike between the High School and Civic Center, North Illinois Avenue at Robertsville Road, and Robertsville Road near Willow Brook Elementary School.
Redflex said the cameras had contributed to a 34 percent reduction in collisions and reduced vehicle speeds. The cameras had issued $50 citations to violators but are no longer giving tickets.
But the Oak Ridge City Council did not renew the controversial five-year contract in a 3-4 vote in March, and it expired April 21.
At the request of the city, Redflex disabled the cameras and flashes but allowed the computers and sensors to continue operating, allowing the systems to continue collecting traffic counts and speed data.
Redflex said speeding began to increase immediately after the cameras were deactivated and jumped dramatically—by up to 231 percent—after black bags were placed over the camera housings, alerting drivers that they were no longer operating.
Source: Redflex Traffic Systems Inc.
The TSAB is expected to discuss the Redflex statistical analysis during a meeting that starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Municipal Building Training Room.
See the TSAB agenda, which includes the Redflex report, here:Â TSAB June 2014 Agenda.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
Angi Agle says
Put a speed camera in every single school zone in the City, and dedicate 100% of the revenues to education. It’s about safety AND money, since we desperately need both in our schools.
Eileen Slater says
There should be a police officer at school crossings at the times the speed limit is lowered for opening and closing of school. Just because the cameras are a money-maker doesn’t make them effective or ethical.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Police officers provide much more safety for the money. Cameras only provide the specific coverage of 8 feet and the speeding in there.
bill bradley says
That’s an opinion. Let’s not present it as a fact.
Eight feet yes. But I like the idea of 24 hour coverage vs 2 hour coverage. Ball games, choir, band, etc all happen after hours and kids are still around. Putting the fear of God into speeders 24/7 can’t be bad, can it???
Raymond Charles Kircher says
So the police department closes? You are a liar Bill.
bill bradley says
You’re seeing a whole team of psychiatrics, right?
Did I claim the police dept was closing?
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Read your reply, maybe a team of optometrists is what you need when you reply. Police patrol roads 24/7, not just an 8 foot section for 2 hours. What is your point about two hours except that they close shop. Being that you can read and you misspoke about police coverage, the police are available for band members, athletes and anyone else including people who are not in public schools. It is worth stating again, your debate has worsened, and by your double standard you are a woman. Transgender much Bill?
bill bradley says
Professional help is available thru several county agencies. Please reach out to any of them.
bill bradley says
Ms. Slater, good morning. I asked the question of: what happens if you take all the cops off the road and put ’em in school zones during school hours and crime goes up? If I’m a thief, I’m waiting til little Johnny is supposed to get out of school and then I’m packing the van with all the goods I can steal from his parents house!
Raymond Charles Kircher says
No roads go through school zones? Your debate is worsening. We have officers already on campus all day. The cameras only provide traffic safety in an 8 foot zone. Due to congestion during the opening and closing of the school day, that is when more police officers are needed. Still your argument doesn’t uphold any genuine thought. If moving police officers were the easy way to be a thief, wouldn’t have thieves already planned simultaneous robberies?
bill bradley says
Now that was good!! Except that she should be in school also!
Do we really need cops doing Barney fife work during rush hour at schools? Don’t they have more to do? Let’s let technology do it’s thing.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Police doing Barney fife work? “Let’s let technology do its thing” isn’t a choice for wide spread security. No amount of cameras is going can match the security force of one police officer.
bill bradley says
My numbers may be suspect but: nine schools times 1.5 crossings per school (since robertsville and orhs have at least two each) times twice per day, times an hour per shift, times $xx.00 for each cop equals just how much money?
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Now that you have subscribed to the fact roads do go through school zones, you need to learn schools don’t own the roads. Let the police do their job and the school do their job. That is the best security we can have for the money. I can do math, police officers are better spent money for the community, not technology and no police officers. You don’t expect me to believe after all the costs of teacher and police exposed in this city that you don’t know those variables?
bill bradley says
Isn’t it just possible now that with the red lights down and violations up that the city of OR now MIGHT bear some financial responsibility if someone gets hurt in those areas? If I’m a lawyer and my client gets t-boned by someone running a light at 50 MPH I’m going to sue everyone, including OR, because the city now knows it’s got a problem and nothing has been done to fix it?
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Now that is just too funny to be true, The city responsible for enforcement they never took ownership of.
bill bradley says
Certainly I’m not an attorney but if I can get half a mil on “taking no ownership” please give me all the action you can on that deal.
Are you seriously telling me if a bus load of kids get hurt at robertsville on a bus that gets hit by a speeding driver that it won’t impact the city – in light of this report? “They had a problem , knew it, and didn’t resolve it? If my attorney can’t win that I need a new attorney!!
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Nobody knows who you are.
PhotoRadarscam says
But notice what they didn’t say. Did crashes go up? No! Which in the end that’s all that matters. This is not about safety.
Not to mention that this data cannot be trusted. This is the company that profits from every violation and has NOTHING to lose and that was caught in a $2M bribery scheme in Chicago and has probably bribed these officials at some point. What they can’t fabricate is crash data, which they have shown none. To listen to this company, you would expect blood in the streets. Where is the blood?
Andrew Howe says
Pg 7 of the Agenda Packet (page 4 of the RedFlex report) shows collision data.
More interesting to me is the data on pg 11 showing speeds. As soon as cameras stopped giving tickets I started hearing much more racing bike activity on the Turnpike in the wee hours. Notice that a couple of vehicles were clocked at 89 mph.
If anyone wants to learn more about this data, the TSAB is going to review it at our meeting next Tuesday at 7pm.
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
Perhaps there are greater numbers of people RETURNING to visit/shop etc. in OR now that the cameras are gone. Perhaps some of the increase is due to that. I’m so glad the cameras are gone in time for the Secret City festival & the upcoming Lavendar Festival. I hope many more people visit!
John Beckley says
Interesting point! John Huotari, is there any way of finding out if the traffic counts went up? I would think that the data they collect has to record that too.
johnhuotari says
John,
That information is included in the report included in the TSAB agenda. I linked to the agenda in the story above if you’d like to take a look. The traffic counts are on Page 8. They show that traffic counts are about the same before and after, although there was a four-day difference in the number of school days between the two periods.
bill bradley says
Please explain to me, if you can, how Knoxville has 19 cameras and OR has NONE…and yet, you keep saying OR needs retail like Knoxville has, that the red light cameras drove people away. OH, wait, these are people RETURNING that could NOT shop in Knoxville, right? Do you realize just how incredibly bizarre your comments are?
Middle income houseing at Centennial bluff, where there’s nothing but $500+ houses now, but you want to put in mid income houses? Or better yet, bulldoze down houses to put new houses (look out Woodland).
Ms. Powers, come on…for the love of God, if they ain’t worried about red lights in Knoxville, they ain’t worried about ’em in OR.
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
You are mistaken and not correct… plus rude… whoever you are, Mr. Bradley.Put some thought into your comments before you write them, please! People from neighboring areas like Roane and Morgan had specifically avoided OR when the cameras were here. They are now returning. If the land is open and the previous housing plan didn’t work, change the plan and build houses that will be affordable. Centenial Bluff did not take off. It can be reworked. Some of the houses in OR have been torn down to make way for new! Perhaps if you actually lived here, you might have known that. If people don’t come up with different ideas and keep doing the same old thing, nothing will change. Luckily more people who live here are starting to have more open minds and THINK! Some ideas may work and some may not . We have to move forward. Stay stuck in the past and keep on with your incendiary posts, if you think that’s effective! As for me, I’ve already wasted enough of my time responding to you. BTW… I do NOT await your reply 😉
bill bradley says
I am sorry if you think I’m rude. (Please see below).
Where do you think those people in Roane and Morgan counties shopped if they weren’t going to OR? Perhaps Knoxville, with its 19 red light cameras? AND if they’re the ones that are speeding, do you really want them?
I did put a bit of thought in my previous reply…
1–If you get the 1000 familes you want in OR will you know them all? Will it bother you if they reply and you don’t know them?
2–Nope, I don’t live in OR…and neither does Susie Williams Taylor, but that doesn’t seem to both you….perhaps you’re friends with her and that’s ok, but I don’t think you thought that one thru.
As I’ve stated, I’ve spoken with John before and he knows who I am, where I live, and who I work for. And he knows that an LLC that i’m part of pays taxes in OR…so I do have a connection to the city. By the way, ask your friends to quit googling me.
3–Centennial Bluff homeowners – again, do you reduce their property value by adding middle income housing? I’m just not sure that’s a great idea.
Perhaps the best idea is Len Hart’s idea that DOE should release more land.
Remember, it was you who wrote that all lots that were undeveloped could be built on … and I’m not sure DOE, TVA, and the OR Utility District would agree with that.
Now, if you are in favor or tearing down parts of OR, put it out there and let’s see what those homeowners think about it.
Lastly, you apparently think I’m rude because I pushed Ms. Baughn for a year and never got a a reply. BUT, had the shoe been on the other foot, you and your friends would’ve been asking the same questions, would you not? As in “prove it”!!!!
The bigger question is this: Why would the Oak Ridger print the guest column last year with all those claims that were presented as facts without some proof? Or is this what journalism has come to? You can send a “guest column” in, make whatever claims you want, and NO one questions it? Is that what we want?
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
They shopped in their own counties and in Knox. i do not agree with having red light cameras.
Whoever replies is fine. But I will comment if someone is being rude whether I know them or not. Your response to me was rude. That is what I referred to in my previous post to you.
Susie Williams Taylor started a group on Facebook because she grew up here, and still cares about OR. Her ties/roots run deep in OR. I chose to join it. I very much “thought that one through”.
BTW… your “googling” comment is silly. People can do what they want on the internet. If you don’t like being”googled”, tell them yourself whoever you think/know them to be! You give me the order to stop them! How ridiculous. I don’t even know the “them” you are talking about. You seem to have some delusions of grandeur on how people are so into what you have to say/who you are.
Questioning is fine, I welcome it and the discussions it brings. I do not appreciate rudeness or lack of civility. It detracts from the conversation and it actually makes the person who is being rude lose ground in what he/she is trying to say/defend.
i do think OR can build new places. They don’t all have to be homes. Villas, condos, duplexes etc. can work too. I’m not a builder of homes but i do think OR can and should do better with the housing issues.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
Your comments lack profundity. Ask a builder about building in Oak Ridge. It is very costly to build in Oak Ridge what people are buying. Most of the sewer here doesn’t allow for basement baths and kitchens and the city won’t install and maintain sewer pumps on homeowner’s lots (interesting since it is mandated they do the electric underground) like surrounding water utilities to accommodate sewer mains that are relatively high in elevation, not any other wired choice but Comcast for bandwidth, the lots are small and restrict building height, and electric underground is $60 a foot due to the city installation and not an electrical contractor who can do it for $10 a foot. The extra $50 dollars a foot is very costly when many lots in Oak Ridge are not wide but deep. The costs are not justified when sidewalks are asphalt crumbles only 2 feet wide and heavily used community roads are just patched for 10 year intervals. Then there is the big problem not anyone living in Oak Ridge I have talked with who wants to talk about but me, the wait to get into and out of Oak Ridge from Knoxville. Another bridge coming from Y-12 into Knox County is needed at Carbide Park to connect the new City of Knoxville annexation at Watt Road, Snyder Road and soon Hardin Valley Road. This will make Oak Ridge a community once again instead of its outside looking in perception of a narrow and many times closed bridge. It is time Knox County looked at the very congested entrance to a business area many Knox County residents work at. Even Knox County mayor doesn’t recognize that problem; I have no wonder why. Oak Ridge would take revenue from Knox County if Oak Ridge were more accessible. After 60 years, the City of Oak Ridge is still very isolated.
Dave Smith says
Have you considered that your comment is irrelevant not only to bill bradley’s comment but also to the entire subject of this article?
Now here I go, keeping the thread off-topic. In my 30 years here you are the only person I’ve ever heard complain about having a “big problem” getting into and out of Oak Ridge. Weren’t you here before the Pellissippi Parkway was built and the two main roads to Knoxville were the Karns highway and the Avenue of Death (a.k.a. US-25W from Clinton to north Knox County)? The construction of the Pellissippi Parkway was possibly the single worst thing that ever happened to the health of retail business and housing in Oak Ridge. And you’d like someone to pay to build another connection (bridge) between Oak Ridge and a new development in Knox County? No doubt we could pave right over the Freels Bend Cabin as a symbolic gesture toward the death of Oak Ridge.
I do agree with your assessment of some of the difficulties faced by home builders. I’d like to see the city and the citizens get focused on solving those problems.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
If you consider there are other problems than those cameras, then I’m on topic. You prove my point that only one entrance and exit to all the work done here in Oak Ridge is a problem not talked about, yet if you talk to all those who work here and live there it is a real problem that bleeds into decisions of where to go for retail. Before the parkway West Knoxville was farm land. What is your point about that? Freels Bend Cabin is not in the path of another corridor into Oak Ridge.
Dave Smith says
If you get out your map and put your finger in the middle of the area bounded by the Watt, Hardin Valley, Snyder and Pellissippi roads, and then draw a line straight to the center of Oak Ridge, your line will pass right through Freels Bend cabin.
Of course, no one is going to build a highway through Freels Bend because no one but you is in favor of building an unnecessary bridge from Knox County into Oak Ridge. Why would we waste our resources on “those who work here and live there”? The lack of an additional bridge or new road is not stopping those who work here from shopping here or living here.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
A cabin sits in the middle of Knoxville. I see your “Gates Back Up” mentality.
johnhuotari says
David,
It’s my understanding that the cameras were used for photos and short videos, and speeds are measured by sensors in the road.
I don’t have information on crashes before and after the cameras were disabled and I don’t know if the Oak Ridge Police Department collected that information, but I’ll try to find out.
Thank you,
John
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
Tom Row, to each his own! The whole picture needs to be looked at instead of just the surface and very questionable data. Do you really trust Redflex, c’mon? Eyes wide open please!
bill bradley says
Yes I do trust them and the technology
Raymond Charles Kircher says
John, would you place a disclaimer on your polls that they are easily manipulated and not secure or valid sources of information due to one person voting many times? I would like to suggest that these polls be tied to subscribers of your service and votes would be per subscription and not per cookie or IP. Make the voters on polls visible to subscribers so we can see who doesn’t adhere to an honor system. We have our city council openly vote so the citizens can know who voted on what; thus, the same open approach should be done on your polls.
johnhuotari says
Raymond,
We do our best to only allow one vote per reader. I can’t guarantee that the system is fool-proof, but I have also not seen any evidence that our polls have been manipulated.
If you any have any specific suggestions for improving the polls, you are welcome to send them to me via e-mail at [email protected].
We don’t currently have a way to list who votes in our polls. I don’t know if that could change in the future, but it’s not an option right now.
Please remember that our polls are informal, designed only to capture the general sentiment of our readers on a particular story, and we can’t guarantee that the majority opinion expressed in these informal polls reflects the majority opinion of residents.
I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you.
John
Raymond Charles Kircher says
John, I am not asking you to make your polls better; rather, your polls to be subscriber based and stop using polldaddy. It doesn’t take much to manipulate polls from them. I will send a suggestion that you can go over. I believe it will fit your subscriber base and be attractive for your service. I would even consider to let paypal take care of the subscription for a great local service you provide.
Dave Smith says
I just viewed the poll results. I think the number of votes opposing the cameras has increased by 800 or 900 since yesterday, while the number of votes in favor has remained about the same (449). Is there a Libertarian convention in town, or perhaps a Garland family reunion?
I smell a rat in Denmark.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
You don’t agree to that majority opinion as listed in those polls?
Philip W Nipper says
That’s kind of how the last poll went regarding the red light cameras. One day the majority was for them, next day a huge swing in the vote with the majority against. There is indeed something rotten somewhere. One need not go to Denmark to find it…..
Raymond Charles Kircher says
I take the polls as mostly Red Flex employees nation wide.