Vehicles: automated traffic enforcement systems.

Existing law authorizes the limit line, intersection, or other places where a driver is required to stop to be equipped with an automated traffic enforcement system, as defined, if the system meets certain requirements. Existing law authorizes a governmental agency to contract out the operation of the system under certain circumstances, except for specified activities, that include, among other things, establishing guidelines for selection of location. A violation of the Vehicle Code is a crime. This bill would, beginning January 1, 2012, prohibit a local governmental agency from installing an automated traffic enforcement system. The bill would authorize a local governmental agency that is operating an automatic traffic enforcement system on or before that date to continue to do so after that date only if the agency begins conducting a traffic safety study on or before February 28, 2012, at each intersection where a system is in use to determine whether the use of the system resulted in a reduction in the number of traffic accidents at that intersection. The bill would require the local governmental agency to terminate the use of an automated traffic enforcement system at an intersection no later than January 1, 2015, if the traffic safety study shows that the use of the system did not reduce the number of traffic accidents that occurred at that intersection.