There will soon be a lot more cameras at the red lights of San Francisco. The city’s Municipal Transit Agency has plans to begin taking proposals from contractors to install 20 more of these cameras, which have been used to successfully catch red-light runners for 13 years.
As of now, there are 32 working cameras and 10 “dummies” that rotate throughout the city, although that rotation is not equal. The city may have a serious case of driver profiling on their hands when people learn that these cameras are used most heavily in SoMa, ostensibly because when people are on their way to a baseball game, there is nothing that will stop them from making the light, even if it means not making the light.
Perhaps one place where these cameras would be useful is at the corner of Franklin and Lombard where according to one concerned Chronicle reader drivers are committing rampant rights on reds, even though there is an arrow that changes colors that tells them not to turn right on a red. This arrow is not just a pretty sparkly thing, and is actually understood quite well in many places around the world. It’s called a stoplight.
