Not Enough Lawbreakers in San Carlos

By most accounts, red-light cameras are money makers.  Drivers are the only ones who seem to hate them because of the cost of a ticket.

But the city of San Carlos seems to be bucking that trend.  It is losing more than $2,000 a month with its one and only red-light camera at Brittan Avenue at Industrial Road. 

City officials don't have another location to place the camera.  After consulting with police,  it turns out there is not a big red-light-running problem in the peninsula city.

Monday night the city council might just end the contract which runs through October 2011.

"This was never about the money. It was about enforcement," Assistant City Manager Brian Moura told the local newspaper.

Moura says if there is no longer a need, then the light should go.   

Right now it doesn't even catch two violations a day.  That is not nearly enough to pay for the bill.  You could still call the light a success.  When it was installed, the intersection averaged 12 tickets a day.

It is still to be determined what drivers will do once they realize that big brother is no longer watching.

The San Carlos City Council meets 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall.

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