In some cities the camera's did their job too good and people learned to stop and as a result of that the cameras were not generating enough revenue to even pay for themselves so to generate revenue now 80 percent of the tickets given are for right turns even though you stop-- if you stop past the stop line bam ticket. Even if you stop it's considered a rolling right turn stop if your stopped over the stop bar.see this artical---
The change, which takes effect immediately, will affect thousands of motorists each year who make rolling right turns against red lights -- dubbed "California stops" by police -- at 32 camera-equipped intersections. About eight in 10 camera tickets in the city are for those violations, officials have said.
For years, Los Angeles was the only city in the county that cited rolling right turns under a state Vehicle Code section that carried a $159 penalty. Other agencies put those violations in the same category as running straight through a red light and wrote tickets with a state-established $381 fine.
Part of the Los Angeles Police Department's rationale for writing the less costly tickets was that slower, rolling right turns were not as dangerous, a department official told The Times earlier this year.
But after a lengthy legal review, officials concluded that the practice used by other cities was correct and that Los Angeles should do the same.
Lt. John Romero, a police spokesman, said late Friday that the new procedure affects officers issuing tickets as well as red light cameras and that it was needed to make enforcement consistent.
Raising money for the cash-strapped city was not part of the motivation, he said.
"This was a recommendation a year ago, before we were in this fiscal crisis," he said. "It just takes a long time to get that city attorney opinion. It's the correct section to cite."
"We do not calculate revenue," he said. "This is a traffic safety program."
Official estimates were not immediately available, but it appears the change could generate as much as an additional $2 million a year, based on past ticket patterns. The city issued about 30,000 camera tickets last year.
Though such areas as Culver City have reaped sizable profits from photo enforcement, Los Angeles' program has struggled to break even. It appeared the city might never recover some $2 million in construction costs and past deficits, city analysts recently told The Times.
That could change.
The city's share of revenue from most of its camera tickets will now jump from about $58 to roughly $150. The rest goes to state and county agencies.
Using cameras to catch rolling right turns has been a point of contention, even among some traffic engineers and law enforcement officers.
