CLAY COUNTY, Fla — By next year, there could be fewer red light cameras watching your car at Orange Park’s intersections. The town’s one of the only areas of northeast Florida to still have them, but they could soon be a flash of the past.
In a town committee meeting this week, some drivers said, if anything, the cameras could be making the roads less safe.
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“I don’t see evidence these are making Orange Park safer,” says David Coughlin, who lives in Clay County, “I wouldn’t ever say these lights are saving lives.”
The town of Orange Park first approved the cameras back in 2013. Action News Jax got numbers from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles showing there have been more crashes since that time.
In the years following the installation of the cameras, the department says crashes in Orange Park have gone up by 104 crashes at these intersections. The department says there’s been a similar increase in traffic violations.
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This comes as numbers from the Florida Department of Transportation show traffic moving through the intersections each day has dropped in the last few years. FDOT says there are around 2,000 less cars, on average, passing through the intersections in a day.
But Orange Park’s leaders say the red light cameras are more about the green.
“I think the honest reason we have these is it’s a revenue stream,” one of the committee members said in this week’s meeting, recorded to SoundCloud.
The town says each red violation caught by the cameras comes with a $158 fine. Orange Park leaders say money from the citations brings in around $400,000 to the town each year. For some, this makes the question of removing them about more than safety.
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“Do I think they make the roads safer overall? I’m not sure,” says Orange Park Vice Mayor Susana Thompson, “I would have to see what all the data is.”
But drivers, like Coughlin, say they’re not rolling with the cameras.
“Town council members seem to be more interested in preserving the contracts than doing the right thing,” Coughlin says.
Town leaders say the next time they’ll consider removing the red light cameras is next January.
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