BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 432 Page 1 ASSEMBLY THIRD READING AB 432 (Hall) As Amended April 26, 2011 Majority vote TRANSPORTATION 14-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Ayes:|Bonnie Lowenthal, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Harkey, | | |Jeffries, Achadjian, | |Blumenfield, Bradford, | | |Blumenfield, Bonilla, | |Charles Calderon, Campos, | | |Buchanan, Eng, Furutani, | |Davis, Donnelly, Gatto, | | |Galgiani, Logue, Miller, | |Hall, Hill, Lara, | | |Norby, Portantino, | |Mitchell, Nielsen, Norby, | | |Solorio | |Solorio, Wagner | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY : Requires that a peace officer or law enforcement agency issue the notice to appear for an automated enforcement citation and that the notice be accompanied by a certificate of mail obtained through the United States (U.S.) Postal Service, completed by the local law enforcement agency. EXISTING LAW : 1)Provides authority for automated enforcement at places where a driver is required to respond to an official traffic control signal, upon condition that various requirements are met. 2)Specifies that only a governmental agency, in cooperation with a law enforcement agency, may operate an automated enforcement system. 3)Specifies that a governmental agency may contract out its duties to certify that the automated enforcement equipment is installed and operating properly provided the agency maintains overall control and supervision of the system. 4)Requires that the local government entity conduct a public hearing on the proposed use of the automated enforcement system prior to entering into a contract with a red light camera vendor. 5)Requires that a contract between a governmental entity and a AB 432 Page 2 vendor may not include a provision for payment to the vendor based on the number of citations issued or the amount of revenue generated, unless the contract was entered into prior to January 1, 2004. 6)Requires that prior to issuing citations using an automated enforcement system, the local entity must make a public announcement of the system and issue only warning notices for 30 days. 7)Requires that a peace officer or "qualified employee" of a law enforcement agency must review the photographs and issues citations, as appropriate. 8)Requires that a citation results in a "notice to appear," which must be on a form approved by the Judicial Council containing specific information, including the name and address of the registered owner of the vehicle identified in the photograph, the license plate number of the vehicle, the violation charged, and the time and place when the person may appear in court. 9)Requires that a notice to appear must be mailed within 15 days of the alleged violation to the current address of the registered owner of the vehicle, with a certificate of mailing obtained as evidence of service. FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee: 1)Unknown costs, possibly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to local agencies for peace officer or law enforcement staff time to issue written notices to appear, instead of allowing contracted entities to issue those notices (Local special funds). 2)Unknown, potentially significant reduction in fine and penalty revenues, possibly in the millions of dollars annually, (state and local special funds), to the extent locals eliminate or reduce use of automated traffic violation devices as a result of this bill. 3)Potential reduction in court costs of an unknown amount, and a corresponding increase in state and local revenue (state and AB 432 Page 3 local special funds), to the extent the bill reduces unpaid or contested traffic violations. COMMENTS : Automated enforcement systems were originally authorized in California by SB 1802 (Rosenthal), Chapter 1216, Statutes of 1994, to enforce rail crossings. SB 833 (Kopp), Chapter 922, Statutes of 1995, authorizes a three-year demonstration period to test the use and effectiveness of similar systems in reducing the incidence of drivers running red lights at roadway intersections and in identifying the drivers committing such violations and the vehicles involved. Installation of these systems was justified primarily because motorists running red lights are a serious traffic problem with potentially catastrophic results to other drivers, and it is a difficult violation for a police officer to witness and enforce at the time it is committed. After reviewing the operations and effectiveness of the pilot program, the Legislature enacted SB 1136 (Kopp), Chapter 54, Statutes of 1998, to indefinitely authorize the use of automated traffic enforcement systems, or "red light cameras," at intersections. Major modifications were made to the statutory authority by AB 1022 (Oropeza), Chapter 511, Statutes of 2003, as a result of an audit by the State Auditor that generally concluded local governments needed to exert more control over the operation of the automated traffic enforcement systems. Under current practice, "red light camera" vendors are contracted by local authorities to capture images of vehicles who fail to come to a complete stop at designated intersections. The images are collected by the vendor and screened to eliminate those images that fail to show evidence that a vehicle failed to make a complete stop. The remaining images are then sent to local law enforcement where an officer reviews the images and directs the vendor to send notices to appear for those that clearly show violations. The author notes that under current practice, when vendors send out notices to appear to alleged violators, individuals receiving the notices are confused as to the legitimacy of the documents since the city and state shown on the mailing is different from the locality where the violation occurred. For example, the author notes that for violations occurring in Elk Grove, California, notices to appear indicate that the mailing AB 432 Page 4 is on behalf of the Elk Grove Police Department yet the address shows a post office box in Phoenix, Arizona. The author claims that many individuals who receive these notices disregard them since they are unaware that the mailing is from a law enforcement agency. Statutes related to the issuance of notices to appear for automated enforcement violations specifies that a notice to appear must be issued by a peace officer or by a qualified employee of a law enforcement agency on a form approved by the Judicial Council. The author notes that when notices to appear are mailed by vendors, they can be called into question if challenged in court and that, on a number of occasions, these court challenges result in the ticket being thrown out, resulting in loss of revenue. It is the author's contention that failure of law enforcement to carry out the duties of mailing citations and using appropriate evidence of service forms violates the rights of individuals and causes the citations to be overturned in court. To correct this, this bill would clarify that a written notice to appear must be issued by a peace officer or other qualified employee of a law enforcement agency and that the certificate of mailing, obtained through the U.S. Postal service, must be completed by local law enforcement and accompany the notice to appear. Writing in response to this bill, the League of California Cities cites concern that the bill would increase costs to cities and possibly interrupt the operation of this traffic safety tool. The League is further concerned that this bill would result in direct costs to city police departments in additional personnel hours and new equipment purchases with no clear benefit to individuals who receive red light violation notices. Previous legislation: AB 1362 (Simitian) of 2010 would have imposed additional requirements on the use of automated traffic enforcement systems. That bill died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Analysis Prepared by : Victoria Alvarez / TRANS. / (916) 319- 2093 AB 432 Page 5 FN: 0000952