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Red light cameras also catch drivers who make a right without stopping

BY BRYNA ZUMER

Posted 10/01/10

Many drivers know they’ll get a ticket if they fly through a red light at one of Bel Air’s four intersections with red-light cameras, but fewer may be aware that two of those cameras also catch people making right-hand turns without stopping at the red lights.

Bel Air Police Chief Leo Matrangola said those two cameras have caught “hundreds” of drivers making dangerous right turns from Churchville Road onto Main Street or from Baltimore Pike onto Kenmore Avenue, which goes past the high school.

The new camera feature was part of an upgrade police made in May to their original red-light cameras; the upgrade which was piggybacked onto a vendor contract with Howard County.

Matrangola noted motorists are only fined if they are clearly speeding as they turn, not if they wait until they are in the crosswalk to stop, which is also technically a violation.

He said those two intersections were chosen because they have large numbers of pedestrians, not because there have been injuries or fatalities at those sites.

“The potential is there,” Matrangola said. “Also, at Main Street and Churchville Road, your sight distance to the right is compromised because there’s a telephone pole there.”

He said pedestrians have been struck in intersections around town before but there does not seem to be a pattern of some intersections being more dangerous.

Three pedestrians have been hit in Bel Air this year but not in the intersections with red-light cameras, Matrangola said.

He recalled a fatality about 10 years ago that was similar to the death Sept. 17 of Joseph d’Entremont III, the Fallston High freshman who was killed by a car as he crossed Route 24 at Rock Spring Road, outside town limits.

Another high school student was killed about 10 years ago while crossing Route 1 at Baltimore Pike.

“The driver went right through a red light,” he said.

Police hope fines of $75 a pop will cut down on “what we call a California right-hand turn,” he said.

At Churchville Road, “the tendency for people, when they run these red-light turns, is they are looking to the left to beat the traffic going northbound,” he said. “When you are looking to the left, you are not paying attention to the people crossing [from the right].”

“People have taken this as a rite of passage: ‘Oh, it’s a right turn on red,’” he said. “We have to break that habit. I think the word is getting out after we have issued hundreds of these [fines].”