PORT ST. LUCIE — City police officials say red light cameras could soon be part of Port St. Lucie’s efforts to reduce traffic crashes and aggressive driving on local roads.
“The majority of traffic crashes that result in injury and or death either are related to alcohol consumption and angle crashes. Those are specific to the city of Port St. Lucie. That’s what we found in our research of data,” said Master Sgt. Dominick Mesiti, public information officer for the Port St. Lucie Police Department.
Mesiti said the department’s push for red light cameras stems partly from community concerns.
“Another reason why we’re looking at red light cameras is one of the primary complaints of our citizens is aggressive driving, aggressive driving including excessive speeding and red light running,” he said.
Police say the cameras would help fill enforcement gaps and discourage reckless behavior on busy roads.
“Utilizing technology such as red light cameras is a force multiplier,” Mesiti said. “Obviously there’s likely hundreds of intersections throughout the city. Obviously we can’t put an officer at every intersection 24-7. This again being the force multiplier is just another part of technology that we’re looking at implementing.”
Each potential violation caught on camera would go through a verification process.
“We’re going to have to assign manpower to review the photographic violations to ensure a violation did occur prior to it being sent out,” Mesiti said.
If approved, drivers caught running red lights would face a civil infraction rather than a moving violation.
“Because it’s going to be different than a Florida state statute citation. This is an infraction fine and it does not include points on the license, so it will be different,” he said.
Ten intersections have been identified as the most likely sites for the first cameras, including:
- Cashmere Boulevard and St. Lucie West Boulevard
- Southwest Tradition Parkway and Southwest Village Parkway
- Southwest Bayshore Boulevard and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard
- Peacock Boulevard and St. Lucie West Boulevard
- Southwest Gatlin Boulevard and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard
- California Boulevard and St. Lucie West Boulevard
- Southwest Gatlin Boulevard and Southwest Savona Boulevard
- U.S. Highway 1 and Southeast Leonard Road
- U.S. Highway 1 and Southeast Port St. Lucie Boulevard
- Northwest Bayshore Boulevard and Southwest Crosstown Parkway
Mesiti said the technology will not replace traditional traffic enforcement. “Our regular patrol officers and our regular traffic unit officers, part of their enforcement expectations are to address red light running as part of their daily traffic enforcement,” he said.
If the city moves forward, the department will issue a request for proposals to determine how the program will be implemented.
“Once that happens, then we have to select, is it going to be a trial basis or is it going to be all these top 10 intersections? That decision hasn’t been made yet. It’s somewhere between a couple intersections as a trial phase or all 10 intersections at once,” Mesiti said.
The proposal is scheduled to be reviewed again at the Nov. 24 Port St. Lucie City Council meeting.