Cameras set up to catch stoplight violators in New Jersey have helped cut in half the number of accidents, a new report shows.
Red-light traffic cameras being tested in New Jersey have reduced crashes by as much as 57% over two years and decreased the number of citations being issued, indicating that drivers are changing their behavior, said a November report to the legislature from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
“While there is no expectation that citations will drop to zero, there is an expectation that driver behavior will change with [stoplight cameras] and these locations appear to be fulfilling these expectations,” the report said of the 24 locations studied.
But only two cameras — both of them in Newark — have yielded two years’ worth of data. That means the data are “still too limited to draw any definitive conclusions” about the overall effect of the camera monitoring system, the report said.
Although the report analyzed the cost of crashes at various intersections, it did not say how much revenue in fines municipalities made from citations.
NJDOT recommended in the report that the agency continue to collect safety data from the camera system in the coming years.
