Miami Beach drivers, the city has heard your complaints.
From now on, drivers will not get a ticket in the mail for making a right turn on red without coming to a complete stop. City commissioners read the comments and the emails, residents saying they stopped as required before turning right at a red light, but still found a ticket in the mailbox, generated by one of the cameras at 10 intersections.
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So they changed the policy.
“I had two in one day,” said Chris Meland.
That’s $158 times two for the 31-year Miami Beach resident. Meland got flagged twice by the camera at Washington Avenue and 17th Street, the first citations she’s ever received.
“I feel that the ones that are being penalized are the residents, the residents who live here and are constantly making those turns,” Meland said.
Did she follow the rules and come to a complete stop before turning right at the red light?
“I always do, I mean, 31 years I’ve been doing that,” Meland said.
The city commission voted on Wednesday to stop issuing right-on-red, camera-generated citations, except for the intersection of Alton Road and 17th Street, where the practice will continue.
“Looking at the videos, it seemed that it wasn’t a safety issue in these turns, coming almost to a virtual stop, and then the camera was picking them up, so we thought this was fair to our residents not to issue these tickets,” said Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner, who cosponsored the measure with Commissioner Alex Fernandez.
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“Sometimes people need to inch forward to be able to see if there’s a car coming, in order to be safe, in order not to hit a pedestrian, yet they were being hit with these citations,” Fernandez said.
If a driver goes straight through a red light at a camera-equipped intersection, the driver will still get a ticket in the mail, so the city is not eliminating red light cameras. However, Fernandez thinks they should, saying the cameras pose constitutional issues.
“Oftentimes, the person being hit with the violation or the citation was not the person driving the car,” Fernandez said.
The new policy is not retroactive. If you’ve already received a ticket from one of the cameras for allegedly not stopping completely before making a right on red, your options are to pay it or try to contest it.
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