By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

Cameras poised over two Twin Cities intersections earlier this year dramatically reduced red-light running, even though there were no penalties attached.

The lack of penalties is likely why the cameras proved ineffective at three other sites in Lewiston and Auburn, according to a university researcher.

By law, police cannot issue fines for red-light runners caught on camera. Instead of tickets, police mailed warnings to drivers, notifying them that the fine for running a red light is $126.

The lack of punishment probably had a lot to do with the mixed results of the pilot program, said Per Garder, an engineering professor at the University of Maine.

“Warnings work for some people, those that might run a light by mistake,” Garder said. “But others, you need to fine them to have an effect.”

The pilot program is funded by a $40,000 federal highway grant. The Maine Department of Transportation could ask the Legislature to let police issue fines based on the photographic tickets if Garder’s study shows cameras can make a difference.

The results were not as good as he had hoped, Garder said. “It would have been simpler had the results been more obvious.”

The study was intended to show that putting the cameras over intersections made drivers stop at red lights.

Cameras caught 4,751 red-light runners during the pilot program at two intersections in Lewiston and three in Auburn. In Lewiston, the cameras were placed over the Russell Street-East Avenue intersection and at the crossroads of East Avenue and Pleasant and Bartlett streets.

In Auburn, cameras went up at Stetson Road and Center Street, Minot Avenue and Elm Street, and Turner Street and the Union Street Bypass.

The camera placed over Auburn’s Union Street Bypass caught about 10 cars running red lights per day in December, when the program first started. By June, when the project ended, the cameras caught two cars per day.

Lewiston’s Russell Street-East Avenue intersection had similar results. Violations went from about 12 a day in December to six in June.

Scofflaws remained constant at the Pleasant Street intersection in Lewiston and Stetson Road in Auburn, but increased at the Minot Avenue site. That camera caught an average of five violations a day when the project began and recorded 15 per day at the end.

“I can’t believe the cameras would actually make it worse,” Garder said. He suspected the weather was the blame, since summer drivers might be more confident and willing to speed than drivers on slick winter roads.

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