New Blue Lights Help Poway Deputies Catch Red-Light Runners

The City of Poway installed a handful of new devices at three intersections over the weekend to help deputies catch drivers running red lights, just a couple of months after halting the city's red-light camera program.

"When the light turns red you need to be paying attention and some of the worst collisions are collisions at intersections," Poway Sgt. David Cheever said.

The devices are mounted on the top, bottom or rear of the traffic signals and flash a blue light out of the view of approaching drivers when the light turns red. The blue light alerts deputies stationed beyond the intersection to be on watch for vehicles running the light.

The five new blue light devices were installed at the intersections of Poway and Pomerado roads (which previously had a red-light camera); Poway and Community roads; and Scripps Poway Parkway and Pomerado Road.

Unlike red-light cameras, these detectors require someone to be on-scene watching the intersection to watch traffic and cite drivers. Cheever said there are usually three to four officers working traffic each day, and they plan to monitor the intersections during peak traffic times such as the morning and evening commutes.

The devices will not only make it easier for officers to prove that the light was red when the drivers entered the intersection, since the blue lights are synced with the red lights, but they also will make enforcement safer for officers, Cheever said.

Typically, officers are behind drivers and follow behind them after they run the red light, which is dangerous for the officers and other drivers, he said. Now, officers will be able to sit on the opposite side of the intersection, see the blue light and then go after the driver, he said.

Poway is following other nearby cities such as Santee and Encinitas by installing these devices, which Cheever estimates only cost about $100. In temporarily stopping its red-light camera program, Poway, too, was tracing the patterns of other cities who had stopped their programs amid various concerns about their effectiveness.

In March, the Council opted for a six-month suspension of the program to see how drivers responded and explore other options, such as longer yellow lights, or extended periods of four-way red lights at intersections. Cheever couldn't immediately say if there have been more crashes since the program ended. Those cameras had been at Scripps Poway Parkway and Community Road; Ted Williams Parkway and Pomerado Road; and Poway Road and Pomerado Road.

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