By Brian McBride
Associate Editor

The city of Kissimmee is set to enter negotiations with a vendor to supply red light running cameras at some of the most offending intersections.

Through a request for proposal process, the city chose Arizona-based Redflex Traffic Systems. The City Commission at a recent meeting authorized city staff to negotiate a contract for a red light camera system.

The contract will be presented to the commission when a deal is forged, City Manager Mike Steigerwald said.

“My hope is to get it on the first meeting of July, but we’re not going to rush it,” he said, adding that the contract has to meet the terms the city wants.

The deal could call for 10 cameras at some of the more troublesome intersections. Those areas will be identified by the Osceola County Community Traffic Safety Team, a group of highway safety advocates committed to solving traffic safety problems through a comprehensive, multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary approach. Members include local city, county, state and occasionally federal agencies, as well as private industry representatives and local residents. The group will likely look at data such as fatality rates and citation history, Steigerwald said.

The city manager said depending on how quickly a deal is worked out, the cameras could be up by the end of summer when the school year starts.

At press time Friday, city staff handling negotiations was planning to review Redflex’s terms in the contract.

“Were going to sit down and come up with what we don’t like and then sit down with Redflex,” City Attorney Don Smallwood said Wednesday.

According to state statute, the fine for running a red light would be $158. Of that, $70 would go to the city of Kissimmee. What Redflex would receive from that would depend on the contract.

No points would be assessed on a driver license with a citation.

The project would not be a money-maker for the city, Steigerwald said. As the cameras begin to catch violators, he anticipates that ticket revenue would begin to drop.

“We’re not in this to make money,” he said. “We’re in this to improve the safety of our roadways.”

How the city will handle any protests hasn’t been decided yet, Smallwood said.

As directed by the City Commission, the city does not want to tag motorists who make a right turn at a red light, Steigerwald said, because a photo shouldn’t be snapped if they stopped first. That’s going to have to be addressed during negotiations with Redflex, Smallwood said.

According to a city report, Redflex was chosen above a list of other vendors because it was willing to pay Kissimmee public works staff to install the cameras; willing to take a lower percentage of city revenue generated from the tickets; and had the best support system to keep the program up and running.

Red light running cameras were approved last year when former Gov. Charlie Crist signed House Bill 325, the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act, which created the statewide consistent standards for the use of cameras as traffic enforcement devices. The act was named after Mark Wandall, a man who was killed by a red-light runner in 2003.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2009 there were 62 fatalities involving red-light runners in Florida – making it the third-deadliest state for such collisions.