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Assembly committee sends SB 720 to Appropriations after agreeing to overhaul red‑light camera rules and decriminalize many violations
Summary
The Assembly Consumer Protection and Privacy Committee advanced SB 720, a bill that would let cities opt into a reformed red‑light camera program that shifts to owner liability, removes facial identification, and directs revenue to road‑safety projects.
Senator Ashby presented SB 720, the Safer Streets Act, proposing a revised framework for automated red‑light enforcement in California. The bill would permit local governments to opt into a redesigned camera program that uses rear‑facing license‑plate capture (not facial photos), assigns liability to owners rather than identifying drivers, converts many current criminal penalties into civil fines, and channels program revenue toward multimodal safety projects.
Witnesses from bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups, including Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates and Streets Are For Everyone, urged passage, citing high rates of broadside collisions at signalized intersections and national studies showing automated enforcement reduces fatalities. Sacramento city representatives supported the bill as a way to reintroduce limited automated enforcement with stronger privacy and procurement rules after prior programs were discontinued.
Business and civil‑liberties witnesses and some local officials emphasized safeguards including: single‑vendor contract limits, prohibition on pay‑per‑ticket vendor contracts, required yellow‑signal timing certification on tickets, limits on data retention and sharing, and an annually reported, collision‑based location selection process. The bill disallows facial recognition and requires independent calibration and oversight of signal timing.
Outcome: Committee members moved SB 720 as amended to Appropriations. The bill’s amendments add procurement and privacy safeguards, a tiered civil penalty schedule, and limits on data retention and interagency sharing. Supporters said the measure is designed to improve safety while curbing wrongful ticketing and privacy risks.
