Elk Grove study finds when red-light camera went down, crashes went up

For eight months, Elk Grove Village took a look at what the intersection of Devon Avenue and Busse Road would be like without red-light cameras.

The results of the experiment are in and, at least for red-light camera opponents, the news is not good.

The intersection, which dropped out of the top 10 crash sites in the village after the camera's installation in August 2008, is now the No. 1 accident location in town.

After seeing those figures, the village board voted Tuesday to reinstall red-light cameras as soon as the Illinois Department of Transportation gives the go ahead.

Village President Craig Johnson said that while red-light cameras have been vilified as nothing more than revenue generators for municipalities, Elk Grove's primary concern has been reducing crashes.

“We have said from the very beginning, that we look at red-light cameras for one reason. And that reason being safety, safety, safety,” he said.

The village installed cameras at the top 10 accident locations in the village, in part motivated by a “red-light accident” that occurred about five years ago at Busse and Oakton roads that claimed the lives of a woman and her daughter, Johnson said.

After accidents leveled off at Devon and Busse, the village decided to see what would happen if the cameras were removed. What happened was that the crashes returned with a vengeance.

From January to August 2010, with the cameras, there were 10 crashes at the intersection, officials said. During that same period in 2011, the figure jumped to 29.

Even factoring out February — a month that saw 10 crashes, eight more than the previous years — because of the snowstorms, the ratio was still 2.5-to-1, officials said.

Taking the cameras out was supposed to be a six-month experiment, but Johnson said officials decided to extend the study another two months. The results still amounted to a threefold increase in crashes.

“Once the cameras went down, the accidents came back,” Johnson said.

The inescapable conclusion, he said, is that for reasons of safety, the cameras must be reinstalled. The conclusions, he added, have been supported by studies from such agencies as the Center for Transportation Research and Education at Iowa State University and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

“I actually feel guilty. I feel bad,” Johnson said. “Because I personally feel that a lot of people may have been involved in crashes” that may not have occurred with the cameras in place.