Overnight Camover Attacks in Oakland After Council Approves Continuation of DAC

(stoplight cameras at Northgate Avenue and 27th Street, photo by T.W.A.T.)


Some wondered aloud whether camover actions would happen in Oakland after similar anti-surveillance vandalism has been reported in Berlin, Greece, Santa Cruz, the Puget Sound, and other cities across the globe. The Technophobic Women's Action Team has answered that question with claims to two strikes against surveillance cameras in Oakland since late last year.

In December, T.W.A.T. targeted a portable private security company surveillance trailer on 36th and Adeline Streets in West Oakland, and now have hit one traffic camera at the intersection of 36th and Market Streets and two more at the intersection of Northgate Avenue and 27th Street.

The red light cameras at Northgate Avenue and 27th Street are reported to be the largest revenue generating cameras in the city of Oakland:

"In 2010, the most recent year for which city figures were available, 9,273 tickets were issued there through violation pictures - worth a gross of $4.2 million, based on the 2010 red-light ticket fine of $450. Figures available for much of 2011 put the gross worth at more than $3 million."

That averages out to around one red light ticket every hour of every day, generating revenue in the neighborhood of $11,000 daily. And those are the tickets that are paid and not contested. Local residents have reported mis-firings of the stoplight cameras when no red light has been run — requiring those cited to lose a day of work and fight the ticket in court — so the total number of tickets issued via these cameras is greater than one per hour.

The revenue figures are so high for just this one intersection because California has the steepest fines for red light violations in the country, by far. From the same SF Chronicle report:

"Anyone in California snapped violating a red light pays a fine of $480, and according to the traffic-watch site TheNewspaper.com, no other jurisdiction anywhere has a tab that high. The second-highest fine in the United States is $250, and it is usually more like $100."

And so Caltrans wasted little time in cleaning the lens coverings for the cameras today.




TWAT attack on the DAC
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/05/18752047.php
March 5th, 2014

T.W.A.T. Action Report
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/12/06/18747405.php
December 6th, 2013

From Berlin to Greece to Santa Cruz to the Puget Sound, Camover Actions Coming to Oakland?
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/11/21/18746605.php
November 21, 2013

Red Light Cameras in Oakland
http://oaklandwiki.org/Red_Light_Cameras_in_Oakland