More on the red-light cameras

For those of us who are a little confused about the new red-light camera system, the Chronicle offers a Q-and-A with HPD Executive Assistant Police Chief Martha Montalvo to clear some of those issues up. And, uh, she does. Sort of.

Q: How do the cameras work?

A: They're going to be attached to the signals, the traffic light signals. If a vehicle is coming at a certain rate or speed, the system knows it doesn't have enough time to stop, so it's going to run the intersection. So (the system) prepares itself, and when the vehicle does enter into the intersection, it starts taking the pictures.

Dang, those cameras is smart! What's interesting is that you apparently won't get a ticket if you enter an intersection while the light is yellow and the light changes to red while you're crossing: "The light has to be visibly red as [the driver is] crossing the intersection," Montalvo said. Which means if people start thinking about it, they'll probably speed up every time they come to an intersection, just in case. (No, it's not logical, but nothing about Houston driving is.)

Q: Who pays the fine: the driver or the owner of the vehicle?

A: The registered owner of that vehicle.

Q: Can the owner ask police to punish the driver instead?

A: If the owner will sign an affidavit basically giving us the name of the person who he said was in control and custody of the vehicle, then the citation will then go to that person.

That shoots down Houstonist's plan of always driving our friends' cars when we wanted to run red lights. They would squeal on us for sure.

Q: What happens if city vehicles run red lights?

A: If there wasn't an emergency purpose for running that red light or if there wasn't a reason, then that employee will have to pay.

Not to make any accusations here, but Houstonist has seen several cases where a police car that didn't seem to be responding to a call would put its lights on, run a red light, and then turn its lights off and mosey on down the street as though nothing happened. We suppose that counts as an "emergency purpose."

Montalvo said HPD hopes the contract for the camera system will be complete by the end of February, and if everything goes according to schedule, the cameras may begin being used at the beginning of May.