Red-light cams find a lot of people obeying the law

HPD gave some details about the city's new red-light camera system yesterday, and now we know a couple of things about Houston's traffic signal scofflaws: A lot of them seem to be in Clear Lake, but overall, there aren't as many as expected.

Since the cameras went into operation a week ago, more than 600 violations have been caught on camera, HPD Sgt. Michael Muench said. That's less than the 250 a day police expected, which we guess is a good thing — though it doesn't mean fewer people are running lights; it just means people may be taking care not to screw up at the 10 intersections with cameras. Interestingly, most of the red-light violations caught on tape so far have happened at Bay Area Boulevard and El Camino Real. So, uh, if you happen to be in Clear Lake, run the light at Highway 3 instead.

Of the 600 violations recorded so far, about 70 have been thrown out after review — many of them because the system was triggered when cars turned right on red without coming to a full stop first (though, according to the Chronicle, HPD is "[giving] the benefit of the doubt to the driver" in those cases). KUHF's report touches on the possibility that appeals of camera citations might be high at first, a potential headache for the municipal courts that we talked about yesterday. But hey, if people keep actually stopping at lights, maybe it won't be an issue after all!