Drivers rushing to and from Highway 101 on Millbrae Avenue should brace for an onslaught of traffic tickets about to be doled out by new red light cameras the City Council is expected to install.

If approved at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the red light cameras will be erected at the city’s largest intersection, where Millbrae Avenue, Rollins Road and Highway 101 meet.

The city estimates it will make about $1.3 million a year by adding five cameras at the intersection. Each red light ticket carries a fine of $271 and the city receives about $147 of that. The city estimates the cameras will catch about 10 violators a day and take in a total of $1,764,000 a year. It will cost $318,000 a year to maintain the cameras and $100,000 to hire a police officer to be manage the program. The $100,000 will pay the officer’s salary and benefits.

If approved Tuesday, Millbrae will be one of many Peninsula cities opting for red light cameras. Last year, the city of San Mateo approved cameras at some of its most dangerous intersections. San Mateo police will not disclose which intersections the cameras are at, but previously said Hillsdale Boulevard and Saratoga Drive had 31 red light violations in a two-hour time frame during an informal study conducted in 2003.

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Red light camera proposals were rejected in one state and two cities yesterday.

The Virginia House of Delegates defeated an effort to reinstate the controversial red light camera program that the legislature terminated last July. Senator Kenneth Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) had inserted a provision into an unrelated bill to reauthorize statewide photo ticketing and the bill passed the Senate 31-8 last week. The measure died yesterday when House Speaker William J. Howell (R) ruled the amendment was not germane.

In Kentucky, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted 13-2 to direct Mayor Teresa Isaac to drop the idea of installing red light cameras.

Montgomery, Alabama’s city council also voted 5-4 to reject a measure to authorize red light cameras. (see story below)

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As it began exploring the use of red-light cameras Tuesday, the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners heard from a skeptical public concerned about traffic enforcement and “Big Brother” surveillance.

“I feel a human being can make a better judgment call than a camera,” Kansas City resident Lamar Mickens told the board during an evening public forum at which about a dozen persons spoke.

“This is an encroachment on freedom,” said Jim Stoll. “I find the Big Brother syndrome to be very distasteful to me.”

A few speakers favored the cameras to deter what they see as a major cause of auto accidents. But the majority questioned whether the city is trying to protect the public or simply wants to increase revenues through more traffic tickets.

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The Montgomery City Council voted down Mayor Bobby Bright’s proposal to use cameras to monitor red lights on some city streets Tuesday.

Under Bright’s proposal, the cameras would take pictures of a violator’s license plate and the red light at selected intersections in the city. The photograph would be sent to the vehicle’s owner, along with a citation

The mayor said Tuesday he will continue to work to get the proposal passed.

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Drivers talking on mobile phones or failing to wear seatbelts could find themselves tracked down through a widened use of road surveillance cameras, under proposals due to be floated in parliament tomorrow. The plans would form part of a major expansion of camera surveillance which critics say is already transforming Britain into the most watched country in the world.

Now, this is currently happening in the UK and not in the US. Not yet, at least. I wanted to show how a simple mechanism, to stop people from running red-lights, is now turning into a full blown ‘camera cop’. Giving up just a tiny bit of your freedom now can result in loosing it completely, down the road.