The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) was created to award grant dollars to local and state government departments for development of traffic safety programs. It is nearly 100% funded by the federal government. The agency  provides grants to develop police traffic services, alcohol and other drug prevention programs, occupant protection programs, pedestrian and bicycle safety, emergency medical services, roadway safety and traffic records. The office is in the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.

One year after the 1965 publication of Ralph Nader’s groundbreaking book, Unsafe at Any Speed, and with nearly 51,000 people dying annually in motor vehicle crashes nationwide, the federal government created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to distribute traffic safety funds to the states. The California Office of Traffic Safety was created the following year as a conduit for those funds. The agency’s role has been to identify traffic safety problems, propose solutions and develop grants designed to minimize traffic safety problems and reduce traffic deaths and injuries.

California has long had the reputation as a leader in traffic safety, and is the largest recipient of federal funds in that area.

But Sacramento didn’t always see eye to eye with Washington, D.C. In May 1974, toward the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term as governor, California threatened to scrap its highway program and close down its offices if the U.S. Department of Transportation penalized the state for failing to enact a motorcycle helmet law. In a letter to the feds, Reagan’s highway representative wrote, “lf the proposed federal sanctions are imposed [for failure to adopt a helmet law], the California Office of Traffic Safety will cease to exist as of June 30, 1974.” The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety characterized the state’s position as “hard-line opposition to the substance of the requirements.” California and Illinois were the only two states without helmet laws, yet within a year Congress changed the law that would deny federal funds to states without helmet laws. By the end of 1977, 20 states had rescinded their helmet laws. But the pendulum of public opinion eventually swung back the other way and California finally passed a limited helmet law in 1985 and a universal law in 1992.

The Next Era: A Helmet Law History (pdf)

OTS History (OTS website)

The Office of Traffic Safety’s primary function is to act as a conduit for federal grant money. To that end, it produces an annual Highway Safety Plan that serves as a comprehensive plan to reduce traffic collisions and deaths, injuries, and property damage resulting from collisions. It is also California’s formal applicant for federal funds.

The office also produces a number of publications and reports on various aspects of traffic safety, including a Traffic Safety Report Card and a list of grants by region. It also maintains an interactive website that produces city and county rankings across a range of accidental-mayhem categories.

The agency provides grant funding for these eight program areas:

Alcohol and Drugs: The goal is to remove alcohol and drug-impaired drivers from the road, which works to reduce highway deaths and injuries.

Occupant Protection: Works to educate and ensure compliance with the safety restraint laws, including the correct and consistent use of infant and child safety seats.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety: Increases safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists by funding education, enforcement and engineering.

Traffic Records: Facilitates creation of record systems that identify traffic safety problems and analyze program performance.

Emergency Medical Services: Fosters development of treatment plans for emergency medical care to ensure that persons involved in accidents receive appropriate medical attention.

Roadway Safety: Tries to improve roads with an emphasis on identifying crash locations and doing inventory on traffic control devices.

Police Traffic Services: Works to reduce automobile collisions through safety belt compliance, eliminate impaired driving and enforce the speed limit and other traffic laws.

Motorcycle Safety: Aims to improve motorcycle safety training, educate riders on the need for motorcycle safety equipment and improve awareness of motorcycles on the highway.

California receives approximately $97 million annually from the federal government in traffic safety grants. In July 2010, more than $67 million of that money was earmarked for distribution through 198 new grants to agencies and cities in nine regions. More than $36.7 million was divided among 169 regional grantees, while five statewide entities divvied up $30.5 million. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) received $21.2 million of that, the California Board of Regents picked up $8.1 million and the rest was divided between the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the Department of Public Health and the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission (ABC). In addition to the new grants, significant amounts of grant money roll over from year to year. Statewide recipients of that money included new grantees listed above plus Caltrans, the Judicial Council, California Department of Justice and the Emergency Medical Services Authority.

The Office of Traffic Safety plans to distribute its 2011 grant money in the following categories:

• 54.0% Alcohol & Other Drugs
• 16.0% Police Traffic Services
•   6.3% Planning & Administration
•   6.0% Distracting Driver
•   5.9% Occupant Protection
•   4.6% Traffic Records
•   2.8% Pedestrian & Bicycle Safety
•   1.8% Roadway Safety
•   1.7% Motorcycle Safety
•   1.1 % Emergency Services

Approximately 30% of the OTS budget goes into programs that fund drunk driving crackdowns. In 2009, police officers received about $30 million in overtime pay for manning DUI checkpoints. Cities often receive additional money from towing fees and police fines from unlicensed motorists caught at DUI checkpoints. In 2009, vehicle seizures at checkpoints generated an estimated $40 million in towing fees and police fines that remained in local coffers.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Oakland towed 2,058 cars from unlicensed drivers, netting the city $288,120 in impound fines in 2010. The city of Montebello reportedly receives $200 per tow from tow company Helms and Hill Inc., when officers order more than 151 cars hauled away each month, the city’s finance records showed in 2010, according to California Watch. The city of Montebello collected upward of $95,000 during 2010 from checkpoints, including grant money for police overtime.

The California Office of Traffic Safety awards three grants under its "Grants Made Easy" program, and pays for police radars with one of the grants. The Selective Traffic Enforcement Program also pays for police equipment such as alcohol-testing devices, bicycle helmets and radars.

California cities receive money to participate in traffic safety programs and grant the money to their local police department to run the programs. The El Cerrito Police Department participated in the “Click it or Ticket” campaign regarding occupant safety including laws applicable to child safety seat installation and protection. The City received a $15,000 grant from OTS to run the campaign in 2006. The police department allocated 2 to 6 officer patrol operations focusing on seatbelt and child safety seat violations during the program. The department reported that it had issued 364 citations for a driver or occupant of a vehicle not wearing a seatbelt and an additional 69 citations were issued for child safety seat violations during a three-month period. After the program, the city participated in a seat belt survey that reported seat belt use climbed to 93.6%, according to the city.

3-Year Budget (pdf)

2011 Traffic Safety Grants (OTS website)

The Dangers of Red Light Cameras

The Office of Traffic Safety issues grants to help local police departments prevent the running of red lights. Some of that money funds programs to install cameras at intersections to catch red-light violations. The office has long promoted the use of red-light cameras and touts the technology on its website. The Oxnard Police Department was one of the first cities in the nation to adopted red light cameras in 1996, and considers the program a success. The city claimed a 42% reduction in red light violations between 1996 and 2003.

While red light violations may indeed decline, a study by the Virginia Transportation Research Council found an increase in rear-end collisions associated with cameras. Its seven-year study in six local jurisdictions concluded that a 42% decrease in red-light running crashes was more than balanced out by a 27% increase in rear-end crash rates. Total crashes increased after cameras were installed because whether cameras are present or not, there were more rear-end crashes than red light running crashes. The cost? “When these results are aggregated across all six jurisdictions, the cameras are associated with a net increase in comprehensive crash costs,” the study found.

Many cities are dropping their red-light camera programs. Loma Linda stopped the program after most of the money went to a company that operates the cameras. Whittier stopped the program after citing there was no improvement in traffic safety. Anaheim went to the polls in 2010 and 73% residents voted to dump the cameras. Other cities have also rejected the cameras, including Union City, Yucaipa, Costa Mesa, Cupertino, Compton, El Monte, Fairfield, Fresno, Fullerton, Indian Wells, Irvine, Maywood, Montclair, Moreno Valley, Paramount, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Roseville, San Carlos, Santa Fe Springs, Santa Maria, Santa Rosa and Upland.

A 2010 report by the City Controller in Los Angeles, where 32 red-light cameras keep watch, disagreed with the police department that the technology was efficient and cost-effective. The controller found the program did not “conclusively” show an increase in public safety, costs outweighed revenue, and politics and considerations other than safety determined where the cameras were placed.

Red-Light Cameras Go Dark Across State (by Joshua Emerson Smith,  California Watch)

Two More Cities Reject Red-Light Cameras (theNewspaper.com)

The Office of Traffic Safety plans to implement a web-based electronic grants management system that will allow agencies to apply for grants, submit claims and generally manage their grants through a web-based interface. In FFY 2011, OTS will begin accepting FFY 2012 grant applications through eGrants and plans to begin managing existing grants through eGrants part way through FFY 2010.  

The office regularly solicits ideas for reform from the public and its grantees and publishes its intentions annually on its Moving Forward webpage.

Are Sobriety Checkpoints being Used to Target Hispanics?

Sobriety checkpoints, funded largely by the Office of Traffic Safety, are at the center of a debate that encompasses immigration, safety, fairness and fiscal prudence. In 2010, proclaimed “the year of the checkpoint” by the OTS, police manned 2,553 DUI checkpoints statewide. More than 2.7 million vehicles passed through these checkpoints, 1.7 million were inspected, 23,966 field sobriety tests were administered, 6,938 people were arrested for DUI, 2,936 criminal arrests were made, 1,017 were arrested for drugs and 135 stolen vehicles were recovered.  

The California OTS 2008 Annual Performance Report also noted that 1,469 DUI checkpoints resulted in 17,951 vehicles being impounded. (The 2010 report does not have any impound numbers and does not make any references to “impound”; the 2008 report has 24 references.) The number of impounds grew to more than 24,000 in 2009. The percentage of vehicle seizures increased 53 percent statewide between 2007 and 2009. Those impounds have come under increasing scrutiny.

Although checkpoint operations are billed as traps for drunk drivers, they more often catch unlicensed drivers. A majority of those unlicensed drivers are illegal immigrants. Checkpoints are frequently set up near Hispanic enclaves, however that may be because operations are often conducted on major thoroughfares near highways. “All we’re looking for is to screen for sobriety and if you have a licensed driver,” said Capt. Ralph Newcomb of the Montebello Police Department. Regardless of whether or not its geography, cities where Hispanics represent a majority of the population are seizing cars at three times the rate of cities with small minority populations. In South Gate, a city where Hispanics make up 92 percent of the population, police confiscated an average of 86 vehicles per operation last fiscal year.

Immigrant rights groups have lobbied cities to soften impound policies. David Roberti, who was president of the state Senate in 1995 when California toughened penalties for driving without a license, expressed opposition to the checkpoints and said they should not be used for purposes other trapping drunk drivers. The Southern California Immigration Coalition and the South Central Neighborhood Council claim DUI checkpoints are used to target Hispanic communities. According to the groups, the state of California made $40 million in 2009 from these checkpoints.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, Eric Rose, disagreed with the claim. Rose told ABC Eyewitness News, “The truth is that checkpoints cost money and local law enforcement, such as the ones operated by the LAPD, and are fortunate to receive funding for the DUI checkpoints from the California Office of Traffic Safety.”

Scott Hadly, who publishes the California Auto Insurance Blog, provided a forum for debate over the issue. “It’s not fair,” said Arsenio Lopez, who works with the Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project in Oxnard. “It’s especially sad to see a farm worker who is getting paid $200 to $300 a week lose his car. That happens many, many times. They can’t pay $1,200. They have to work and they have to get to work, but they can’t get a license.” Kathy Gean, who runs Bob’s Towing in Oxnard, disagreed.  “What’s not fair about it?” said Gean, president of the small towing company started by her husband’s family in 1947. “It’s against the law to drive a car without a license. What would you have the police do, stop someone who doesn’t have a license and then just give them back their keys?”

Are Sobriety Checkpoints Moneymakers for Police and Tow Companies?

Some critics of sobriety checkpoints aren’t focused on race or illegal immigrants; they are following the money. In 2010, the agencies reported that sobriety checkpoints across the state were increasingly turning into profitable operations for local police and tow companies due to police impounds. In 2009, these vehicle seizures generated an estimated $40 million in towing fees and police fines. Two-thirds or more of the impounded vehicles from sobriety checkpoints are never reclaimed and are sold at lien sales, according to The New York Times. The proceeds go primarily to the towing companies.

Checkpoints are manned almost exclusively by officers earning overtime. An investigation by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley found that police departments in California averaged 18 officers at each checkpoint. The federal traffic safety agency says six officers are sufficient. The additional dozen officers cost state and federal taxpayers an extra $5.5 million during the 2008-09 fiscal year, according to the investigative report. The LAPD sent 35 officers, on average, to every sobriety crackdown. The Moreno Valley Police Department in Riverside County averaged 38 officers at each operation in 2009.

Some critics outside the state think their federal dollars are not being well-spent by the California Office of Traffic Safety. They maintain that federal regulations requiring that profits be reported and returned to the government in order to off-set taxpayer costs are not being enforced by the OTS. As a result, California’s cities are reaping profits from impound and storage fees, contracts with tow companies, and auto auctions from vehicles not retrieved by owners.

The seizures may run counter to a 2005 federal appellate court ruling that police cannot impound a car solely because the driver is unlicensed. Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for the California attorney general, told the New York Times that the “law is unclear regarding the circumstances under which a vehicle operated by a driver who is determined at a checkpoint to be unlicensed may be constitutionally impounded at the scene.” A lawsuit challenging the state’s impound law was wending its way through the legal system as of early 2011.

Proponents of sobriety checkpoints argue that they are effective and reduce the number of drunk drivers and alcohol-related crashes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, sobriety checkpoints consistently reduce drunk driving crashes by about 20%. Its report combined research from 23 studies from around the world. They also point to the overall success of California’s driver safety programs, of which sobriety checkpoints are a large component. In 2009, California’s traffic fatalities decreased 10.3 percent, reaching their lowest level since the federal government began recording traffic fatalities in 1975.

Opponents of sobriety checkpoints generally agree that drunk driving is a serious problem, however some have argued that the roadblocks violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. A California Supreme Court case, Ingersol v. Palmer, named a number of factors that should be considered when determining whether a given DUI checkpoint is legal.

1. Field officers must rely on a neutral formula for stopping motorists.

2. Policy-making officials should make reasonable checkpoint location decisions, such as selecting a location with a high number of alcohol related accidents and arrests.

3. The use of reasonable judgment by police in the time and duration of the checkpoint.

4. Provision of advance publicity and notification of the DUI checkpoint.

Sobriety Checkpoints Catch Unlicensed Drivers (by Ryan Gabrielson, New York Times)

DUI Checkpoints: Show Me the Money (Hubpages.com)

Big Brother Can Be a Bully (nscblog)

Car Seizures Prove Profitable (CaliforniaWatch.org)

Four Stories on Impounds (CaliforniaWatch.org)

Christopher Murphy, 2005-2014

Teresa Becher, 1999-2003. Teresa Becher began her traffic safety career in 1989 by joining the California Highway Patrol as a peace officer.  In 1999, Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Mana Contreras-Sweet named Becher interim director of the Office of Traffic Safety.  In that role, she joined the Governor's Highway Safety Association where she became treasurer and then vice chair of the organization.  After returning to CHP in 2003, Becher worked in a variety of assignments, including Protective Services Division as an assistant chief.  In 2005, Becher was promoted to chief and is currently assigned as a field division commander in the Golden Gate Division. 

Arthur Anderson, 1994-1999. Prior to taking the helm at the Office of Traffic Safety, Anderson served for more than 20 years with the California Highway Patrol. He worked his way up through the CHP ranks, serving in areas throughout the state.  He was division commander for the Patrol’s Valley Region and commander of the CHP’s Personnel and Training and Professional Standards Divisions before being appointed OTS director by Governor Wilson. After his tenure at Traffic Safety, Anderson returned to the CHP, where he is now assistant commissioner responsible for directing the department’s Field and Air Operations.  Assistant Commissioner Anderson is a member of numerous organizations including the International Chiefs of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and the Sacramento Rotary Club.

Peter K. O’Rourke, 1983-1994. Peter K. O'Rourke began his career as a California Highway Patrol Officer.   O’Rourke was appointed director of OTS first by Governor George Deukmejian and and then Governor Pete Wilson.  O'Rourke was elected chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association.  After leaving state government, he served as vice president of The Century Council, where he worked on prevention of underage drinking and drunk driving. The annual Peter K. O'Rourke Special Achievement Awards recognize notable achievements in the field of highway safety by individuals, coalitions, organizations, nonprofit groups, businesses, government agencies, universities or programs.

Tom Lankard, 1977-1983. Appointed by Governor Brown, Tom Lankard came to the Office of Traffic Safety with a background in law, as a congressional staffer, and federal traffic-related regulatory issues.  After his stint with OTS, Lankard began writing automotive articles for a wide variety of magazines, such as Road and Track, AutoWeek, Automobile Magazine, Automotive Industries, Automotive News, Car and Driver, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Detroit Free Press, and the San Jose Mercury News. He has been reviewing new cars for magazines and newspapers since the late 1980s and for websites since 2000. He is a juror for the North American Car of the Year and North American Truck of the Year awards.

1967–1977. During its first 10 years, the Office of Traffic Safety did not have a full-time director.  The secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency served as the Governor’s Highway Representative.  Deputy Secretaries John Berke, Lloyd Turner  and Michael Evenhoe were charged with overseeing the Office of Traffic Safety.  In these early years, the six staff members of the Office of Traffic Safety were housed in the same offices as the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.