introduced<\/a> in April by Councilmember Phil Bacerra, who said Segerstrom Avenue in his district is especially unsafe due to speeding drivers.<\/p>\n\u201cThe city of Santa Ana experienced 3,487 total collisions in 2025, including 1,943 injured, and 26 fatalities, with unsafe speed determined to be the main factor in many of those collisions,\u201d Bacerra said. \u201cIt is impossible to deploy police officers to all of the racing hotspots in our city every single night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n
What are some of the concerns?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because this is a pilot program, Hernandez said he doesn\u2019t want Santa Ana to be a guinea pig.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very much still a test, which means that the guardrails will be identified on all of us here,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to see this item come back to us when there\u2019s more data equipped for us to consider. I don\u2019t want each of you \u2026 to be the data that we analyze on whether this policy fits for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The data from the speed cameras would be overseen by the city\u2019s public works department, not police. But Vazquez said he’s worried about adding surveillance to the city no matter which department is in charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal government has ways,\u201d Vazquez said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen studies, not only in California, but across the country, of people being tracked down by camera use. I don\u2019t believe right now is the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resolution passed 4-2, with City Council members Johnathan Ryan Hernandez and Benjamin Vazquez dissenting. Councilmember Jessie Lopez was absent.<\/p>\n
Help keep stories like this free<\/p>\n
\n LAist is 100% community funded. Your support makes it possible to keep producing the local reporting Southern California depends on.\n <\/p>\n
How much will this cost the city?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Based on the program costs for other cities, officials estimated that a 12-camera program would have a start-up cost of $2 million and annual operating costs between $1.5 million and $2 million.<\/p>\n
Mayor Valerie Amezcua said requesting funds from state and congressional representatives is an option.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not written in stone; it\u2019s not forever, so if it doesn\u2019t work, it doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Amezcua said.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Thai Viet Phan said the city needs to balance what the budget can bear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to make promises up here that we can\u2019t keep,\u201d Phan said. \u201cAnd what we do know is that this pilot program \u2026 (is) incredibly expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786046898_272_.png\")
<\/p>\n
The costs associated with the speed camera pilot program vary among participating California cities.<\/p>\n
(<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the City of Santa Ana<\/p>\n
)<\/p>\n
How would it work?\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Santa Ana were included in the pilot program under the state law, the city would have to launch a public information campaign. For the first 60 days of the cameras being installed, speeding drivers would receive a warning. After that grace period, drivers would start receiving citations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Santa Ana City Council voted Tuesday to ask California leaders to include the city in the state\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,338,44807],"class_list":["post-425707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-santa-ana","tag-speed-cameras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}