Senate Bill 720 - The Safe Streets Act - On It’s Way to Being Signed
Thanks to the support of many advocates, on July 14 and July 16, Senate Bill 720 (SB 720) cleared two major hurdles, passing the Assembly Transportation Committee with a unanimous 15–0 vote, and the Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection with strong bipartisan support and a 13–2 vote!
SB 720 is designed to bring California’s outdated, failed red light camera law into the modern era, with the goal of saving lives, protecting privacy, increasing transparency, ensuring an equity component, and, most importantly, using the systems only to make intersections safer.
The bill removes the requirement to capture a driver’s face to issue a citation, ensures citations won’t impact your driving record or insurance, and replaces the current steep penalties with a tiered fine structure: starting at $100 and increasing by $100-$150 for repeat violations, up to $500. There is also a mechanism in place for low-income drivers to receive automatic fine reductions.
The bill also ensures that the profit generated from these systems can only be used for safer streets initiatives.
During the hearings in both the Assembly Transportation and Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection, multiple witnesses stepped up to support the bill—including Ty Wells, a 4.0 UCLA student and former professional dancer.
In April 2022, Ty’s life was changed forever when a driver ran a red light and hit them. The crash left Ty with a severe brain injury, a paralyzed right arm, and an amputated left leg. He wasn’t expected to survive—but he did. And on Monday, Ty stood before the committee and shared his story with grace and strength.
Their testimony was unforgettable—a reminder of the real, human cost of inaction and the urgency behind SB 720.
“I want you to imagine what it felt like to be a professional dancer in the prime of my career and a straight A student. Then to be in a wheelchair and struggle to remember a question immediately after it was asked.
If there had been red light enforcement technology at the intersection on April 3rd, the person who hit me would have paid attention before running a red light. I might still have had both legs and still might still be dancing professionally today.”
Another witness was Damian Kevitt, Founder of Streets Are For Everyone and a survivor of traffic violence. In 2013, he was hit and pinned under a car, then dragged nearly a quarter of a mile at freeway speeds, resulting in the loss of his right leg, 20 broken bones, and about 20 pounds of flesh.
Damian gave a statement during SB 720’s Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection.
“Despite SAFE’s passion about preventing traffic violence, and the studies from multiple government agencies that show automated red light enforcement saves lives. We could not in good faith advocate for any California city to use the current failed red light camera law. Three years ago, SAFE started exploring how best to reform the current law — reviewing the history of the current failed law, the successes in other cities, and best practices to ensure privacy yet transparency, to ensure sufficient penalties yet proper equity, and most importantly, how to ensure maximum safety. In front of you is the result of that work, Senate Bill 720.”
The next step for SB 720 is the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which will be heard in a month.
We will keep you posted as this vital bill progresses!