Long Beach police are handing out a lot fewer speeding tickets than they used to — and it’s not because people have suddenly slowed down.
According to police data analyzed by the Long Beach Post, officers last year wrote 1,659 speeding tickets, less than half of the 3,431 speed citations they issued five years earlier in 2019.
A Long Beach Police Department spokesperson declined a request for an interview about why this is happening, but acknowledged in an email that there are fewer officers assigned to traffic enforcement these days.
Long Beach police have struggled to hire officers recently. About a quarter of jobs remain unfilled, according to recent numbers from the city.
This has forced the department to reassign officers from traffic duties to focus on routine patrol operations and other higher priorities like reducing gun violence, LBPD spokesperson Allison Gallagher said.
“While this re-allocation has led to reduced staffing in units such as the Traffic Section, we do utilize patrol officers to support traffic enforcement efforts, as resources allow,” Gallagher wrote.
Rich Chambers, president of the Long Beach Police Officers’ Association — the union for rank-and-file officers — said he’s never seen so few of them assigned to the traffic detail.
He, too, blamed the department’s high vacancy rate. Before the pandemic, LBPD employed slightly more than 800 officers. Now, that number is in the “low 600s,” Chambers said.
Starting during the pandemic, veteran officers began retiring or leaving for other departments at a greater rate, Chambers said, and over the past five years, the LBPD failed to secure enough recruits to replace them.
When the traffic division is fully staffed, the department typically sends officers to the same areas day after day to learn traffic patterns and pursue enforcement as they see fit, Chambers said.
With reduced numbers, Gallagher said the LBPD focuses speeding enforcement in “problem areas” known to be at high risk based on factors including collision reports and resident complaints.
Last year’s speeding ticket data showed that 413 tickets (24.8% of the year’s total) were issued to drivers on Pacific Coast Highway and 317 (19% of the year’s total) were given to drivers along Cherry Avenue.
Long Beach isn’t alone in this trend.
Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and Signal Hill police are all issuing fewer speeding citations, according to data reviewed by the Post.
Signal Hill officers wrote only 21 last year, compared to 523 in 2019. Capt. Kelli Crigler said her department has only one officer assigned specifically to traffic enforcement, down from two.
Speeding’s deadly consequences
After a driver caused a chain-reaction crash in June that left a 15-year-old boy dead at a bus stop, a mourner put up a sign with a straightforward message: “A speeder killed him.”
For years, Long Beach has known that speeding is a leading cause of deadly crashes. The chances of someone dying in a wreck spike dramatically the faster a driver is traveling.
In 2016, the Long Beach City Council acknowledged this and included slowing drivers down as a major part of its plan to eliminate traffic deaths by 2026.
One year out, the city is far from achieving that goal. Last year, 40 people died in crashes, up from 36 in 2023.
In fact, a recent spike in traffic deaths roughly coincides with the steep decline in speeding enforcement.
In 2020, 49 people were killed. In 2021, 47, and in 2022, 45 — all significantly higher than the average of 27 traffic deaths per year between 2013 and 2019.
The city, though, is not relying only on tickets to slow people down.
It’s launched sweeping efforts to redesign streets, narrow lanes and add more protected space for pedestrians and cyclists.
It’s resulted in planned or completed revamps of dangerous roads like Artesia Boulevard and Pacific Avenue, but people who regularly bike around the city say they’re still acutely aware of the risks of traveling alongside cars.
Nico Gauthier-Pin, chair of the local nonprofit Bike Long Beach, said he’s had countless close calls. After years of bad experiences, he’s wary of drivers turning in front of him. He’s also seen his fair share of parked cars or delivery drivers blocking bike lanes and forcing him to cycle in the road or on sidewalks.
Kurt Canfield, another member of Bike Long Beach, said building protected bike lanes along major boulevards is a good first step, but it provides only a brief respite from the danger.
“When you ride a bike in [Long Beach], you’re vulnerable,” Canfield said. “Any mistake that a driver makes could turn you into a red mist.”
Enforcement without officers
Nearly two years ago, California passed a law allowing Long Beach and five other cities to install speed cameras on a pilot basis to monitor and ticket drivers traveling at least 11 mph over a posted speed limit.
They’ve yet to arrive in Long Beach, despite pressure from activists like Canfield who’ve urged the city to move more quickly.
A spokesperson for the Long Beach Public Works Department said staff is still developing a plan to roll out the cameras. A report on the process could be available by the fall. At that point, the public will then have 30 days to review the plan before the City Council can approve it and solicit bids from camera vendors.
Locations for the speed cameras will be determined at a later date, after the public has had a chance to weigh in on the method to pick where they are deployed.
Once set up, speeders will get warnings without fines for the first 60 days.
Meanwhile, San Francisco and Oakland are already using their cameras. In San Francisco, the city deployed them at 33 locations starting in March, and the city’s transit agency said it has already seen staggering results.
During a five-month stretch starting in March, the cameras issued more than 350,000 warnings to drivers, according to the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Data showed that more than 70% of vehicles that were issued a warning didn’t receive another. The speed cameras in San Francisco began issuing tickets on Aug. 5.
When fines are imposed in Long Beach, they’ll range from $50 (for going at least 11 mph over the speed limit) to $500 (for driving at least 100 mph).
Any revenue from citations will be used to cover the costs of the program and for traffic safety improvements.