San Francisco has been running speed cameras for eighteen months, which makes it the closest thing Los Angeles has to a crystal ball. The headline number: an 84% drop in the share of drivers going 10 or more miles per hour over the limit at camera locations. Before the cameras, about 10% of drivers at those sites were doing it. By May 2026, it was 1.6%.
If you are trying to guess what LA's new cameras will do to the boulevard outside your house, or your listing, that is the best evidence available. So it is worth reading properly, caveats included.
San Francisco, eighteen months in
San Francisco switched on its first cameras, warnings only, on March 20, 2025, and started issuing citations that August. It now runs 56 cameras at 33 locations. The SFMTA's 18-month report, released this month, says serious speeding fell 84% from the pre-camera baseline, which works out to around 42,000 fewer instances of speeding a day. Near schools and senior and community centers, the drop reached as high as 94%.
The progression matters too. An early sample of 15 sites showed a 72% reduction in October 2025. At one year, the agency reported 79%. The effect did not fade as drivers got used to the cameras. It deepened.
Two more numbers from the report. About 63% of vehicle owners who get a notice never get a second one. And every one of the 33 locations met at least one of the performance thresholds AB 645 requires to keep a camera in place.
Oakland, six months in
Oakland's 35 cameras at 18 locations started issuing warnings on January 14, 2026 and tickets on March 15. Its six-month report found the number of vehicles going 11 or more over the limit dropped an average of 70% across all 18 locations. About half of the vehicles that got one citation did not get another.
One more Oakland number matters for real estate: roughly 58% of its citations went to vehicle owners from outside the city. Most of the cars speeding past a given house are just passing through, which anyone who has tried to sell a home on a commuter boulevard already knows.
New York, the long view
New York has run cameras for over a decade. Its 2024 program report says camera locations issue 94% fewer violations per day than when the program began, and that 2022 camera corridors saw 14% fewer injuries and fatalities than comparable locations without cameras. A peer-reviewed study published in PNAS in December 2025 found cameras reduced collisions and injuries by about 5% and 2.5% per month on average.
What it predicts for LA, and what it does not
It predicts drivers will adjust, and fast. Three different cities, three different measurement methods, and the same basic answer: when speeding costs money, most people stop doing it at the camera.
It does not yet predict fewer crashes in LA. San Francisco has not published crash results for its camera sites, and a preliminary UC Berkeley SafeTREC analysis found speeding fell at comparison sites too, though camera locations improved faster and further. Our streets are also wider and faster than San Francisco's, and LA's program is nearly four times the size. Long Beach started its warning period October 7 and San Jose is installing cameras now, so by next year California will have a lot more data.
And it does not predict home prices. Nobody has studied that directly. I went through the research that does exist in this post.
What I would expect on a camera street
If LA tracks anywhere near San Francisco, the camera corridors will feel different by spring: fewer engines winding up at midnight, easier crossings, fewer moments at a twilight shoot when you have to wait for a car doing 60 to clear the frame. Those are the things buyers notice at a showing, even if they never see a data table.
Under the 18-month rule, LA's cameras will also have to prove themselves location by location. San Francisco's all did. The ones that do not will bring traffic calming money with them, which I explained in where the money goes.
San Francisco proved its drivers will slow down when it costs them fifty dollars. Los Angeles is about to find out whether its drivers are any different. I have met them. I am cautiously optimistic, mostly because fifty dollars is fifty dollars.
Figures come from SFMTA, City of Oakland and NYC DOT reports and published research as of October 2026, summarized in plain English. Results in Los Angeles may differ. This is not legal or investment advice.
