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Minneapolis (AP) ― There's a red light up ahead for Photo Cop.

Police in Minneapolis shut down automated cameras on Tuesday that were used to ticket red light-running drivers after a judge struck down the ordinance that had authorized the program.

Under the "Stop on Red" program that was quickly dubbed Photo Cop, police ticketed the owner of the car, regardless of who was driving. That was a fatal defect, Hennepin County District Judge Mark Wernick ruled.

State law makes drivers responsible for red-light violations, and Minneapolis doesn't have the authority to pass an ordinance that holds car owners responsible, Wernick ruled. He threw out the ticket issued to a man who had challenged the ordinance.

By one estimate, as many as 160 other cities use red-light enforcement systems like Minneapolis'.

"Naturally, we're elated," said Howard Bass, a volunteer attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota who represented the motorist. "Judge Wernick's opinion renews my confidence in the judiciary's commitment to protecting due process rights."

Bass and the ACLU had also argued that the ordinance was unconstitutional, but Wernick didn't address that issue.

The Minneapolis cameras were installed at 12 intersections in July, and warned motorists with signs in the intersections and by posting the locations on its Web site.

The cameras snapped pictures of vehicles that enter the intersection after the light turns red. Tickets were mailed to the registered owner. Crashes in the 12 monitored intersections dropped 16 percent after the cameras were installed, versus a 5 percent drop city-wide, said police Lt. Greg Reinhardt, who oversaw the program.

"That means there's fewer injuries, fewer accidents, fewer people getting killed at the intersections," Reinhardt said. "It was a tremendous workforce multiplier for us, because it allowed essentially one officer in eight months to issue 26,000 tickets." That's more tickets than most officers issue in their whole career, he said.

The city had not yet decided whether to appeal, said Assistant City Attorney Mary Ellen Heng.

About 160 cities around the U.S. use automated cameras for red-light enforcement, and studies have shown that they reduce accidents, said Richard Retting, a senior transportation engineer who follows automated enforcement at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

"It's not a silver bullet and it's certainly not the only thing that cities and states should be doing, (but) it's certainly one of many things that has been shown to be effective," he said.

But while Minneapolis ticketed the owner of the red light-running regardless of who was driving, Arizona and California authorities try to ticket the driver, he said. And in states where the owner is ticketed, the tickets generally don't go on their driving record, he said.

Reinhardt said the Minneapolis tickets are petty misdemeanors that do go on drivers' records. The ordinance does allow owners to argue that they were not at the wheel when the violation occurred, but it's up to them to present evidence of that.

Fines could run as high as $300. Violators couldn't be jailed, but convictions went on their driver's record and could be used against them if they were later convicted of other traffic offenses.

The city tried to argue that state law allows ticketing of owners on a license plate ID alone when it involved school bus stop-arm violations or failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. But state law also keeps those violations from being used as grounds for revoking or suspending a driver's license -- something the Minneapolis ordinance didn't do, Wernick wrote.

The county said it would stop processing payments made for the automated red-light tickets until the matter is resolved.

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The intersection cameras were turned off after eight months when the Minnesota Supreme Court said the system was illegal.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)