21 REASONS TO OPPOSE PHOTO RADAR
1.Burden on the Innocent: Misidentification
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the registered owner is the driver only 72% of the time. This means that over 1 in 4 tickets are issued to the wrong person! This error rate is neither effective nor should it be acceptable to drivers.
2.Burden on the Innocent: Equipment Malfunctions
Photo enforcement equipment is digital equipment operating in an analog world. These sensitive electronics are often left unattended and vulnerable in harsh and extreme weather conditions 24/7. No one knows if all of the components of a photo system are working properly at any given moment, or if equipment has started to malfunction intermittently.
Equipment vendors refuse to publish their equipment reliability and error rates! How honest do you think these companies are about dismissing bad tickets due to malfunctions and other problems when their revenue stream relies on the number of paid tickets and the perception from the public that these machines are accurate?
Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have already been the victims of malfunctioning photo radar equipment. They have lost not only money, but time and effort defending their innocence. Many simply pay the tickets because it is too much trouble to fight. Others have spent hours in defensive driving school, although they did nothing wrong. Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and yes, even Scottsdale has dealt this low blow to law-abiding citizens. Those who drive for a living risk losing their livelihood. In Canada, cities refuse to reimburse drivers whose tickets have been dismissed, as there is no money in the budget.
3.Leaves Motorists Defenseless
Unlike a traditional speeding ticket, motorists who receive photo tickets are at a severe disadvantage to make a defense due to the weeks or months that may lapse before a driver is served with a citation. Weeks or months after a violation, a driver is unlikely to be able to recall the exigency of the violation such as to even know if he is even guilty! Furthermore, drivers are unable to collect evidence to defend themselves because there is no guarantee that road and sign conditions are the same as they were when the alleged violation occurred. In the case of mobile speed vans, it may be difficult to identify where a mobile speed van was actually parked when the photo was taken.
4.Unequal Enforcement & Discrimination
Photo enforcement only targets drivers who live locally who are driving their own car with visible license plates. A large class of drivers are exempt or have a greatly reduced chance of being ticketed by a camera. Some examples are: Cars with missing, covered, temporary or otherwise unreadable plates, out of state drivers, out of country drivers, drivers of company cars, vehicles with wheelchair or bike racks, cars towing trailers or other equipment, and trucks with their tailgate down. How is it fair to only target local drivers driving their own cars with visible plates and faces?
5.Lack of Audit and Oversight
Grocery stores and gas stations are constantly monitored by the Dept of Weights and Measures to protect the consumer against inaccurate scales and pumps. Unbelievably, there is no stated maintenance or audit program by any government authority of the private camera vendors and their equipment and processes to ensure reliability and accuracy. Only the vendors, not the public, can benefit when a machine malfunctions.
6.Double Jeopardy
It is possible for drivers to receive multiple tickets for the same speeding violation. One trip down a freeway past several speed cameras can yield multiple tickets. And if you happen to be pulled over by a real officer as well, you get yet another ticket. Arizona judges have shown that they will not dismiss the additional tickets, even though they are for the same violation.
7.Photo Enforcement Vendors Are Not Trustworthy
Outsourcing of law enforcement is a breeding ground for corruption. The more tickets that are issued, the more money a company makes which gives incentives to vendors to do anything they can get away with to increase violations. Corruption also exists in the back-end, with kick-backs and offers of high paying jobs to government officials being reported here and in other countries.
In 2008, Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer confirmed that Redflex documents used in court to convict motorists of speeding in Lafayette, Louisianahad been falsified. Four Arizona laws were violated while purporting to certify a speed camera deployment form for use in official hearings.
Cities like ParadiseValley, Dallas, Lubbock, Baytown, Beaverton, Union City, Springfield, and Chattanooga, have all been caught shortening yellow lights to increase profits from red light cameras. Bethesda, MD left a yellow light at a photo radar intersection at 2.7 seconds for a year after the public complained, even though every other yellow light on the street was 4 seconds.
The reason why short yellow lights create a trap for people driving is that short yellow lights create an "impossible to stop" zone in which a certain percentage of people approaching an intersection become caught in the dilemma of not being able to stop safely before the light turns red, and not being able to cross into the intersection without technically running a red light.
In Italy, a speed camera company was caught in a fraud scandal that involved 109 officials and contractors. Italian police found 81,555 speed camera tickets worth $16 million were fraudulently issued. Prosecutors believe that some of these cameras were calibrated in such a way that motorists adhering to the speed limit would receive citations. Photo radar units bearing the same individual serial number were also being used by different municipalities located hundreds of miles apart, thus preventing proper calibration testing. As a result, $16 million fraudulently issued tickets have been cancelled, refunds given and license points will be removed.
In January, the makers of the T-Red brand of red light cameras were similarly arrested for fraud after prosecutors found motorists were being trapped at intersections with short yellows and improperly certified equipment.
Based out of Phoenix, Australian corporation Redflex violated federal law by using radar units that were not FCC certified.
Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Babeu says, "It's driven to create money for the government. It's corrupting law enforcement for us to be partnered with a private entity that creates revenue - clearly that's their interest."
8.Slows Down Emergency Personnel Response Time
EMTs and police officers are being ticketed while on duty responding to emergencies. If a camera catches an officer speeding, a notice will be sent to the police department. An officer will then have to go before a driver analysis committee and may be responsible for the cost of the ticket.
"The policy is leading to failure on officers to provide service," said PLEA (phoenix law enforcement association) President Mark Spencer. According to Spencer some officers are now going slower when they respond to 911 calls.
DPS Commander Tom Woodward says patrolmen found the Loop 101 cameras onerous. He said they might have put the public's safety at risk. “It deterred officers assigned to the EastValley from working that area," Woodward says. "We still responded to calls, but officers were not in that area working traffic proactively as much as they were prior to photo enforcement."
9.Affects Consumer Spending and Tourism
Citizens also have an aversion to the cameras. The city of Schaumburg, Illinois found itself in hot water when locals and out of towners vowed to stop shopping at the Woodfield Mall unless the right turn camera was turned off. The village stopped monitoring right turns at the intersection in January.
Phoenix is already known for its high tax rate on rental cars. Now, for the first time, AAA has designated the entire state of Arizona as a strict enforcement area, not very welcoming indeed.
10.Less Safe
Driving conditions on freeways are made especially dangerous in rainy weather; morning and evening sun glare as drivers react to the cameras by slamming on their brakes.
Multiple American studies show an increase of accidents with red light cameras:
You will hear that t-bone accidents decrease with red light cameras, but the
Virginia DOT Report showed the cameras were associated with an increase of between 31 percent and 54 percent for rear-end crashes overall," the report found. "The association of the cameras with angle crashes differed among jurisdictions, although a preponderance of test results suggested an increase."
A preliminary examination of Scottsdale's freeway camera program found a 54 percent increase in rear end collisions accompanied the 110,962 automated tickets issued in 2006
Fatalities increased 43% in Tempe, AZ a year after speed and red light cameras were installed the previous year. Sheriff Babeu of Pinal County (AZ) removed speed cameras after he found that injuries and fatalities DOUBLED where speed cameras were installed.
Flash Blindness - According to Redflex, their cameras can catch the image of a driver across a full six lanes of traffic. The flash at night could be detrimental. After a flash of bright light, cells within the light-exposed area of the retina become less sensitive to light than those outside that area, so they fail to respond as well to the same level of light. Exposure to bright light can produce an afterimage lasting for minutes to hours depending on intensity and duration of the source light.
Afterimages can have undesired effects such as spatial disorientation while operating aircrafts or vehicles. At night, the dark-adapted pupil is wide open so flash blindness has a greater effect and lasts for a longer time. Because vision loss is sudden and takes time to recover, flash blindness can be hazardous. In aviation, pilots are trained to recover from bright nearby lightning flashes.
11.Secondary Violations
The new Phoenix/Redflex contract allows for “solution expansion” which includes secondary violations and enforcement. These could include:
- Right hand turn, left hand turn violations
- Tailgating
- Failure to wear seatbelt
- Expired tags
- HOV lane compliance
- Light rail cams
- Point to point speed assessment
- Expired Insurance coverage, expired license plates
- Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to monitor and track the movements of drivers
Redflex has told the media it expects to implement its overseas technology to the U.S. within ten to fifteen years. Cameras overseas are used for bus lane enforcement, noise enforcement, railroad crossings, mobile laser system cameras, over-height and over weight capability, tire tread depth – uses a laser.
12.Conflict of Interest
Redflex provides court administration modules for judges, DPS, attorneys, and witnesses that presents and assesses common dispute tactics and appropriate sound counter- measures required for successful prosecution. (Arizona DPS/Redflex contract page 2)
Funds the re-election efforts of two-thirds of Arizona’s politicians and provides lawmakers with a personal financial incentive to protect controversial photo enforcement programs. In 1999, a ten percent surcharge was imposed on all traffic tickets to create the “Citizens Clean Election Fund.” The fund allows politicians to avoid tedious fundraising efforts.
The second-highest court in the State of Alaska struck down the photo radar program in 1997. The judges approved a lower-court determination that convictions rested on testimony from the company running the photo radar program, "witnesses the magistrates described as individuals who have a great deal at stake financially and who will testify to whatever it takes to convince' the court in a given case.... Moreover, were we to find this evidence admissible, the questionable reliability of the testimony renders it insufficient to sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt in each of these cases."
13.Invasion of Privacy
These are not photo cameras; they are high-resolution video devices that run 24 hours a day. According to officer King with Arizona DPS, "We can just about zoom in and see stuff on the dash.”
Arizona state law requires that anyone other than a law enforcement officer who gathers evidence for use in court must be a licensed private investigator. Redflex and ATS employees have no such licenses to legally access your private records.
Redflex employees have been charged with assault, child pornography, and extreme DUI (while driving a photo radar van). They can observe your car, wife, and children and they can figure out where you live. They have access to your DMV records.
The tracking of the daily movements of all citizens regardless of guilt or suspicion without court order should concern everyone – even the honest and innocent.
14.Different Penalties for Otherwise Identical Speeding Violations
“If you are pulled over by a DPS officer, for going five miles over the posted speed limit, the presumed fine is $155; but, if found responsible, you also get two points recorded against your license and your vehicle insurance will likely increase as a result. If you receive a highway photo enforcement ticket, and you are found responsible, the fine is $181.50, whether you were going 76 mph or 106 mph, and nothing is reported to MVD,” Judge Williams
Judge John C. Keegan in December issued an order declaring the state's freeway photo radar program unconstitutional:
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in part:
1: … nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (Emphasis added)
Further, Article 2 of the Arizona State Constitution states:
13. Equal privileges and immunities: No law shall be enacted granting to any citizen, class of citizens, or corporation other than municipal, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens or corporations. (Emphasis added)
The clear meaning of these provisions of the Arizona and United States constitutions is that it is unconstitutional to create one set of laws that applies only to a particular class of defendant and not to other defendants based solely on the mechanism employed by the government. Given the not uncommon set of circumstances where two drivers are traveling on the same highway, at the same speed in excess of the speed limit, at the same time, in essentially the same location and are cited by the same agency into the same court, ARS § 41-1722 creates a distinction whereby one class of defendant is subjected to a significantly different array of penalties than another class of defendant based solely on the use of photo enforcement.
Now, therefore, it is the determination of this court that the provisions of ARS § 41-1722 are unconstitutional and unenforceable within the jurisdiction of this court.
Vehicles registered to a corporation, LLC, limited partnership, or family trusts are immune to photo tickets, since the corporation can't be held liable.
Whereas state bill 1320 requires a court to report “civil” traffic violations to ADOT for commercial license holders.
15.Criminal Activity Has Become a Civil Matter, Not a Crime
Under Tennessee state law, running a red light is a class C misdemeanor. Under Knoxville's ordinance that laid the groundwork for the bargain with Redflex, it is deemed a civil offense. The City of Knoxville, has decriminalized, and ceased reporting, failure to obey traffic control devise at automated enforcement intersections.
Hamilton's chief argument is that the city has taken a misdemeanor criminal offense, which carries a slew of constitutional protections, and turned it into a civil offense, skirting the rights guaranteed to someone charged with a crime.
Illegal establishment of "de facto" speed limit. Arizona Department of Transportation established speed limits are usurped by DPS' widely published policy of enforcing only violations in excess of 11 mph over the posted speed limit. This effectively establishes +11mph as the legal limit and undermines the limits established by ADOT.
16.Lucrative Photo Enforcement Favored Over Engineering
Some roads and intersections are dangerous because of poor designs or flaws, many of which can be addressed fairly reasonably. Cities rarely conduct engineering studies to determine why a particular location experiences more accidents. Officials incorrectly assume that bad drivers flock to these locations and that their behavior can be cured with the threat of tickets received weeks after the infraction. In reality, the same drivers are present in all locations, and if a particular location has a high accident rate the reason is undoubtedly due to flaws or problems that can be corrected with proper traffic engineering. Such measures may include: adding signs, making signs clearer, making signs more visible, changing road striping and indicators, increasing signal visibility, adjusting light timing, and increasing signals more visibility. Until an engineering study is done, it is impossible to understand the underlying factors and thus impossible to fairly evaluate possible solutions. An engineering study may in fact recommend photo enforcement, but until a proper study is done, no one can prescribe photo enforcement as the best possible solution – especially not elected officials and police officers.