Red Light Cameras & Enforcement Cameras-"scam"

Senate Moves to Crack Down on Speeding Enforcement Cameras
Senators call the idea a 'flat out scam'
By Jim Forsyth (photo)

1200 WOAI News

Red light cameras are one thing, but lawmakers are moving quickly to put the brakes on an even more pernicious example of local government greed...the use of cameras to catch and ticket speeders.

State Senator John Carona (D-Dallas), the powerful chairman of the Senate Transportation Commission, says he can't move quickly enough to outlaw the devices in Texas, saying the violate the 'basic constitutional rights' of all motorists.

"There are often times in speeding incidents extenuating circumstances," says Carona, who is an attorney. "The nature of this, when you're not even notified until weeks later, makes it very difficult for you to prove your innocence, which really puts you in a posture of being guilty until proven innocent.

Only two communities in Texas use cameras to catch speeders, Rhome, and the infamous Hill Country speed trap of Marble Falls, which 1200 WOAI news reported yesterday as a full time uniformed reserve police officer on the city's police department, who is paid not by the taxpayers, but by a Rhode Island company which sells, you guessed it, speed detection cameras.

Carona says you need look no further than the situation in Rhome Texas, in Wise County north of Ft. Worth, to see just what a scam camera enforced speeding tickets are. "I think its a big grab for money," Carona said. "By my own estimation, the city of Rhome will receive more money per year in new traffic citation revenue, than it's entire city budget is presently, so if that's not a grab for money, I don't know what is."

Carona says unlike red light cameras, speeding tickets issued by cameras are criminal violations, which means you can be arrested if you don't pay them. "You get the ticket, it is criminal in nature, and you're left without the same type of appeal and criminal protections that you would otherwise have withy a speeding citation." The state senate has approved a measure which would outlaw the use of cameras to enforce speeding laws.

The legislature is also considering several measures that would rein in cities who put up cameras at red lights in homes of scamming cash from motorists. The one given the best chance of passing in the last week of the session is a bill that would require that cities give all of the revenue from the camera-generated tickets to the state, keeping only the amount needed to maintain the cameras. Another measure would set a sunset date on all red light camera operations of September 2009, unless an independent committee determines beyond a reasonable doubt that red light cameras improve safety, a question which is currently widely debated.

1200 WOAI news reported Monday that the Hill Country town of Marble Falls has a 40 hour a week police officer who wears a uniform, works out of the police station and writes traffic tickets, and his salary is paid by Nestor Traffic Systems of Providence Rhode Island, a maker and seller of photographic traffic enforcement equipment. Several members of the legislature have said that arrangement is a 'clear conflict of interest.'