Busy City Traffic Cameras Generate Cash, Questions
by Arthur Santana, Washington Post
The District’s photo-enforcement traffic program has issued more than a half-million citations, levied nearly $43 million in fines and is now collecting more than $69,000 a day -- $48 a minute -- from drivers who speed and run red lights.
The controversial use of cameras to catch violators -- a system employed with mixed results in numerous jurisdictions across the country -- has made many drivers think twice before they barrel down D.C. streets or charge through busy intersections. Data from the enforcement program show that violations drop dramatically once drivers know a camera is watching.
Maryland and Virginia motorists have received the vast majority of these camera-generated tickets, largely because most of the cameras are being deployed on heavily traveled commuter routes. Drivers from the suburbs have gotten 61 percent of the speeding citations and 67 percent of the red-light citations.
Advocates say that photographing the license plates of speeding cars and red-light runners has made the streets safer in many neighborhoods and is a better method of catching violators than dangerous police chases. The cameras, they note, are also cost-effective.
“You can’t have police officers on every corner,” said D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D-At Large), who supports the cameras even though her son was caught running a red light in her husband’s car.
But the program, operated by D.C. police and a contractor, continues to draw a slew of critics who resent “gotcha” law enforcement. They complain that the cameras are an invasion of privacy, do not always work properly and are being used to enhance the city’s treasury, not to deter reckless motorists.
They also are upset that until recently, the Dallas-based contractor, Affiliated Computer Services, was getting roughly 40 percent of each paid ticket, which they argue was an incentive to give out more of them. Last month, the city switched to a flat fee payment.
“My main objection is that tickets are continuing to be issued before I have an opportunity to adjust my speed based on the first ticket,” said Miriam Balutis of Arlington, who was cited for four camera-captured violations in one week -- but did not receive any tickets for a month. This “strongly suggests that deterrence is not the goal of this program.”
An Idea Catches On
Fairfax City was the first jurisdiction in the area to install red-light cameras, in 1997. Since then, Arlington, Montgomery, Prince George’s, Anne Arundel and Howard counties and about 14 municipalities in the region, including Baltimore, have added them to their traffic enforcement operations.
The District is the only jurisdiction in the region that uses both red-light and speed cameras. The fine is $75 for red-light runners and $30 to $200 for speeders, depending on how fast they were going. No points are assessed, but the fine doubles if not paid in a month.
Program data and interviews with numerous supporters and critics of the D.C. photo-enforcement system show:
• More than 291,000 red-light runners and more than 251,000 speeders have been cited through March, with the city pocketing nearly $16.3 million of about $26.4 million in paid fines and ACS taking in nearly $10.2 million.
• Because fines for speeding usually are higher, speed cameras have garnered almost $10.5 million in only eight months compared with the $15.9 million collected from red-light runners in more than 2 1/2 years. The speed cameras account for more than $75,000 of $115,676 in fines levied each day.
• The people who received more than 212,000 tickets -- about 43 percent of ticketed speeders and about 36 percent of ticketed red-light runners -- have not paid their fines. They owe an estimated $16.5 million.
• The red-light cameras appear to have saved lives in the city, where a total of 17 people were killed in red-light-running accidents in 1997 and 1998, compared with five in 2000 and 2001. It is too soon to assess the impact of speed cameras in the city, where a total of 63 people died in speed-related crashes in 2000 and 2001.
• The cameras frequently break down, usually because the street sensors misfire. Film often jams, and sensors get damaged by weather or utility work. It can cost up to $4,000 to repair a camera.
The city began operating two red-light cameras in August 1999, and they now are installed at 39 intersections. Drivers who run red lights trip wire sensors in the pavement, activating cameras inside birdhouse-like boxes 10 feet above the street.
Going for Speeders
In August, the city started sending out tickets based on five photo radar cameras operated by police officers in unmarked sedans, Mondays through Saturdays. A stationary speed camera will be set up this month in the 700 block of Florida Avenue NE.
Lt. Pat Burke, traffic coordinator, said police have been concentrating on about half the 60 areas in which the city says it has a speeding problem. The speed limit in the city ranges from 15 mph near schools to 50 mph on highways, and vehicles that exceed a certain threshold over the limit -- police won’t say what it is -- trigger the camera. A photograph is taken of the rear license plate, with speed, date, time and location.
D.C. police say the cameras have reduced red-light running by an average of more than 64 percent, a figure on a par with more than 60 other cities in the United States that have photo-enforcement programs, according to traffic safety advocates. Speed cameras, which monitor more than 500,000 vehicles a month, have cut violations 50 percent, police say.
The boast, however, rankles camera critics. Because of irregularities, about 45 percent of the camera-captured red-light violations and 41 percent of the photographed speed violations never result in tickets. Yet the reductions are calculated based on the number of violations photographed instead of the number of tickets mailed. Police said they could not determine how many tickets they issued each month.
“Even if we cannot issue a ticket, the driver is engaged in unlawful and dangerous behavior,” said D.C. police spokesman Kevin Morison, defending the reduction claims.
But House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), a strong opponent of the cameras, said that if the tickets are not good enough to mail, they should not be counted in calculating reduction figures.
“What we’ve seen is a consistent pattern of ponying up the data to justify the deployment of the cameras, and the data that we’ve seen so far in Washington is of questionable value,” Armey said. The high number of tickets tossed, he added, is “an admission that this is not reliable technology.”
On Thursday, the Arlington-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety issued a report, based on a random survey of seven D.C. neighborhoods, that touted a 38 percent to 89 percent reduction in speeding after cameras were deployed. But the report did not disclose who helped conduct the survey: Affiliated Computer Services, the contractor for the city’s program.
Camera detractors long questioned the revenue-sharing alliance between the District and ACS that gave the contractor a cut of each paid ticket. In September, a San Diego judge threw out nearly 300 camera-generated tickets after raising concerns about the city’s pay-per-citation arrangement with a contractor.
The District, fearing similar legal challenges, agreed April 24 to switch to a flat fee of about $770,160 a month through Sept. 9. After that, the monthly fee will be about $759,992 until the contract expires in March 2004. Morison said ACS collected about $783,285 a month under the per-ticket formula.
Police Oversight
The city also has put two police officers in the ACS ticket processing center. They work with 15 employees who methodically sort through thousands of photos a day, checking to see if the vehicles really were speeding and running red lights -- and if the license plate is readable. If the photos pass this initial screening, a “verifier” makes sure the tags match the Department of Motor Vehicles database, then prints a ticket with the photographed violation.
The officers then scan each ticket to make sure the vehicle was in the camera’s line of sight and that the tag number in the photo matches the one on the ticket. They have discretion in deciding which tickets to mail or reject.
With speeding tickets, for example, Officer Shontay D. MD-McCray, said she normally rejects a ticket if the vehicle is only partially in the camera’s line of sight -- unless the driver was going very fast.
Of about 1,800 tickets she reviews daily, MD-McCray rejects an average of 25.
“I feel like I’m making people accountable for what they do,” she said.
Motorists have other complaints.
Otis Thompson, a District resident, got a speeding ticket in January in the 2300 block of Good Hope Road SE. He is angry because the police officer set the camera on a downhill slope.
“I asked police for an explanation on how I could be clocked going downhill, and they didn’t have an explanation for me,” he said. “It’s very unfair. You don’t have to give the car any gas to pick up speed and go over the speed limit.”
Owen Johnson of Mountain Lakes, N.J., contends that the red-light cameras are too impersonal and nab drivers in situations where an officer might not. He received a ticket in February because his car, driven by his son, Chris, 22, of Chestertown, Md., was photographed running the light at New York and New Jersey avenues -- less than a second after the light turned red.
“It was rush-hour traffic, [and] he got stuck behind a bus,” Owen Johnson said. “A human being can’t possibly tell the light was changing in nine-tenths of a second.”
When he went to the DMV to contest the ticket, he was told he would have to write a letter explaining what happened and get it notarized, a process he called “a huge pain in the neck.”
Regina Williams, a DMV spokeswoman, said those who appeal their tickets also have to pay a $10 appeal fee and $10 for each page of any hearing transcript, both nonrefundable. In addition, motorists must pay the fine until the appeal is resolved, which usually takes about two months.
William Roberts of Fort Washington got a speeding ticket in October. His citation said he was photographed in the 900 block of Southern Avenue SE going 44 mph in a 30-mph zone. He contested the ticket and was given an April 10 hearing.
“In the meantime, they wrote me a letter telling me that my fine had doubled while I was appealing it,” Roberts said. “It’s a big headache.”
Spotting Problems
Police have flagged their own concerns about the camera programs.
In summer 2000, a red-light camera at H and North Capitol streets NE was taken down after police decided it had been unfairly placed about 100 feet from the intersection. But by then, about 13,000 cited motorists had paid the fine, and no refunds were offered. Also, police have photographed hundreds of D.C. government vehicles going through red lights -- but about half the tickets were tossed because police could not determine which employees were driving.
In about 330 cases, motorists received speeding tickets -- mostly in the 100 block of Malcolm X Boulevard SE -- because the camera was calibrated incorrectly and the radar computer did not have the correct speed limit for the street, Burke said.
Officers occasionally do enter an incorrect speed limit, he said, and some erroneously issued tickets slip through the review process.
D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) said he sympathizes with motorists who feel that the cameras render them guilty until proved innocent.
“There’s a whole human factor that’s been removed from it that’s really angering a lot of people,” said Evans, whose wife got a red-light ticket. “Some process has to be put in place where, when people get these things, they feel like they can have their day in court, which they don’t feel right now.”
A hearing examiner at the DMV’s Bureau of Traffic Adjudication said several people come before her each day to contest photo-generated tickets. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said the most common argument is that the light wasn’t red or that they weren’t driving when the violation occurred.
But ACS provides hearing examiners with 8-by-10 glossies showing the violation, making challenges difficult. If someone says they were not driving, the examiner asks for the name of the person who was driving -- or proof that the vehicle was reported stolen.
With speeding tickets, the examiner said, most people argue that their vehicle was not moving when the photo was taken, to which she retorts, “Then, what was it doing in the middle of the road?”
But the cameras don’t always get it right. “Fairly often,” the examiner said, motorists bring in separate speeding tickets showing their vehicles were cited at two different places in the city -- at the same time.
“Those ones we don’t even delve into,” she said. “We just dismiss.”
Red-light cameras have been adopted by 15 states, but many communities are having second thoughts. Several cities in California and Oregon have halted their programs.
In Denver, city officials suspended the speed-camera program and dismissed tickets after a judge ruled that a private contractor had been given police powers illegally. Armey’s office said Alaska, Nebraska, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Utah have banned the radar cameras. And Hawaii scrapped its speed cameras after drivers in Oahu tried to sabotage them by calling radio stations to report where the van-mounted cameras were located.
The Maryland legislature killed a bill this year that called for a study of how the red-light camera program is working. It also killed a bill that would have permitted speed cameras in the state.
Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr., advisory neighborhood commissioner in the Mount Vernon Square area, is all for them, despite having seen the flash of the camera when he ran a red light recently. He lives near New York Avenue and Fourth Street NW, where more than 85,000 violations have been photographed -- and where red-light running has dropped more than 80 percent, according to police data.
“Even though I’m waiting on a ticket myself, I support it,” Thorpe said. “It’s good for the city’s revenue, and it’s supposed to save lives. It may be somewhat inconvenient, but then again, it also makes you a cautious driver.”