As of today, it will be more difficult for California cities to lower speed limits to create lucrative radar speed traps. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has issued a new policy directive that alters the method used to set speed limits, as codified in the state’s Manual on Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). California’s speed trap law prohibits the use of radar or laser to issue speeding tickets on any road not in compliance with these new rules. The MUTCD explains . . .
A group campaigning to eliminate photo enforcement in Arizona has forced Paradise Valley to admit that it has been shortchanging drivers. A volunteer with the group Camerafraud.com discovered the city used illegally short yellows at the intersection of Tatum Boulevard and McDonald Drive. The motorist was mailed a red light camera ticket for allegedly entering the intersection just 0.2 seconds after the light had turned red. “I was nailed with a ticket at an intersection that left me very perplexed because I didn’t think I was going to get a ticket,” David K. wrote on June 16. “I thought I was close enough to the intersection to pass the limit line before the light turned red. Well, I thought wrong because the duration for the yellow light on a 40 MPH speed limit road was only three seconds.”
The Ventura County, California, Grand Jury on Monday slammed the city of Ventura for using a short yellow light cycle to trap motorists at at the intersection of California Street and Thompson Boulevard. The intersection’s red light camera snaps $1.5 million worth of tickets each year. Of the city’s eighteen automated ticketing machines, only the one located at that intersection consistently tops the charts. In just three months, Australia’s Redflex Traffic Systems red light camera installation issued 825 tickets worth $435 each, or a total of 9.3 tickets per day. In comparison, a camera located at Mills Road and Main Street only issued 49 tickets over the same period. When taking traffic volumes into account, that means the California and Thompson camera issued citations at a rate one hundred times greater than Mills and Main (9.3 tickets per 10,000 passing vehicles compared to a rate of 0.09). And now we know why.
Taxpayers will foot the bill for efforts to promote the tolling of roads throughout Texas after Governor Rick Perry (R) vetoed legislation that would have reined in public relations efforts at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Only one member of the entire legislature voted against the proposed bill that would have amended existing law to clarify that pro-tolling advertising campaigns could no longer be bankrolled with state funds. “This section does not authorize the department to engage in marketing, advertising, or other activities for the purpose of influencing public opinion about the use of toll roads or the use of tolls as a financial mechanism,” House Bill 2142 stated.
A state Senate committee will vote today on whether to gut an anti-speed trap law that has protected California drivers for the past seventy-six years. Assembly Bill 564, introduced by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-Pasadena), exempts his home city from the statute that now requires any jurisdiction using radar on a road receiving federal aid to use engineering safety studies to establish speed limits. The exemption for Pasadena passed the state Assembly by a 51-17 vote last month. With a tightening budget, Pasadena officials hope to be the first jurisdiction to permit police officers to wield radar guns on roads with radically lowered speed limits. According to the Senate’s own analysis, Pasadena’s primary purpose is increasing the number of traffic tickets issued, not safety.
A New Jersey state lawmaker wants to make it a crime for drivers to touch the screen of a satellite navigation device in a moving vehicle. Earlier this month, state Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith (D-Hudson) introduced legislation to expand the state’s existing prohibition on using a cell phone behind the wheel. “This bill would amend current law to also prohibit the manual operation of a global positioning system (GPS) device or similar navigation device by the operator of a moving motor vehicle,” the official summary for A4064 explains. “The bill would allow the operator to use a voice-activated GPS device.”
Despite a brewing public revolt over the issue of photo radar, the Arizona State Legislature may be circling the wagons in an effort to defend lucrative automated ticketing programs. The Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee voted 4-2 on Wednesday to increase the pressure on motorists by adding points to the drivers’ licenses of anyone receiving a freeway camera ticket, instead of offering relief by banishing the machines from the highways, as some had expected. A statewide signature drive to ban photo ticketing continues to pressure lawmakers, but influential lobbyists in the statehouse have won the first battle.
Questioning the wisdom of photo enforcement can be fatal to the career of a top law enforcement official. Former Texas police Chief Michael Clancey found this out the hard way when he dared to suggest that the College Station City Council should not use red light cameras as a budgetary tool. Clancey filed a lawsuit in federal court last month demanding punitive damages and back wages from the city which, he claimed, violated his First Amendment rights.
Red light cameras have returned to Northern Virginia. The city of Alexandria announced for the first time yesterday that a private company has re-installed cameras at three intersections with citations going out on July 15. Until now, the city has been quiet about the revived program, hoping to avoid a public discussion of the controversy over accidents that persuaded the legislature to shut down the program in 2005. According to a report by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), the total number of accidents increased 43 percent at the Alexandria intersections where red light cameras were used. Across the five main cities in the state using cameras, the report found an overall increase in injury accidents of 18 percent. This time, Alexandria did not consider bringing back cameras for safety purposes.
Spain’s Congress of Deputies last Wednesday gave approval to a measure that makes it a crime to use a GPS (a.k.a. satellite navigation) device while behind the wheel. The provision appeared as part of a broader legislation designed to update the traffic code with measures that encourage motorists to pay fines without challenge. Radar detectors are already illegal in Spain. But because satellite navigation devices come as factory options on most modern vehicles, officials could not easily outlaw their ownership. Instead, government ministers proposed to restrict GPS use since the devices are increasingly being loaded with maps that warn motorists of locations where speed cameras are in use.
The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) will kick off a week of “open house” meetings today to promote a proposal that would add tolls along the 400 miles of Interstate 80 that pass through the state. Unlike interstate tolling plans introduced in other parts of the country as “congestion reduction” measures, this one would not add new lane capacity. In a state with a population of just over a half-million, congestion is not even an issue after projecting population and traffic growth for another thirty years. WYDOT’s real target is out-of-state truck drivers.
An Arizona state Senate committee voted 4-2 on Tuesday to continue, for now, the practice of allowing police to pull over and fine motorists who use certain types of license plate frames. State Senators Jay Tibshraeny (R-Chandler) and Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) had unsuccessfully introduced legislation to gut a state law that took effect in January. “A person shall maintain each license plate so it is clearly legible and so that the name of this state at the top of the license plate is not obscured,” Arizona Code Section 28-2354 states. Although the distinctive colors and cactus designs of Arizona’s basic plates are readily identifiable to the human eye, visibility of the state name is important for the optical character recognition software used by photo enforcement companies.
A major credit rating agency yesterday released a report reinforcing a negative outlook on the financial stability of the toll road industry. Fitch Ratings analyzed the performance of forty US toll road facilities during 2007 and 2008. It predicted that the roads would not see a recovery from the recession until 2011 at the earliest and that motorists would be paying more money in tolls as a result.
Last Wednesday, the Arizona Supreme Court made it easier for prosecutors to convict intoxicated individuals who were not driving of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). The expanded policy was handed down in the context of a case involving Vincent Zaragoza who was arrested on April 29, 2006, for sitting a car with a blood alcohol content of .36. On that day, Zaragoza had gotten into an argument with a woman at an apartment complex. He went to his car in the parking lot of the complex, got in and—according to Zaragoza—put his key in the ignition briefly to lower the window and turn on the radio. Before anything could happen, a police officer ordered him out of the vehicle. The car’s engine had not been started, but Zaragoza was on his way to jail.
Candidate Barack Obama made few concrete statements on the subject of transportation during the 2008 campaign. Now that his cabinet has been sworn into office, President Obama has turned his attention to filling the lower-level positions that are frequently responsible for making major policy decisions. At the US Department of Transportation, these new appointees all share a love for speed cameras and toll roads—especially Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s new number two man. “With great pleasure I want to bid a hearty welcome aboard to our new Deputy Secretary, John Porcari,” LaHood wrote yesterday. “And, though he’s been on duty less than a week, he already has done some heavy lifting for us.”
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