Chillicothe, Ohio residents will retain the right to vote out speed cameras on November 3, thanks to a Ohio Supreme Court ruling yesterday. Fearing the public would shut down his signature program, Chillicothe Mayor Joseph Sulzer had asked the high court for an emergency injunction blocking the citizen-led initiative. Sulzer argued that this step was needed because the proposed initiative was unconstitutional and the city was denied a fair chance to argue against it before the Ross County Board of Elections (view Sulzer’s court filing). The supreme court justices unanimously rejected his complaint.
Accidents increased significantly at intersections equipped with red light cameras in Grande Prairie, Canada according to a city report completed last month. The review found that after a full year of use, cameras generated $1.2 million in revenue along with a 126 percent increase in injury collisions. “Since the installation of red light cameras in Grande Prairie, the City has issued over 6000 violation tickets since the program was initiated,” red light camera Program Manager Garry Roth wrote in his report. “There have not been significant reductions in collisions, while only a few of these collisions during this time frame, have actually resulted from a red light violation.”
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada expressed concern last week over the growing police use of technology to spy on motorists. In a letter to the Nanaimo Daily News, Assistant Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier emphasized that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had not received the commissioner’s approval for the agency’s use of license plate recognition devices. Known as ANPR in the UK and ALPR in North America, these cameras use a combination of electronic databases, cameras and optical character recognition software to identify each passing vehicle. Over time, the devices create a searchable log containing the exact time and date that each automobile passed a given location.
London, England Mayor Boris Johnson is retreating from his campaign pledge to end the city’s “punishment of motorists.” Johnson’s predecessor, Ken Livingstone, lost his re-election in large measure because Johnson pledged to scale back the £8 (US $13) fee imposed on motorists entering the downtown area. Johnson announced Friday that he will boost the tax to £10 (US $16.40) to shore up Transport for London’s mass transit budget. “The proposed increase in the charge will ensure that the system remains effective in controlling traffic levels in central London, and the revenue will also help us fund the vital improvements to London’s transport network that all Londoners want to see,” Johnson said in a statement.
A single red light camera in Riverside, California issued $1 million worth of right-hand turn on red tickets in just one month. The automated ticketing machine installed in March at Tyler Street at the entrance to the 91 Freeway has become the most productive of the city’s cameras and now accounts for half of the citations issued by Riverside’s vendor, Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia. The camera helped boost the grand total of citations mailed since January 2007 to 82,448 tickets worth $32,532,203.
A California appellate court on Wednesday declined to publish a decision overturning a ticket issued by an unlawful red light camera operation (view ruling). California Superior Court, San Mateo County Appellate Judge Mark R. Forcum turned down attorney Frank Iwama’s request that he explain his reasoning more fully in a published decision. Unpublished cases cannot be cited as precedent in California, and motorists interested in challenging citations will have to repeat from scratch all arguments about the program’s illegality.
The number one operator of photo enforcement in the US, Redflex Traffic Systems, engaged in a public battle of words with its three largest shareholders this week. Thorney Holdings Ltd, Hunter Hall and Renaissance joined to force a shareholder vote to remove Redflex Chairman Chris Cooper and Directors Peter Lewinsky and Roger Sawley. The renegade investors, who hold 28 percent of the company stock, are upset with the mismanagement exemplified in the Redflex stock price and the “expensive failure” of the Arizona freeway photo radar contract. “We are concerned whether the present board is appropriately qualified, experienced and competent to manage Redflex’s affairs,” Thorney Holdings stated in a letter to shareholders Wednesday. “Due to what we perceive to be a lack of transparency in Redflex’s process for director appointments, we are concerned about the absence of information on these issues.”
Officials in Winnipeg, Canada were caught this weekend defying a court ruling that outlawed the use of photo radar in work zones when workers are not present. A group of residents organized by the group WiseUp Winnipeg have decided to fight back, first by recording the automated ticketing van as it operated in a Route 90 “construction zone” on October 10 at 3:30pm with no workers in sight.
The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that “Last year, more police in America died in traffic crashes, 44, than from gunshots, 39, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, which tracks officer deaths. That trend has continued through the first half of this year, with traffic deaths outpacing shooting deaths 35 to 22. For the 12th year in a row, traffic-related incidents remain the leading cause of death for law enforcement officers.” The obvious if highly ironic answer: slow down. “In the past year, the Dallas Police Department and the Illinois State Police revamped their driving policies to include limits on how fast their officers can drive. Both moves were prompted by officer-caused crashes that killed civilians. The Metropolitan Police Department could soon follow suit once it completes a review of its driving policies that was ordered by Sheriff Doug Gillespie when officer James Manor, 28, died in a crash in May. Manor, who was responding to a domestic dispute call, was driving at a speed of 109 mph without lights and sirens on Flamingo Road when a pickup turned into his path. He was not wearing a seat belt and died a short time after the crash. Police have not released details of Wednesday’s deadly crash as they continue their investigation, but it appears that speed was a factor.”
A Michigan state Senate committee voted unanimously to advance legislation that would legalize the hanging of fuzzy dice and air fresheners from rearview mirrors. State Senator Ron Jelinek (R-Three Oaks) introduced Senate Bill 276 to repeal the statute that allows police to pull over motorists using objects dangling from a mirror as a pretext. Existing law makes driving with a “dangling ornament” punishable by a $100 fine and up to ninety days imprisonment.
An anonymous vigilante in Rovaniemi, Finland destroyed a speed camera with military-grade explosives on Wednesday. Video of the assault uploaded to YouTube showed the remote detonation of a 700g charge cleanly blew the head off an automated ticketing machine on a deserted road (watch video below). The assault appears to be the most professionally executed attack recorded on tape. In 2006, a British man used thermite to damage what he thought was a speed camera, but turned out to be a police surveillance device.
And there I was, thinking Canadians represented the sensible third of the North American continent. And then they go and blow it all by saying something stupid like “You’re nicked, mate!” Do Canadians say that? Do they call their cops “the plod?” Anyway, The Globe and Mail reports “an Ontario Provincial Police officer noticed the driver of a tractor trailer [not shown] was smoking a cigarette as he pulled up alongside the vehicle on Highway 401 outside Windsor . . . The policeman charged the 48-year-old trucker, who is from London, under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which prohibits smoking in enclosed workplaces and public places.” As we like to say here in The Land of the Free, that’s some fucked-up shit. No, really. “Constable Shawna Coulter, a spokeswoman for Essex County OPP, said it is the job of police to enforce the law, no matter how unpopular. She also noted that smoking while driving is unsafe.” The trucking company’s defense is even less credible—and more convoluted.
A member of the Florida House of Representatives wants to make driving with a loud stereo a crime on the same level as driving with an open container of alcohol. State Representative D. Alan Hays (R-Umatilla) last month introduced House Bill 137 which modifies an existing loud stereo statute to double the cost of fines and make the offense a moving violation. Current Florida law makes it unlawful to drive with a stereo “plainly audible” from twenty-five feet away or that is “louder than necessary for the convenient hearing by persons inside the vehicle” when driving past a church, school or hospital. Law enforcement officers are exempt as are politicians who use loud soundmaking devices for “political purposes.” The typical fine is $78 with no points.
The panicked reaction that some drivers have to the sight of a speed camera may in fact be a significant cause of accidents. The group CameraFraud.com yesterday released an Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) accident report that describes a July 25 incident in which a gray Chevy Camaro collided with a red 1994 Toyota 4Runner SUV on Interstate 17 in Yavapai County, sending two people to the hospital. Although DPS maintains that it hired an Australian company, Redflex Traffic Systems, to operate speed cameras to improve safety, the department’s own report tells a far different story. “All the witnesses reported seeing the gray passenger car lose control of the vehicle as it passed the photo radar van, and was apparently trying to slow down for the photo radar van,” the police report explained.
Insiders are bankrolling the lone group that supports red light cameras in College Station, Texas. Last month, the Keep College Station Safe Political Action Committee (PAC) formed “to give a voice to local residents who support the significant safety benefits of the city’s red-light camera program.” Financial disclosure reports filed on Monday show that no College Station resident has actually supported the effort. The PAC reported collecting $19,000 in political donations, of which $10,000 was provided by ATS. Another $6,500 was provided as an in-kind donation from Questmark Information Management Inc, a company that holds a contract for printing toll road statements and tickets for Harris County. ATS happens to run the cameras that generate the citations for Harris County toll roads. The only other contribution listed was a $2500 contribution from a Houston firm, REM Services, Inc.
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