Florida has shortened yellow-light times at intersections, which raises the danger of crashes but improves revenue for red-light cameras, currently running at more than $100 million a year in the state. [WTSP (auto-plays) via Tabarrok]
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Posts tagged as:
red light cameras
The town of Laurel, Maryland tries using fake traffic cameras. “Maryland law restricts most jurisdictions from putting speed cameras anywhere other than near schools, and they can only operate Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.” Other neighborhoods wanted cameras installed in hopes of reducing traffic speeds, so the town set up empty boxes. [DCist]
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Why they overlap [Noah Kristula-Green, U.S. News]
P.S. There was a flurry of national coverage last week when Cincinnati-area judge Robert Ruehlman struck down a traffic camera ordinance in the village of Elmwood Park, declaring the cameras a “scam” and “high-tech game of three-card monte.” [Cincinnati.com] Readers with long memories may recall that Judge Ruehlman appeared to favorable advantage in these columns back in 1999 when he threw out the city of Cincinnati’s abusive lawsuit against gun manufacturers, trade associations and a distributor, the first of the municipal gun suits to reach trial on the merits.
P.P.S. Why police drones aren’t the same thing privacy-wise as police helicopters [ACLU via HuffPo via Amy Alkon](& Bainbridge)
“A Circuit Court judge has ruled that Baltimore County’s contract with its speed camera vendor is illegal, because it pays the company a cut of each citation issued…. Maryland law says that ‘if a contractor operates a speed camera system on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid.’ But several jurisdictions, including Baltimore County and Baltimore City, pay their vendors a cut of each ticket, arguing that the jurisdiction, not the company, operates the cameras.” Judge Susan Souder ruled that Xerox State and Local Solutions, which currently “receives about $19 from every $40 ticket,” is indeed involved in the operation of the cameras. Del. Michael Smigiel, an Eastern Shore Republican, has introduced a bill to repeal the camera program: “We specifically said we’re not going to allow this to happen, and it happened,” he said. [Baltimore Sun, auto-plays video]
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San Diego mayor Bob Filner says the city will discontinue its use of traffic cameras now that a contract is expiring. The cameras, which often resulted in $500 fines levied on tourists, produced $1.9 million in gross revenue in fiscal 2011, but the city was left with only $200,000 of that “after paying the officers who issued the tickets, a camera vendor and other costs.” [Union-Tribune]
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- Forensics scandal keeps widening, as FBI agents trained state and local examiners in faulty methods [WaPo, Radley Balko] New York Times wades into case of Mississippi pathologist Steven Hayne [Reason] “Massachusetts Lab Scandal Leads to Fears of the Guilty Being Freed, Not So Much About the Innocent Being Jailed” [Shackford]
- “Speed camera reform gains momentum with Maryland lawmakers” [Washington Examiner, editorial, WBAL]
- “Gas masks, helmets for state alcohol-control agents — Everyone is a law-enforcement agent these days” [Steven Greenhut/PSI]
- How the media hatched the “bath salts face-chewer” tale [Sullum]
- “FBI investigating Utah state trooper for arresting sober people, charging them with DUI, lying on witness stand.” [@radleybalko summarizing Salt Lake City Tribune]
- Looking forward to 2013 docket in white-collar crime [Peter Henning, NYT DealBook]
- Bruce Green (Fordham), “Prosecutors and Professional Regulation” [SSRN via White Collar Crime Prof]
“The expected amount left over for affected motorists is just $6″ and if motorists don’t file a claim, reversions go to defendant American Traffic Solutions (ATS). “More than 81,000 citations worth $10.2 million were issued in New Jersey through red light camera programs that were not in compliance with state law.” Lawyers who filed the suit are in line to collect $800,000. [The Newspaper; AnnMarie McDonald, NJLRA]
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- “The Cash Machine: How the Philly D.A. seizes millions in alleged crime money — whether there’s been a crime or not.” [Isaiah Thompson, Philadelphia City Paper via Alkon] Jacob Sullum on the Motel Caswell forfeiture case [syndicated, earlier]
- Online symposium on Brandon Garrett’s Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong [Co-Op]
- Victims of Detroit police raid on art gallery nightclub get some justice [Ferndale 115]
- John Baker on mens rea and “strict liability” crimes [Fed Soc, PDF]
- Radley Balko has moved his Agitator blog to Huffington Post. And (via @normative) Cato’s Police Misconduct project is tweeting at @NPMRP.
- Want to cross-examine someone on that traffic-camera ticket? Be prepared to pay travel costs for the camera company person [Scott Greenfield] “The mission creep of rape shield law” [same]
- “Does the Criminalization of Tort Inhibit Safety Investigation?” [Beth Haas, Faculty Lounge]
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- Montana considers “corporations aren’t people” ballot measure with all the expectable flaws plus some others; vainly presumes to instruct state’s delegation to Congress [Bainbridge, more]
- Dutch phone book publisher claims that “Cancel my Dutch phone book” website infringes its trademark [24 Oranges]
- The problem with Section 5 (preclearance) provision of the Voting Rights Act, cont’d [Ilya Shapiro; SCOTUSBlog symposium with Shapiro, Abigail Thernstrom and others]
- D.C. bans a bar’s jape at Marion Barry: “The Government Commission on Acceptable Satire” [Julian Sanchez, Cato]
- Inquiry cost seen at £100m over alleged UK troop brutality in Iraq; defense lawyers say charges trumped up [Telegraph]
- Banning outdoor tobacco use: “Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses” [Caroline May, Daily Caller]
- “And so it has come to this: Cameras that monitor speed cameras.” [Mike Rosenwald, WaPo; Prince George's County, Md.]
- Tenaha, Texas traffic-stop forfeiture scandal: town settles with ACLU [Thampy/Agitator; related, Steven Greenhut]
- A complaint about Progressive Insurance’s posture in an uninsured motorist claim goes viral on the Internet, and Ted Frank supplies a contrarian view [Point of Law and commenters, Consumerist]
- ABA again solicits nominations for its annual collection of top 100 law blogs;
- “Psychiatric staff ‘should have’ prevented the Aurora shootings. Thus Southern Poverty Law Center ‘should have’ prevented Oak Creek. Right?” [George Wallace]
- In Google-Oracle case, judge orders that the litigants disclose which private commentators they have financially backed [Paul Alan Levy and Scott Michelman, CLP; Timothy Lee, Ars Technica; Chris O'Brien, Mercury News]
- Suit based on cop allegations says town of Riverdale Park, Md. issued unlawful camera tickets [The Newspaper, Washington Post]
- Priceless: “Some Problems Inherent In Trying to Sell a Counterfeiting Machine” [Lowering the Bar]
- Maybe drive ‘em to polls too? Massachusetts agrees in lawsuit settlement to send dole recipients vote packs [Michael Graham, Boston Herald; Christian Science Monitor]
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The other day we relayed a report from CBS Baltimore about the town of Westminster’s having disconnected most of its traffic cameras on the ground that they were causing more accidents than they were preventing. However, a Baltimore Sun report contradicts that assertion and quotes town officials saying the cameras had reduced speeding and accidents; it also contradicts assertions in the earlier article on the cameras’ cost.
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“Westminster is putting a stop to most of their red light cameras. Police say they may have been causing more accidents than they were preventing.” [CBS Baltimore]
But see: a report in the Baltimore Sun (h/t reader Gitarcarver) directly contradicts the CBS Baltimore account on the town’s reasons for removing the cameras: it quotes a town official as “saying the cameras had, by and large, done their job in helping reduce accidents and red light runners.” It also describes the town’s cost of running three of the cameras as “$137,831 from spring 2011 to spring 2012,” far lower than the number cited in the CBS Baltimore account.
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If you don’t pay your traffic-cam tickets, the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico says it will cut off your water and sewer service. [The Newspaper]
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A letter to the editor of the Orlando Sentinel defends traffic-cams on grounds unrelated to the tickets they generate:
I was broadsided by a red-light runner four blocks from my house. …
Shaken and confused, I watched the other driver come out of her car and start screaming that I ran the red light. When bystanders started to gather, she dropped to the ground crying in pain.
Four days after the accident, while I was still dealing with injuries and insurance companies, I received a thick envelope in the mail from an attorney the driver had hired to sue me.
Fortunately, that same day, the city of Orlando produced a video of the accident taken by a red-light camera installed at the intersection. It showed the light had been red for several seconds before the driver entered the intersection. ….
It should be noted that much of the critique of cameras — such as the shortened-yellow problem, the incentive they afford for governments to hammer motorists on relatively minor violations such as rolling right turns under safe conditions, the use of presumptions of guilt to get registered owners to “tell on” family members, and their invitation for further expansion of surveillance — involve changes in the relationship of the citizen to the state, to the latter’s advantage. Like other uses of surveillance cameras, traffic-cams undoubtedly do produce some positive externalities, which should hardly settle the ongoing controversy about their use.
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- Voters unseat prosecutor in office during Luzerne County cash-for-kids scandal [Wendy N. Davis, ABA Journal]
- Obama plan for mass refinance overriding terms of mortgages “could permanently drive housing finance costs higher” [James Pethokoukis]
- In Sackett v. EPA case, SCOTUS will decide which EPA enforcement actions if any should escape judicial review [Ilya Shapiro/Cato, Adler, Root] Keystone XL episode gives reason to revisit NEPA [Conn Carroll] Ninth Circuit ruling on forest road runoff will test Obama position [David Freddoso]
- Debate at Point of Law on President’s recess appointment power between Jason Mazzone and Andrew M. Grossman;
- Lobbyists help get traffic-cams back on Connecticut legislative agenda [Chris Fountain]
- Read it here first: “Courts push back on bribery prosecutions” [Reuters]
- “In my little corner of the Blawgosphere, few things drive traffic like an Overlawyered link. Thank you, @walterolson.” [George Wallace]
- Judge Edith Jones rules: 5th Circuit spanks judge who overturned result of anti-traffic-cam vote [The Newspaper, background]
- “UK Nanny State: Let’s Send Gamers To Rehab” [Nick Sibilla, Reason] “If Poker Is a Public Health Issue, What Isn’t?” [Jacob Sullum]
- Struggle Resolutely Against Misleaders of the People In Weather Broadcasts Everywhere! [TP; reactions from Tony Hake/Examiner, Geoff Fox, Andrew Revkin, Watts Up With That]
- Jury awards $178 million in bariatric-surgery case against Jacksonville hospital, sum greater than GDP of several small island nations [Florida Times-Union]
- Sikh sues Jay Leno over comparison of Romney vacation home to Golden Temple of Amritsar [Daily Mail]
- Redevelopment without prerequisite “blight” akin to Hittite sack of Babylon [Gideon Kanner]
- Convinced hospital broke naming promise, jury tells it to pay $1 million to country singer Garth Brooks [AP]
- “Dean of law bloggers” — why, thank you, sir [Hans Bader, CEI]
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