For the moment, there’s encouraging news on the legal front in Missouri for those of us who despise the use of “automated law enforcement” in the form of red-light and speed cameras.
In November, the Missouri Court of Appeals handed down two opinions on red-light cameras, one from the Eastern District, one from the Western District. While they involved separate cases, they came to the same conclusion: Municipal ordinances monetizing the cameras conflict with state law.
That conflict seems obvious enough. By statute, Missouri treats red-light running as a serious-enough offense that it prescribes points on a driver’s license, in addition to fines, which can lead to losing one’s driving privileges. In contrast, municipalities cashing in on red-light cameras punish the owner of the car, not the driver, and no violation—no matter how egregious—can adversely affect a driving record. It’s all about the money.
The state Supreme Court will inevitably resolve the legal issues, and you would hope that the appellate judges’ logic would prevail. But that’s no certainty, as the municipalities’ partner in this enterprise, American Traffic Solutions of Phoenix, is a deep-pocketed giant with formidable legal resources and plenty of experience nationally in this sort of battle.
And even if ATS and company were to lose in court, they might be able to reconfigure contracts to satisfy the justices’ concerns. Failing that, there’s always the possibility of calling upon a potent mercenary army of political insiders, lobbyists, and friends in government—mostly Democrats, in this case—to get state laws changed to make the cameras legal in any event.
Missouri is a key state to the automated-enforcement industry, one of just 15 states to inflict both red-light and speed cameras on drivers. Were the Show-Me State to join the 27 others that have neither sort of camera, it would be a real blow to the industry. It will not go down without a fight.
That’s precisely what the people of Missouri should give the industry and its politician friends.
The very notion of automated law enforcement is fatally flawed. There’s the obvious problem, already noted, that ordinances on red-light and speed cameras reduce the seriousness of these offenses from crimes to glorified parking tickets.
But it’s worse than that. Whether the technology employs red-light or speed cameras, it removes the element of human interaction between police officers and the individuals they are accusing of a traffic violation, with real civil-liberties implications.
Getting pulled over is not the most pleasant of interactions, but it provides the accused with a real-time accusation from a real person whom he or she can look in the eye—and vice versa. It’s straightforward, and it respects the fundamental spirit of Americans having the right to face their accuser.
Now, consider a different scenario. Imagine a police officer is driving behind you with a radar gun and uses it to determine that you are speeding. Rather than pull you over, he or she jots down your license plate, turns in the information to headquarters, and the owner of the car you are driving (regardless of whether it’s you) simply receives a citation a week or a month later stating that the car was caught speeding.
Can you imagine such an outrage? Can you imagine anyone finding this to be an acceptable practice? Of course not.
But that’s precisely what traffic cameras do every day. If cameras can do that, why shouldn’t police? And if it’s a selling point that cameras issue a higher volume of tickets and free up police time for more important work, wouldn’t those same ends be served by sparing police officers the time and trouble of pulling suspects over?
In the real world, police would have no part of such nonsense, and it’s partly because they have a job to do that’s more important than collecting money. It’s called protecting public safety.
For example, some of the people who run red lights and speed are drunk. A police officer pulling over a suspect can address that concern by, say, arresting him or her for driving under the influence. A traffic camera, on the other hand, assures that drunk driving will go unpunished—just as it fails to assess any other charge related to a driver’s record—because its only job is to get money from the owner of the car.
Sometimes, people who speed and run red lights have illegal weapons in their cars or turn out to be suspects in another crime. Maybe they’re kidnapping someone. Traffic cameras can’t be troubled with such concerns. They’re too busy generating cash from car owners—and oh yes, freeing police officers from mundane traffic stops.
Camera supporters sometimes rationalize the presence of cameras by saying their images can be helpful if they capture footage of an accident or a crime in progress. But any street camera can do that. That might be an argument for monitoring intersections, but it has nothing to do with assessing speeding and red-light tickets.
The mission of a traffic camera is to make money. Period. Just look at the structure of the deal. In virtually every case, traffic cameras are operated by profit-making ventures that receive a percentage of the revenues coming in from vehicle owners accused of running red lights or speeding.
There’s nothing sinister about private companies making money. But can you think of another case in which a company’s bottom line is rewarded by having as many citizens as possible break the law?
Companies like ATS essentially receive a commission on speeding and red-light camera violations. They purport to be engaged in making communities safer, but were they to succeed, they would put themselves out of business. Instead, they have a vested interest in people running red lights and speeding.
When ATS contacts local government officials, one of the first benefits offered (after the campaign donations and assorted favors) is that the company bears all of the risk and upfront costs of expensive high-tech cameras. Cities have little to lose.
But companies like ATS can only recoup this investment by generating as many tickets—and as much revenue—as possible. Is it any surprise that there are so many stories nationally of tickets being issued without police review or of cities being fined for not issuing a high-enough percentage of tickets presented by the company?
Is it really shocking that the industry has fought against traffic-management measures, time and time again, that are known to reduce the incidence of red-light running? It’s had to settle class-action suits over such practices.
The most obvious, common-sense example involves the length of time that the light stays yellow at an intersection. You need not be a traffic engineer to understand that the shorter the yellow light’s duration, the more likely it is that a driver will run a red light.
Guess what? Repeatedly, traffic-camera operators have gotten caught trying to reduce yellow-light durations. Sometimes, it’s in their contracts. In Florida, they actually fought legislation that would have increased yellow-light durations.
This isn’t rocket science: They need shorter yellow lights to generate more red-light violations because they want to give as many tickets as possible.
Now take this quiz: Do you think an intersection is safer or less safe if more people run red lights there? If you answered “less safe,” then please feel free to plug your ears the next time a traffic-company representative or his personal politician tries to blow smoke about how this is all about safety.
If it were about safety, then these communities would have all-way stops—with several seconds in which everyone sits at a red light to empty the intersection—a step that might be the single best way to reduce accidents. Try getting ATS to support that.
Of course it isn’t about safety. It can’t be. The entire business model is built upon increasing red-light violations. That’s why they issue so many rolling-right-turn citations—or, in the case of speeding, why they place cameras on stretches of roads where the speed limit is artificially lower than a motorist would expect, given the number of lanes and the grade.
The companies make their money when people break the law. They can talk safety all they want. Safety doesn’t pay their bills. Violations do.
None of this will deter camera supporters from making largely undocumented claims that the presence of cameras has done wonders to reduce traffic violations. Set aside the detail that a wide range of legitimate independent studies have found the opposite to be true, that cameras actually increase accidents and reduce safety. Ignore, for the sake of discussion, the jousting of dueling studies.
Is it possible that some people will behave better if they fear getting caught on camera? Sure. But just imagine how much speeding and red-light running would decrease if every violation carried a $1,000 fine—or if you received mandatory jail time every time you were caught. There are all kinds of ways to alter people’s behavior, but even if they improved that behavior, it wouldn’t make them right.
A prime example of “not right” is this notion of replacing the important work of police officers—a.k.a. human beings—with traffic cameras. It needs to be prohibited in Missouri and elsewhere, because it is insidious and dangerous and wrong.
If the courts can’t stop this and the legislature won’t, then the people of the state should do so by referendum. Don’t count on the political class to do it: There’s too much money to be made here.
That’s the cameras’ reason for being. And it’s the reason to ban them, completely and for all time.
SLM co-owner Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m.
Commentary by Ray Hartmann
