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As of 12-31-08
Red-Light Camera
Seeing this holiday season as the perfect time to give their small community of 13,000 residents a “gift” that keeps on giving, city officials in St. Ann, Mo., had red-light cameras installed at two intersections adjacent St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport.
This morning, I happened to notice the cameras — which were not there five days ago — while making one of my two weekly trips to the airport. They’re located at the first two intersections after one exits I-70 en route to the airport — one in front of the Airport Marriott Hotel, the other at the spot where you turn north into the airport complex.
Ironically, a discussion of the pros and cons of red-light cameras happened to be taking place at the same time on St. Louis’ Allman in the Morning talk radio program which airs on 97.1 FM.
Many pertinent questions were raised and answered during the popular morning program, including:
- “Are they Constitutional?”
- “What happens if you don’t pay the ticket you receive in the mail?”
- “What happened to personal responsibility?”
- “Do photo-enforced intersections reduce or increase the number of accidents at those intersections? and
- “Which issue — money or safety — is motivating local government officials to opt for red-light cameras in their communities?”
While all of the questions addressed by guest host Mark Christopher and callers to the program apply to the situation in St. Ann, the last one — the motivation question — stands out as most pertinent and prompts several other concerns. For instance:
- Do city officials in St. Ann realize the possible negative impact (i.e., “public perception”) back-to-back red-light cameras might have on out-of-town visitors driving to Lambert?
- Do city officials in St. Ann realize rental cars and shuttle buses comprise a large share of the traffic passing through the intersections in question?
- Do city officials realize that, according to some callers on the radio show who sought legal advice, they’re involved in a “numbers game” of sorts, since tickets received as a result of being photographed at a photo-enforced intersection are not enforceable and, therefore, need not be paid?
I suspect officials in St. Ann were thoroughly advised of the pros and cons of the cameras prior to making their decision and, in the end, were merely trying to “keep up with the Joneses” — that is, the 24 other communities across Missouri that opted to take advantage of the services offered by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based American Traffic Solutions.
CORRECTION and EXPLANATION to PARAGRAPH ABOVE: After checking with city officials in the area of the St. Louis airport and contacting American Traffic Solutions as part of my research for this article, I felt certain I had the facts accurate about the municipality within which both of the red-light camera intersections fell — but I was wrong.
While the ATS web site shows the City of St. Ann is one of ATS’s 24 municipal customers in Missouri and Josh Weiss at ATS confirms the same, Weiss told me today that ATS does not own the cameras at the two intersections referred to in my post above. As it turns out, officials with the City of St. Ann are not doing business with two companies in the same industry! While ATS manages red-light cameras elsewhere in St. Ann, Phoenix, Ariz.-based Redflex Traffic Systems is the company whose equipment is installed near the airport in the microscopic community of Edmundson, Mo. (pop. +/- 800). [For more information, visit this less-than-informative City of Edmundson web site.]
At the request of Weiss, I removed the graphic showing the ATS client list of 24 Missouri communities. If, however, you want to see it, visit this page on their web site and click on the map where you see the shape of Missouri.
* * *
Editor’s Note: Matthew Hay, a recently-elected city councilman from Arnold, Mo., was a guest on the program this morning and is leading a group, Don’t Tread on Me, which is fighting to have the red-light cameras removed from the community which, in 2005 became the first in Missouri to install them. To learn more about his efforts, read this Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader article.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Clay Bowler // Dec 31, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Bob, I am sick of seeing cameras watching me everywhere I go. It’s not just at intersections. Mayor Daley in Chicago wants to put them on all government vehicles to monitor and cite drivers with tickets. Can we claim this is a violation of the IV Amendment?
2 hotoffthepress2 // Dec 31, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Clay — I guess it all depends upon how one defines “search and seizure.” I suggest that anyone who receives a ticket without the personal assistance of a police officer take the legal advice I heard on the radio: Don’t pay it or, better yet, take a photo of a $100 bill and mail it in as payment. Ha!
3 Barnet Fagel // Feb 16, 2009 at 3:58 pm
CHICAGO BECOMES ONE BIG RED LIGHT DISTRICT! – 2/8/2009
The Chicago Tribune’s February 7th editorial focused on the CTA being “encouraged” by the driver’s union to pay their member’s 1,200 red light camera tickets for a total of about $120.000! The CTA deemed the tickets to be a “bureaucratic nuisance” even as the rest of the public has to pay whether you own a car or not! It’s not inherently fair nor is it legal to hold one group of persons “above the law” while indiscriminately punishing another equal group for the same offenses. Citing CTA schedules and passenger safety excuses for running red lights doesn’t is no justification.
Hundreds of millions in ticket revenue is just too tempting of a windfall for the city to ignore. Especially when it’s done under the “color of authority”, the color red. The entire city has become one enormous red light district. Traffic signals have historically been set to established national traffic engineering standards. The accepted rules of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, and the Institute of Transportation Engineers were established to promote safety, but they aren’t acknowledged in Chicago! Other city’s traffic experiences have shown accident increases after their respective red light camera installations.
Red light cameras serve obediently 24 hours a day dutifully snapping pictures of license plates and converted at the “light speed” into a constant revenue stream that beats to the pulse of the politician’s pocketbook. What a golden thing it is to behold. The robocops have no regard for real traffic requirements such as the 85th percentile speed, approach velocity, forward head room, visual safety perception, mechanical maladies or radio frequency interference.
Chicago joins the growing list of maniacal metropolises that include Chattanooga, TN, Dallas, TX, Springfield, MO, Lubbock, TX, Nashville, TN and Union City, CA that have been caught grossly cheating their drivers by local media using short-timed yellow traffic lights. News outlets shined the light of truth and turned the cameras back onto this seditious and dangerous practice to allow the cities to balance their particular budgets. Subsequent lengthening the yellow light timing results in fewer violations, less accidents, safer roads far less cost.
Ticketed drivers can appear in front of a trained ticket clerk, but they soon find out that their “administrative” red light ticket challenges are stiffed by the political provisions of the ordinance. While these citations don’t currently add points to driver’s licenses, IT “CONVENIENTLY OUTLAWS” ANY LEGAL OR ETHICAL CHALLENGES. If drivers want to appeal their cases to a higher court another charge of $95 for a filing fee plus a mandatory downtown appearance. The city fathers figured the vast majority of drivers can’t afford the time coupled with almost no chance of winning to justify the effort.
Apparently the laws of physics, motion or logic don’t apply within the windy city. The city has determined that all vehicles, drivers and intersections are identical by their very nature so a single three second yellow light timing standard is all that is needed, when actually it is barely the federal minimum. The city knowingly takes no notice of real world factors such as driver response times, vehicle size, inertia, road or visibility conditions that are recommended by traffic.
Because accepted traffic signal engineering practices are ignored the city it consciously and directly participates in ongoing cases of “spontaneous legal entrapment” each time any of the stop lights turn red. The city stifles the increased rear-end accident facts after red light camera installations in many other cities. “The city that works”, makes drivers work for the department of revenue and leaves the city politicians with blood on their hands!
Don’t loose hope, I am researching a way to use the law to counterman the abuse…
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