A speed camera issues a ticket to a stationary car. The real story here isn't that one car was erroneously ticketed. No, the real story is the fact that Baltimore's 164 cameras have issued $48 million in tickets over the last three years. If the amount of the ticket, $40, is typical, this means that 400,000 tickets a year are issued by those 164 cameras: roughly 2400 tickets for each camera.
The officers that review the pictures before they are issued review and issue 1200 tickets per day. On an 8 hour workday, that leaves just 24 seconds for each picture to be reviewed and a citation issued. In other words, this is nothing but a revenue generator with few safeguards or oversight.
Study after study has shown the camera systems increase collisions contrary to what was claimed when they were implemented.
ReplyDeleteAny city can't explain how they aren't keeping them just for revenue.