'Revenue Generating' Traffic Cameras Forcing Governments To Refund Millions Of Dollars

from the not-working-out-quite-the-way-they-thought-it-would dept

Technology saves time and labor, but is as ultimately fallible as the humans it displaces. Thanks to the efficiencies of technology, mistakes can now be made faster than ever. Municipalities which have turned over traffic enforcement to cameras probably hoped to generate funds much faster than it could with an un-augmented police force. Instead, they're finding themselves issuing refunds, deactivating faulty cameras, fighting with contractors and investigating corruption. Not much of a payoff.

Two more stories have appeared (nearly simultaneously) showing the incredible number of tickets a set of cameras can rack up in a short period… and the amount of funds generated that no one will ever be able to claim.

The first comes from Nassau County, New York, where overenthusiastic speed cameras enforced school zone speed limits while school wasn't even in session.

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has dismissed $2.4 million in speed camera tickets issued over the past month, amid outrage from residents who received thousands of tickets from cameras at six school locations.

Mangano said cameras at five locations malfunctioned, spitting out tickets on days when school was not in session. Cameras at a sixth location -- in Elmont -- went operational prematurely.

Mangano went even further than this, declaring amnesty on all tickets issued this summer. Anyone who paid a ticket will be issued a refund and any unpaid tickets will be forgiven. Nassau County has contacted the contractor -- the infamous American Traffic Solutions -- presumably to ask it why its cameras can't be calibrated to issue school zone tickets only when school zone speed limits are actually active. The county officials declined to say whether they'd be asking ATS to refund its share of the "lost" revenue, which is 38% of every fine collected.

Of the $2.4 million the county will be refunding, only about $800,000 of it is for tickets issued while school wasn't in session. The other two-thirds is a good faith writeoff to help the county push through its installation of even more cameras.

In April, state lawmakers approved legislation allowing Nassau and Suffolk to install one speed camera in each of their school districts. Nassau will install cameras at 56 locations. Suffolk, which plans to roll out its program in mid-2015, will have 69 sites. Motorists that travel more than 10 mph over the posted speed limit receive an $80 ticket.

Not only will more static cameras be installed, but the county is also planning to send roving traffic enforcement cameras out on a tour of area schools.

Officials could not say how many districts will have mobile units, which can be moved to schools throughout the district at the county's discretion. The mobile units consist of an unmarked van with two cameras and a radar machine.

Nassau residents don't seem nearly as pleased with this expansion, especially not after having their mailboxes filled with bogus tickets. But I doubt the complaints of the citizens will be able to overcome the dollar signs in their representatives' eyes.

The speed camera program is expected to generate $25 million or more annually for [Nassau County]... Suffolk expects to generate $6.8 million from the 46 cameras in Western Suffolk, where the county provides police service, said county spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter.

Those are some pretty large numbers, provided the county isn't periodically forced to issue a ton of refunds. Given American Traffic Solutions' track record, it would behoove these county officials to cease counting their revenue before it's extracted by traffic robocops.

Meanwhile, over in New Jersey, malfunctioning systems installed and maintained by -- yes, you guessed it -- American Traffic Solutions have forced the state government to ask courts to throw out 17,000 tickets because drivers were never informed of their alleged infractions. (h/t to Techdirt reader Vidiot)

The state lawmaker who today brought the issue to the public’s attention — Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon —said it's is just the latest example of why New Jersey’s red light camera should not be renewed when it reaches its December expiration date.

“This wasn't 5 or 10 or even a couple of hundred instances - this total breakdown affected almost 17,000 motorists,” O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said in a statement. "These companies incessantly tout the supposed accuracy and consistency of their systems - when the only thing consistent about the camera company representatives is their blatant misrepresentation of what the equipment does and how accurately it does it."

Winnie Comfort, a spokeswoman for the state Judiciary, said that the issue was brought to its attention by the company — American Traffic Solutions (ATS) — on Aug. 10. Under New Jersey law, Comfort said, drivers must receive notices of the infractions within 90 days.

Once again, the screwup is all ATS. Apparently, a "server configuration change" resulted in ATS sending out no violation notices from May 28 to June 30, turning 17,000 potential moneymakers into 17,000 potential dismissals, thanks to exceeding the 90-day notification window.

An ATS spokesman spun this as a "technical issue" that only "impacted" a small percentage of issued tickets. (Oh, and the automated revenue generator is apparently called a "red-light safety camera" in ATS jargon.) Two things: if 17,000 tickets is only a small percentage of tickets issued, then ATS is definitely firing off way too many tickets. Thing, the second: it's only ATS having problems with its servers.

Automated Traffic Solutions operates traffic cameras at about half of New Jersey's 76 intersections that are equipped with them. The other company, Redflex, did not have the same problem.

Of course, Redflex bribes local politicians to secure contracts, so it's not as if this company doesn't have its own issues -- ones that also negatively affect the citizens being policed by unreliable camera systems.

As noted above, Assemblyman Scanlon indicated he'd rather not renew the state's contract with ATS. Given Redflex's moral turpitude, it might be prudent not to renew its contract either. But this would leave the state with very few options for low-cost revenue generation -- and once localities become hooked on a source of income, there's very little chance they'll give it up readily, no matter how corrupt/incompetent/terrible it is.

Filed Under: failures, nassau county, refunds, speed cameras, traffic cameras
Companies: american traffic solutions, ats, redflex

Secret Audit Of Baltimore's Speed Cams Says Up To 70,000 Tickets Were Issued In Error In 2012 Alone

from the and-no-incentive-to-improve dept

God bless the drivers of Maryland, whose government officials have been experimenting on them for years by placing their driving records and insurance rates in the hands of unreliable private contractors for years. We've already covered one major traffic camera firm (ATS - American Traffic Solutions) in the Maryland-DC area whose response to questionable photos captured by its cameras was to crop out anything that might make the ticket challengeable, like calibration lines or other vehicles.

Now, it appears another major contractor, Xerox State and Local Solutions, has been caught operating faulty cameras -- and issuing tens of thousands of questionable citations. (via Reason)

Consultant URS Corp. evaluated the camera system as run by Xerox State and Local Solutions in 2012 and found an error rate of more than 10 percent — 40 times higher than city officials have claimed. The city got those findings last April but never disclosed the high error rate, refusing calls by members of the City Council to release the audit.

The city issued roughly 700,000 speed camera tickets at $40 each in fiscal year 2012. If 10 percent were wrong, 70,000 would have wrongly been charged $2.8 million.

Xerox's contract ended in 2012, and the city tried out a couple of new contractors after the Baltimore Sun reported that the city's cameras were producing faulty citations. Previous to the Sun's investigative work, city officials claimed the cameras had a "one-quarter of one percent error rate." Xerox performed its own audit and found 5 cameras with a 5.2% error rate, but said it took those offline upon discovery.

Neither claim matches up with the URS audit. Not only were 10% clearly erroneous, but another 26% were declared "questionable," meaning the system Xerox ran for three years was only unquestionably "right" less than two-thirds of the time.

To top this all off, members of the city government still hadn't seen this audit until the Baltimore Sun managed to secure a copy of it.

City Council members reacted with dismay and anger when told Wednesday of the audit's results, asking why the Rawlings-Blake administration didn't reveal the high error rate months ago and take steps to fully refund fines paid by motorists.

The administration has one good reason not to release the report: it doesn't want to get sued.

Despite calls from the City Council to release the audit, the administration does not plan to do so, Harris said. City Solicitor George Nilson, the administration's chief lawyer, has said releasing the audit would violate a settlement agreement with Xerox and "create obvious risks and potential exposure for the city."

In the settlement, the city agreed to pay Xerox $2.3 million for invoices from late 2012. The city also agreed to keep confidential any documents "referring or relating to, or reflecting, each party's internal considerations, discussions, analyses, and/or evaluations of issues raised during the settlement discussions."

The documents are no longer "confidential" at this point (and can be viewed here), and what's been uncovered may cause future problems for Xerox, which was selected by a city panel last year to take over Chicago's traffic cams. This happened in August of 2013, after Baltimore had already cut the contractor loose, but well before URS' report surfaced. Knowing it had buried the company's ineptitude by contractually obligating Baltimore's administration to keep its mouth shut, Xerox officials had the confidence to make the following claim when reached for comment last August:

Xerox officials have said the problems in Baltimore accounted for less than 1 percent of all the tickets issued there.

So, that's clearly untrue. Xerox kept burying itself, though, much like it thought it had buried that report.

"The majority of our camera programs are extremely well run and our customers are very satisfied," Xerox Corp. spokesman Carl Langsenkamp said. "That's really all I have to say about Baltimore."

Well, its "customers" were as satisfied as anyone can be when the truth has been contractually bound and gagged. The Chicago mayor's office defended doing business with Xerox by pointing out it had done its due diligence, noting no Baltimore official had declared Xerox barred or ineligible for city contracts. That's what NDA's do. They keep people from telling you bad things.

In even more "good" news for Chicago's drivers, the story also contains this bit of info:

Xerox Corp., best known for its onetime domination of the photocopier market, is a relative newcomer to the automated camera industry. In 2009 it purchased Affiliated Computer Services Inc. — well-known in the industry — for $6.4 billion.

"Well-known" has lots of different meanings. ACS is "well-known" for its close relationship with New Orleans cops, who formed their own company in order to cash in on ACS' traffic cam photo backlog, along the way violating NOPD ethics rules, laundering their funds through a police charity, and generally reinforcing the negative image of a corrupt New Orleans police force in many people's minds. In fairness, ACS accidentally outed the officers' unethical sideline by paying the controlling officer directly through his company, rather than obscuring the transaction through the charity.

ACS is also "well-known" for being careless with the personal info of millions of private citizens. ACS lost a data CD containing the personal info of 2.9 million Georgia residents back in 2007. Prior to that, it had a computer stolen (500k-1.4 million Colorado residents' data contained therein), suffered a website glitch that exposed 21,000 students' info, and had seven years of credit card data stolen from one of its computers at the Denver airport.

What Chicago may have watching over its drivers is a set of malfunctioning cameras overseen by a company that can't seem to stop coughing up people's personal data. Good times.

Filed Under: audit, baltimore, speed cameras, speeding tickets
Companies: acs, affiliated computer services, ats, urs corp., xerox

Speed Cam Contractor Responds To Challenged Tickets By Cropping Photos, Moving Cameras

from the if-you-can't-fix-the-system,-just-'fix'-the-output dept

While the discussion over whether red light and speed cameras are helping or hurting continues, there's no denying they're very profitable. In most communities, the beneficiaries of the additional income are extremely reluctant to unplug the cash cow (if you will...). The beneficiary least likely to welcome any dip in income are the companies supplying the camera systems.

American Traffic Solutions is one of two major traffic cam contractors. Its DC-Maryland camera system has recently run into a few snags in the money-making department due to challenged tickets. In one documented case, a driver had his ticket thrown out because the photographic "evidence" showed two vehicles in frame -- and in radar range. (This leads one to speculate whether ATS simply decided to issue two tickets...)

Rather than simply toss out any questionable photos, ATS has decided it would be simpler (read: more profitable) to do a little creative work to alter the output.

The firms operating red light cameras and speed cameras in the District of Columbia and Maryland are working to suppress evidence that could be used to prove the innocence of a photo enforcement ticket recipient. In Washington, the Arizona-based vendor American Traffic Solutions has repositioned cameras and cropped photos so that it is impossible to determine whether another object or vehicle happens to be within the radar unit's field of view.

The change is important since DC hearing adjudicators have been throwing out citations whenever another vehicle was visible, creating the possibility of a spurious radar reading (view ruling). The cropping also makes it extremely difficult to use pavement lines to perform a secondary check of the speed estimate provided by the radar. Lines painted on the road for this purpose are visible in one photo, but not the other (view first photo, view second photo).

Even though the cameras are also video-capable, no corroborating video evidence is provided to ticketed drivers. The efforts being undertaken to ensure ATS can "write" as many tickets as possible are questionable at best. As The Newspaper notes, they bear every resemblance to suppression of evidence. Cropping a second vehicle out of frame in order to push a ticket through unchallenged is legally dubious. Ethically, it's just plain wrong.

This isn't ATS' only experience in the ethically/legally dubious arena. Its system in Florida now sports one of the shortest yellow lights in the country, just a shade above the absolute minimum. Decreasing a yellow light by a half-second can result in double the amount of tickets issued. Of course, it also increases the number of accidents, but that's hardly of concern to the red light cam contractor. (It would seem to be a problem for the complicit DOTs, but the ultra-cheap source of revenue is apparently too good to pass up -- or even use responsibly.)

And it's not just law enforcement and traffic cam contractors reaping the benefits of cropped photos and shortened yellow lights -- the money goes all the way up. A reform bill aimed at red light/speed camera systems tanked earlier this year in the Maryland legislature, thanks to nearly $100,000 in direct contributions from camera companies (and their subcontractors) to lawmakers in Annapolis.

There's nothing behind these programs that indicate "safety" or "better driving" is the intended outcome, not when a camera contractor needs to resort to cropping photos and moving cameras just to ensure the income continues to roll in. The complicit government entities are only making it worse with their tendency to become swiftly addicted to new "revenue streams" -- ones that often complement campaign contributions from these same contractors.

The losers here are members of the public who are now more likely than ever to be slapped with bogus tickets, often without any reliable form of recourse.

Filed Under: cropping, evidence, photos, speed cameras
Companies: american traffic solutions

Misleading Scientific American Report On Traffic Cameras

from the not-always dept

Tom sent over a report saying that redlight cameras aren't just about making money for local police (and the companies who sell redlight cameras), but that one study in Barcelona found that the city saved a ton of money due to fewer accidents. Now, what I find interesting about this is that it seems to contradict nearly every other study we've seen on this subject. Study after study after study after study after study has shown no decrease in the number of accidents... and in many cases an increased number of accidents. So is there something that Barcelona did differently with its cameras that resulted in a decrease in accidents?

After digging in, it looks like some of this may just be bad reporting by Scientific American's Cynthia Graber. First, she focuses the article on red light cameras, but the actual study she discusses was for speed cameras. I'm surprised that Scientific American would mix up the two, since they're clearly different. Second, as some people pointed out in the comments to Graber's story, the study happened over a two year period during which unemployment in Barcelona shot up drastically, potentially leading to fewer cars on the road, especially during rush hour periods when accidents are most likely. In other words, while this might be some evidence in support of speed cameras, at best, it shows a correlation, and the causal factor may be something entirely different, such as the amount of cars on the road.

Filed Under: accidents, barcelona, redlight cameras, speed cameras, traffic cameras

UK Man Convicted Of A Crime For Letting Drivers Know They Should Slow Down To Avoid Speed Camera

from the don't-the-police-want-people-to-slow-down? dept

Last year, we discussed the growing backlash against speed cameras in the UK. However, many are still in place, and one man has now been convicted of a crime and fined for simply flashing his brights to warn oncoming motorists of a speed camera (found via Glyn Moody). The details suggest police clearly abusing their authority.

After flashing his brights at oncoming cars, to warn them of a mobile speed camera he had spotted, Michael Thompson was pulled over. This, alone, seems pretty questionable. After all, shouldn't the purpose of speed cameras be to get people to slow down? Thompson's actions probably did succeed in getting more people to slow down. But, of course, in many cases the real reason for speed cameras is money, so interfering with that is seen as a problem. Now, it does appear that, after being pulled over, Thompson got a bit belligerent and questioned the fairness of being pulled over. The officer responded by saying he was going to let Thompson off with a warning, but had changed his mind -- and was going to charge him with "perverting the course of justice." It seems ridiculous to think that warning people they should obey the law is "perverting the course of justice."

In the end he was not actually charged with "perverting the course of justice," but instead with "willfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties," which is a criminal offense. Lawyer David Allen Green, who wrote the article I link to above, points out that warning other motorists to obey the speed limit is hardly obstructing a police officer:

Preventing police officers from seeking to impose as much criminal liability as they possibly can is not the same as "wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties". Police officers' ability to arrest and charge is not an end in itself, but just one means of serving the wider interests of justice and the public. The criminal justice system does not exist solely for the satisfaction of a police officer wanting to coerce another human being.

And yet, the court found Thompson guilty, and fined him £175, along with having to pay £250 in "costs" and an extra £15 "victim surcharge." He sure does seem like a victim, alright. UK government prosecutors have defended their pushing forward with the case, still claiming that the police officer's job was obstructed, but failing to explain how. They also told Green that the UK highway code forbids flashing of headlights for any purpose other than letting people know where you are. However, Green points out that this still doesn't support the lawsuit and the fine, since a violation of the highway code is not a criminal offense.

It seems like the police and the UK prosecutors simply decided that getting people to actually follow the speed limit gets in the way of police making money -- and thus, it's an obstruction.

Filed Under: crime, speed cameras, uk

New Speed Cameras Can Spot Multiple Offenses At Once... And Send Off A Ticket Immediately

from the that'll-make-drivers-happy dept

Just as stories were spreading that speed cameras were finally on the decline in the UK, The Daily Mail is reporting on a new kind of speed camera that doesn't just check if you're speeding, but at the same time looks if you're tailgating, checks your insurance & car taxes (via a license plate recognition camera), and also makes sure you're wearing a seatbelt. All in one tidy package. It also sends off the images immediately to the police, so that they can start processing your (multiple) tickets before you're even at the next block. Of course, since evidence has shown, over and over again, that these kinds of cameras don't actually make anyone safer, shouldn't we be focused on finding technologies that actually do make the roads safer, rather than just those that boost local government coffers?

Filed Under: speed cameras

Houston Votes To Turn Off Red Light Cameras; City Officials Trying To Figure Out How To Cancel Contract

from the redlight-cameras-get-the-red-light dept

btr1701 alerts us to the news that Houston residents have voted to get rid of red light cameras around Houston. The vote was actually pretty close, with 52.82% wanting to ditch the cameras, and 47.18% wanting to keep them. Of course, the cameras might not disappear all that quickly. It turns out that the city -- which has made $44 million from the cameras -- has a contract with the camera provider that runs for another four years. There is a 120-day cancellation policy, so the absolute soonest that the cameras might turn off is four months or so in the future. However, the city is currently reviewing its "options." And, of course, any citation sent out while this is going on is still a valid citation, so Houston drivers shouldn't run around thinking that the cameras are already off.

Filed Under: contracts, houston, red light cameras, speed cameras

68,000 Speeding Fines May Need To Be Refunded In Australia Due To Faulty Cameras

from the where's-that-brick-wall-heading dept

For many years, we've noted that speed cameras were notoriously unreliable, with stories of brick walls traveling at high rates of speed, a car being clocked at an astounding 420 mph and another story where a parked car was given multiple speeding tickets, all while remaining blissfully stationed at the curb.

One of the main traffic camera providers is the company Redflex, which has been having trouble lately, as many governments are ditching the cameras. And it looks like things may be getting even worse. Reader midofo points us to the news that the government in Victoria, Australia is now realizing that its Redflex speed cameras were faulty. There's now an investigation into just how many fines will need to be refunded. Of course, the only reason they figured this out was because a woman got a ticket for traveling nearly 100 mph in a car that simply could not go that fast. That resulted in an investigation and the discovery that the cameras weren't working properly (of course, some might argue that since the cameras are really just about revenue generation they were working just fine...).

Filed Under: australia, faulty, speed cameras, speeding tickets
Companies: redflex

Ohio Town Refunds 980 Speed Camera Tickets For Only Driving 10mph Over The Limit (Versus 11mph)

from the go-speed-racer dept

A story suggest to us by reader Dan describes how an Ohio town recently issued 980 speeding ticket refunds. The city of Garfield Heights, Ohio, installed two speed cameras, attached to unmanned police cars, and then sent speeding tickets to those that were deemed to be speeding. The policy was to only issue tickets to those driving more than 11 miles per hour over the speed limit, so, when it was found that a number of tickets were issued to those driving 10 miles per hour over the limit, almost $100,000 in ticket revenue was refunded. Apparently, city officials had told the public that the tickets would be issued if people were caught driving 11 miles over the limit. So, if that's the case, then is the speed limit actually the speed limit or not? Once again, this goes to show how completely arbitrary speed limit enforcement can be. Is there really a difference in safety in going 10 mph over the speed limit vs. 11? And, if anything, it seems that widely circulating this policy would simply encourage people to drive 9 miles over the limit.

Clearly, it's a great money maker for the city. Since the month of June, when the cameras were installed, they sent out nearly 11,000 tickets, representing about $1,000,000 in added revenue. Sure, it's possible that the city may need to cover a shortfall in a budget, but is the false guise of public safety the appropriate manner in which to obtain this revenue? At least this method is a little more scientific than other Ohio towns, where a policeman can issue a ticket by simply guessing how fast you were going.

Filed Under: fines, speed cameras, speeding, tickets

The Beginning Of The End For Speed Cameras In The UK?

from the one-can-hope dept

The UK was one of the first to embrace speed cameras, but it looks like things are starting to go in the other direction. Chris Clark points us to a (video) news report from the BBC highlighting how funding is drying up for speed cameras in the UK, and multiple cities have been ditching them (and, by the way, not noticing any increase in accidents or casualties). The video, of course, shows police and other speed camera supporters insisting that speed cameras save lives, and that taking them away will lead to harm... but they don't actually present any evidence. What is clearly presented, however, is that governments are increasingly less willing to fund speed cameras, and most of the money today is for upkeep, rather than installing any more.

Filed Under: speed cameras, uk