DC Residents: Get Ready for Your Revenue-Producing Closeups

The Washington Times reports that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams--who seemed unconcerned enough with revenue to give away the store when it comes to Major League Baseball--is expanding the Capital City's automated traffic-enforcement camera system in order to fatten its coffers.

"There is an urgent need for the approval of this contract to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues," Mr. Williams wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp….

A spokeswoman for Mr. Williams yesterday said that the mayor's views about red light and speed cameras haven't changed and that he probably should have included "an extra sentence about public safety" in his letter to Mrs. Cropp.

"The mayor has always felt that with the red-light cameras and the other equipment we use to catch people who are speeding, safety is our foremost goal," said Sharon Gang, spokeswoman for Mr. Williams. "He's never varied from that."

The mayor's letter, which makes no mention of public safety, came as the Metropolitan Police Department moved to expand the automated traffic-enforcement program by adding four new fixed-location speed cameras throughout the District yesterday.

Since August 2001, reports the Times, cameras placed in cop cars and fixed locations have brought in over $90 million in ticket revenue, leading the AAA Mid-Atlantic to smell a rat.

AAA spokesman John Townsend also seized on the mayor's letter to Mrs. Cropp. He said Mr. Williams' concern for generating revenue bolsters the case of critics who say the program is designed to fill the public coffers.

"All of our suspicions were realized with that statement," Mr. Townsend said. "It's a very telling statement.

Whole thing here.

Reason reported on the DC camera brouhaha here. And back in a 2001 edition of Brickbats, we noted that Bavarian cops fined a guy for giving the finger to a camera.

Comments

[Eryk Boston]

Well....DDDDDDDDDUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My arguements just keep getting better.

[Warren]

Traffic laws have always been little more a lottery tax. Seems to me, that the complaint here is the cameras enforce the law all the time. My guess this would ultimately result in reduced revenue as people will soon become unconditioned to being permitted to use their own judgement. My ultimate fantasy is that by actually having to obey all the inane traffic laws all the of time, some will be repealed or replaced with better ones. More likely, they will program the cameras to re-implement random enforcement.

Corruption always ensues when enforcing the law is profitable to the state.

[Evan Williams]

Warren:

Yeah, geez, imagine if all those nimrods who wouldn't know how to use their turn signals, even if they wanted to, were actually caught! Talk about revenue generation...bwah ha ha!

I still can't believe that this is such a big deal, though, and that so many people still get tickets.

It's like, what, $25 per license plate for the covers? Versus $75 per violation? Do the math. If I lived in DC, you're damn right I'd have one.

[Ball of Confusion]

I don't understand why AAA, who gets to jack up people's car insurance rates when they get those tickets, is opposed. The insurance premium hike is BY FAR the most painful penalty for driving "indiscretions".

[Ultimate Fitness Program]

Can someone erase that idiot Eryk's comment? My screen is all screwy now, and I can't see my favorite add without a lot of scrolling.

[Ultimate Fitness Program]

Or "ad".

[Warren]

The insurance premium hike is BY FAR the most painful penalty for driving "indiscretions".

Excellent point. I wonder if it falls under 'unintended consequences' or 'special interest pork'.

[Junyo]

The DC system never was anything but a scam. I don't know about now, but when it was built the city wasn't even running it. They farmed it out to the company that made the radar/camera unit, which a lot of municipalities do since that means they don't even need to buy the equipment; the contractor loans them the equipmnet for a share of the take. Anyway, they contractors got caught playing fast and loose with the sensors; which makes sense if they're getting paid by the ticket.

[PintofStout]

Big Brother is watching. There will soon be thought sensors to see if you're thinking about speeding.

[EG]

It's like, what, $25 per license plate for the covers? Versus $75 per violation? Do the math. If I lived in DC, you're damn right I'd have one.

They have been tested and found wanting by the DC driving population. The contractor's camera works better than the covers.

Also, a recent study showed intersections with cameras had a increased rate of accidents. But that doesn't concern DC.

[Gary Gunnels]

Is this to pay for the inaugeration bill that the Bush administration won't pay for?

[Ball of Confusion]

Also, a recent study showed intersections with cameras had a increased rate of accidents.

Now that's funny. And presumably why Hizzonor had the good sense to remove any mention of safety from his communique (pre-aide-revision).

[Mike K.]

Mr. Williams' admission that he is out to make a buck with the cameras makes sense within the "Us vs. the commuters" context the DC administration operates in. Don't bother trying to shame them.

[joe]

The increase in accidents is probably temporary, the result of people rear ending cars who actually stop when the light turns red. I'd bet money that the enhanced enforcement has resulted, for the time being, in more property damage, but fewer injuries and deaths, as the serious accidents - people hitting each other at full speed in the middle of an intersection - have fallen.

If CD wanted to make its intersections safer, they'd install roundabouts. And get those idiotic lights out of the middle of existing traffic circles.

[EG]

If DC wanted to make its intersections safer, they'd install roundabouts.

Now that would take an act of Congress.

[crimethink]

Regarding the sprays: if they do indeed work, the jurisdictions that install intersection cameras will ban the sprays.

And it would not be hard for the cops to catch people who've made their plates flash-reflective. With a digital camera mounted on the front of a police car, connected to the computer inside, all they'd have to do is photograph your plates and wala, probable cause.

Also, keep in mind, they would not let you just drive away after the stop, since you cannot drive legally with those plates. Nope, your car's getting impounded, and you're paying a visit to the station.

In other words, don't do it.

[keith]

Ah, Lockheed. Too bad THEY don't have an auto-insurance arm. I understand LMCO (in addition to supplying DC and other cities with the red-light cam) was also agitating for automatically generating speeding tickets for EZPass customers whose average speed for a toll highway segment breaks the average speed limit.

Nevermind. I found out that LMCO IMS division was sold off to "ACS State and Local Services" in a business unit swap (LMCO got a pile of federal contracts). So I guess I can't complain about the red light cameras being part of the military industrial complex anymore. Instead, it's part of the strongarm tactics education loan-recovery and child support payment paycheck garnishing information services complex. Eisenhower can rest now, I guess.

[CodeMonkeySteve]

(UFP: I second that! Trim that fscker down!)

Ah, what a difference 130ms makes in revenue generation ...

[jhz]

I look forward to the revelation of the list of plates that never receive tickets (or receive some other kind of forgiveness). Presumably, this list will include members of congress, city officials, their families & hangers-on, etc.

A rookie cop might not answer "Don't you know who I am?" correctly, but a database-linked camera always will.