tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41998850627934774382024-03-13T13:13:09.891-07:00lawsthatareunenforceableRob Hoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211809421832142963noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199885062793477438.post-74539076543540487472008-04-26T18:16:00.001-07:002008-04-26T18:16:39.240-07:00Red light tickets hard to collect onRed light tickets hard to collect on<br />By Jake Wagman<br />ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH<br />Sunday, Apr. 27 2008<br /><br />Mikel Ramsey Jr. has a knack for getting on film.<br /><br />Or, rather, his car does.<br /><br />Ramsey's vehicle has been clicked more than two dozen times by red-light<br />traffic cameras in St. Louis, racking up $2,600 in fines.<br /><br />Ramsey hasn't paid a dime of it. But the city has not impounded his car or<br />hauled him off to jail. Officials aren't even looking for him.<br /><br />Chronic violators such as Ramsey represent a weakness in photo-enforcement<br />programs, which are becoming increasingly popular in cities around the region.<br />Other drivers appear to be changing their habits: A sharp decline in camera<br />citations has been reported at several St. Louis intersections.<br /><br />Because most red-light cameras take a picture only of the car — not the driver<br />— it's difficult for cities here and around the country to make people pay.<br /><br />Some cities have sought to address the shortcomings by employing a creative<br />definition of what it means to run a red light, or making it a separate crime<br />to ignore the violations notice.<br /><br />Meanwhile, hundreds of area drivers each month dutifully pay the tickets when<br />they are caught running a red light.<br /><br />Those who don't?<br /><br />Officials acknowledge that, for now, there's little they can do.<br /><br />"If you threw it in the trash," says St. Louis Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr.,<br />chairman of the aldermanic Traffic Committee, "nothing would happen."<br /><br />DRIVERS AREN'T SEEN<br /><br />In 2005, Arnold became the first city in the area to install the cameras. Since<br />then, St. Louis, Florissant, Creve Coeur, Hazelwood, Bel-Nor and St. John have<br />followed. Brentwood and even the tiny hamlet of Moline Acres — with an area of<br />less than a square mile — installed cameras recently.<br /><br />As they've spread, the cameras have generated a litany of complaints.<br /><br />A federal suit was filed this year alleging that Arnold's red-light program<br />violates due process rights. Some have raised concerns about the politically<br />connected consultants that helped sell the cameras to local governments. Others<br />have questioned whether profit, not safety, is the real motive.<br /><br />In St. Louis, the cameras have raised more than $1.4 million since they were<br />activated nearly a year ago. But the citations and revenue have steadily<br />declined at several intersections— evidence, the city says, that the streets<br />are safer.<br /><br />Legally, red-light traffic cameras occupy a gray area between a parking ticket<br />and a speeding citation. They are not considered moving violations, like<br />running a stop sign; but the usual penalty doled out by the cameras — $100 —is<br />far more pricey than the penalty for an expired meter.<br /><br />The cameras are not sanctioned by the state, sometimes leaving cities to rely<br />on model ordinances drafted by the for-profit camera companies — who get a<br />slice of each ticket.<br /><br />One of the toughest steps, local officials are finding, is putting teeth into<br />the collection process. In Arnold, about 30 percent of the citations issued<br />from October 2005 through January had not been paid. The nonpayment rate in St.<br />Louis is about 35 percent.<br /><br />The problem rests in how the cameras operate. In most of the local<br />intersections where the devices are installed, they capture only the license<br />plate of the car running the red light. A notice is then sent to the registered<br />owner of the vehicle.<br /><br />For a regular traffic ticket, failure to respond often results in a judge's<br />ordering a warrant to arrest the driver.<br /><br />But on the majority of red-light camera tickets, the court cannot be sure that<br />the registered owner of the vehicle was driving — making it difficult to issue<br />a warrant. The reason is simple: It's tough to arrest the culprit if his or her<br />identity is unknown.<br /><br />Sometimes, the owner of the vehicle is not even a person. According to St.<br />Louis court records, Enterprise Rent-A-Car owes $1,100 in red-light fines to<br />the city. An Enterprise spokesman says that when the company gets red-light<br />citations, it typically signs a court affidavit transferring responsibility to<br />the person renting the car at the time.<br /><br />Rental car drivers aren't the only ones with large red-light tabs in St. Louis.<br />At least nine others owe the city $700 or more.<br /><br />In Florissant, a pair of vehicles has each racked up $1,200 in fines. Two<br />drivers from out of state — one from Peoria, Ill., the other from Philadelphia<br />— owe Florissant $500 apiece.<br /><br />"Right now, we have no active program to go after these people other than<br />request that they comply with the law," said Timothy W. Kelly, the municipal<br />judge in Florissant.<br /><br />RED-LIGHT COURT<br /><br />Kelly presides over red-light camera court, held four times a month in<br />Florissant. There, drivers contesting tickets face what is often fairly<br />convincing evidence — a video of them cruising through the light. But if a<br />driver decides to ignore the ticket altogether, the next step is typically just<br />another letter requesting that they respond.<br /><br />"It's not enough," Kelly said. "We need to take more steps."<br /><br />Fighting a ticket in Florissant court this month was Kirtsan Gray, of Alton,<br />who unsuccessfully argued that a family member — he wasn't sure which — was<br />driving his car. Finding no sympathy from the judge, Gray said he would follow<br />the recommendation of his attorney.<br /><br />"He pretty much told me, 'Throw it in the trash,'" Gray said while leaving the<br />court room.<br /><br />Indeed, some local lawyers suggest the tickets would not pass legal muster.<br /><br />"The cameras are evidence that you violated the law — and it's good evidence,"<br />said Todd Mandel, a lawyer in St. Louis. "The problem comes when they cannot<br />identify the driver. Just to arrest the person who's the owner would not be<br />proper."<br /><br />Most drivers seem to pay anyway.<br /><br />"People who do the right thing pay the price," lawyer Greg Kessler of Clayton<br />said.<br /><br />METHODS VARY<br /><br />Many cities that use red-light cameras have an agreement with American Traffic<br />Solutions, an Arizona firm that supplies the technology in exchange for about a<br />third of the fines recovered.<br /><br />A spokesman for the company, Dan Reeb, said it was up to the cities to develop<br />an effective way to collect.<br /><br />"I think the cities are going to find ways to make you pay — one way or the<br />other," Reeb said, just as they do with parking tickets and other infractions.<br /><br />Cities elsewhere have taken varied approaches to enforcing red-light camera<br />violations. Some go after your car. Others, only your finances.<br /><br />In Philadelphia, the program is run by the city's parking authority, which can<br />boot cars that pile up three or more unpaid camera violations. In Seattle,<br />offenders who don't pay may not be able to renew their license plates. In<br />Houston, the red-light penalties are considered "civil" fines that carry no<br />criminal penalty.<br /><br />"The most impact it will have is on one's credit report," said Houston police<br />spokesman John Cannon.<br /><br />St. Peters, which has had cameras running since November 2006, contracted with<br />a competitor of American Traffic Solutions — Redflex, also based in Arizona —<br />that offers a more precise lens. Redflex cameras take a picture of the driver,<br />as well as the license plate, making it easier to go after violators.<br /><br />"You can't put out a warrant for someone if you don't know who was behind the<br />wheel," said Lorna Frahm, the municipal prosecutor. "Well, we don't have that<br />problem in St. Peters."<br /><br />But that system has its own drawbacks: Drivers cover their faces to avoid<br />detection. Of those issued tickets in 2007, more than one in five didn't pay.<br /><br />Creve Coeur does not take pictures of drivers but has been able to maintain<br />close to a 90 percent collection rate on red-light camera fines. Part of its<br />success may have to do with the fine print of the municipal code.<br /><br />Last year, Creve Coeur established the infraction of "violation of public<br />safety at intersections," committed when a "motor vehicle of which that person<br />is an owner is present in an intersection" while the traffic signal is red. The<br />law applies only at intersections with cameras. It also allows the city to<br />prosecute individuals for simply not responding to a citation notice.<br /><br />Creve Coeur city attorney Carl Lumley says he believes, based on cases<br />elsewhere, that the tactic would pass legal scrutiny — though it's never been<br />tested there.<br /><br />"I can't tell you that I have a court that says, 100 percent, this is OK.<br />Because I don't," Lumley said. "It's just our opinion."<br /><br />The approach — crafting new laws narrowly tailored to help aid camera<br />enforcement — strikes one expert as dubious.<br /><br />"It's what they did to Al Capone," said St. Louis University law professor Eric<br />J. Miller. "They really wanted Al Capone for racketeering, but they could only<br />prove tax violations. This is worse. Here they are creating a specific crime to<br />punish you because they cannot get you on the first crime."<br /><br />CITATIONS DOWN<br /><br />Even so, St. Louis may take a similar route, with a bill Bosley says he will<br />soon introduce that would also make it a violation not to respond to a camera<br />ticket.<br /><br />A spokesman for Mayor Francis Slay said he did not support such a proposal.<br />Unlike Bosley, Slay's office believes that the city can, under current law,<br />issue warrants for red-light camera citations — though it has not yet done so,<br />even as violators amass four-figure totals for fines.<br /><br />What is clear is that the number of red-light camera violations at St. Louis<br />intersections that have had them the longest has dropped sharply since the<br />devices went live last year. The camera at the intersection of Delmar and<br />Skinker boulevards, for instance, issued 925 tickets in its first full month of<br />use last year. In February, the same camera registered only 409 violations.<br /><br />Whether that means that the roads are safer or just that drivers have learned<br />where the cameras are is hard to say.<br /><br />"Less red-light violators means less chances of accidents, which means safer<br />intersections," said Ron Smith, a top aide to the mayor.<br /><br />Smith maintains that the city keeps a list of high-priority offenders who could<br />face arrest at some point — but he did not know when.<br /><br />At the moment, though, the city has not demonstrated an ability to catch repeat<br />offenders such as Ramsey — whose car was photographed 26 times by red-light<br />cameras.<br /><br />Ramsey, 28, could not be reached for comment, but a lawyer who has represented<br />him previously said his advice was not to pay the fines.<br /><br />The lawyer, Herman Jimerson, said the city had no way of knowing if Ramsey was<br />driving the car at the time of the infractions, or if he had lent the vehicle<br />out.<br /><br />"We are not into enforcing moral obligations here," Jimerson said. "If they are<br />saying he violated the law, I say prove it. And I don't think they can."Rob Hoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211809421832142963noreply@blogger.com0