In 2006, Tucson Police Department Assistant Chief Sharon Allen wrote a memo to the City Council in which she advised them that the Notices of Violation sent by traffic camera vendors would not qualify as “traffic citations as Arizona law does not allow for mail service.” This week, a group of Tucson residents filed 23,000 petition signatures at the Tucson City Clerk’s Office to place a measure banning those traffic cameras on the November ballot.
Despite the fact that Allen advised the Council all those years ago that the Notice of Violations were “not enforceable and do not result in any sanction if they are ignored,” City leaders allowed thousands of Tucsonans and city visitors to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and lose innumerable work hours waiting at City Court.
Now, it seems as if the City leaders may have to go elsewhere to get money to waste.
A group, Tucson Traffic Justice, led by John Kromko said the City is mailing citations “even though they know it is improper. Are they following their own stated rules? — Not at all.”
According to the City, the cameras protect drivers. The city asserts the cameras reduce accidents and make Tucsonans safer driver, noting that crashes at the eight intersections with the cameras have decreased from 200 a year to 74 in 2012.
But Kromko’s group says, “A closer look at the situation, however, reveals that the tickets are a significant source of revenue for the contractor and the city of Tucson.” The City of Tucson earns about $680,000 a year after paying the contractor. American Traffic Solutions Inc. which provides red light camera and automated photo radar enforcement service, is paid by the City for each ticket issued.
Tucson Traffic Justice acknowledges that “the tickets provide the City with much-needed revenue” they take exception to the “trickery and manipulation involved in the process. In order to maximize the number of citations issued, the timespan of yellow lights at certain intersections has been shortened. The more tickets that are issued translates into more dough for the contractor and the city.”
If the group succeeds, the City Code Sec. 20-2 (Civil traffic violations), would preserve current traffic violations but would disallow “evidence is gathered through the use of any automatic photo red light cameras or any automatic photo speed cameras such as were in use by a private contractor for traffic enforcement on behalf of the city in 2012.”
As amended; “The city shall not use, or contract for the use of, such technology or any technology for traffic control that does not produce a human, on-site, eyewitness to violations who is able to testify in court.”
“The people are really mad about this,” Kromko told an Arizona Daily Star Reporter. “We all know the cameras are a scam. … This city has turned over enforcement to a private, for-profit-making company who lobbied the Legislature to set traps for citizens. To make a no man’s land in each intersection where you have no idea if you’re breaking the law or not, … that needs to end, and that’s what we’re calling for.”
In 2012, former state Senator Frank Antenori tried to stop the games played with the size of intersections. HB 2557 would have changed the broader definition of intersection to one that says the intersection starts at any painted “stop” line or at the first crosswalk line. This will most likely result in fewer tickets and less revenue for the camera operators.
HB 2557 would bring Arizona into conformance with 38 other states.
However, that effort failed due to heavy lobbying from the traffic camera companies. The stakes are high for private companies, who make a lot of money off a city that cares more about grabbing revenues than the welfare of its residents.
Kromko tells a story about an elderly couple he ran into outside the City Court where he was gathering signatures. They were upset and crying. They explained to Kromko that they believed that if they came to court and explained to the judge that they had been trapped behind a car that stopped mid-way through the intersection; the judge would surely dismiss the citation. He did not, and their fixed monthly income took a big hit they really could not afford.
According to Tucson Traffic Justice, “the company coaches the cops who present the evidence. On top of that American Traffic Solutions also has sessions with the judges assigned to these cases.”
Kromko, who served in the Arizona Legislature for years fighting for individual rights, says he is involved because the cameras are a scam and they violate people’s fundamental rights. “If this were about safety, this wouldn’t be happening, but this is about people making a left turn one-tenth of a second too late.”
The group only needed 12,700 signatures, but got over twice that amount with only a small band of 10 volunteers gathering signatures leaving one Tucson resident to question how anyone could support the cameras, “Who the hell is going to vote for them? What city council candidate in their right mind could support them?”