USA Iowa Constitutional Amendment Would Outlaw Traffic Cameras
Iowa Constitutional Amendment Would Outlaw Traffic Cameras
State lawmaker wants Iowa voters to amend constitution to ban the use of photo enforcement.
Lawmakers in Iowa are kicking off the new year with a serious attempt to end the use of red light cameras and speed cameras in the state. A half-dozen cities use the devices even though the legislature did not grant local jurisdictions the authority to allow for-profit companies to issue traffic tickets through the mail. Instead, the Iowa Supreme Court in 2008 declared such systems could be used (view ruling).
To undo that ruling, state Representative Jeremy Taylor (R-Sioux City) on Wednesday introduced what would be the country's first-ever state constitutional ban on the use of cameras. The measure would have to be enacted by two consecutive sessions of the legislature before being placed on the ballot for the approval of a majority of Iowa voters.
"Automated traffic law enforcement systems shall not be used to enforce the provisions of law relating to traffic on the public roads of the state," House Joint Resolution 2003 states. "For purposes of this section, 'automated traffic law enforcement system' means a device with one or more sensors working in conjunction with an official traffic control device or signal or a speed measuring device to produce recorded images of vehicles being operated in violation of traffic or speed laws.
Taylor has the support of Governor Terry Branstad (R), who blasted the use of cameras at a Sioux City Rotary Club meeting Thursday. While taking questions from the audience, Branstad said it was "wrong" for Sioux City to borrow against future red light camera revenue and that he saw a problem with not allowing vehicle owners to face their accuser. Though the governor plays no role in the process of amending the state constitution, his position could create a hurdle for legislation passed by the House last year that authorizes cameras with $50 red light camera tickets and photo radar tickets of up to $625 each.
In 2010, red light cameras operating in five Iowa cities issued 56,312 tickets worth $5,475,092. The Dutch company Gatso and the Australian company Redflex Traffic Systems also issued a total of 87,828 speed camera tickets in the cities of Cedar Rapids and Davenport. The foreign companies each pocketed about 40 percent of the amount of revenue generated by the program.
To get around this, some state lawmakers introduced proposals to reduce the financial incentive for cities to set up automated ticketing programs. House File 612 requires "one hundred percent of the fines collected" be spent on road construction or maintenance. House File 105 requires camera revenue be directed to lowering property taxes.
A copy of the proposed constitutional amendment is available in a 40k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: 
House Joint Resolution 2003 (Iowa General Assembly, 1/11/2012)
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Add a commentGovernment's revenue-raising justifications should never trump safety considerations.
Red-Lighting Photo Traffic Enforcement
By Ross Kaminsky on 1.20.12 @ 6:08AM
Government's revenue-raising justifications should never trump safety considerations.
BOULDER, Colo. -- Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe is introducing a bill to ban photo traffic enforcement, including both speed and red light cameras, statewide. Sen. Renfroe frames it properly: "People need to be held accountable for their actions, but government should be about safety not revenue."
Many people are sympathetic to red-light cameras, assuming they cause fewer people to run red lights, a behavior especially dangerous to others. But that assumption also assumes that fewer red light scofflaws equates to fewer accidents at intersections. Perhaps surprisingly, a raft of studies appear to show that red light cameras may actually be increasing the number of traffic accidents: People afraid of the cameras often stop short, including when the light is yellow, causing the driver behind them also to brake suddenly, occasionally unable to do so in time and rear-ending the camera-fearing driver in front (and causing the same problem for the third car in this line of traffic). To be sure, those in favor of cameras have a couple of studies they quote supporting increased safety due to cameras.
I've never been sympathetic to speed cameras for a simple reason: Both here in Boulder and around where I used to live in Australia, speed cameras are put in places where there is little safety justification but where people are likely to be exceeding the speed limit, though not enough to have any implications for safety.
Read more: Government's revenue-raising justifications should never trump safety considerations.
Florida House Backs Down on Red Light Camera Fight
Florida House Backs Down on Red Light Camera Fight
Florida panel guts legislation that would have secured due process rights to vehicle owners accused by a camera.
The Florida legislature came close to banning the use of red light cameras last year. The state House voted 59 to 57 in favor of overturning the 2010 statute permitting the use of automated ticketing machines, but municipal and traffic camera lobbyists were successful in blocking the bill in the Senate.
This year, the anti-camera effort has returned, but a vote last Wednesday suggests photo enforcement opponents face an uphill battle. The House Transportation & Highway Safety Subcommittee voted 10 to 3 to gut the Florida Motorist Rights Restoration Act, which would have offered a number of protections for the owners of vehicles accused by a red light camera.
The measure would have required unannounced, third-party testing of the camera's accuracy every six months. Currently, there are no procedures in place for verifying the accuracy of a camera. The private, for-profit vendors who own and operate the machines self-certify the accuracy of their own products. The bill would have established a $500 penalty against any city or traffic camera vendor that issues a ticket from an inaccurate, untested device. The prosecution would also have the burden of establishing the guilt of the accused.
Subcommittee members were not interested. They stripped all of the motorist protections and replaced the measure with one that deals with rare cases of a vehicle owner filing an affidavit claiming someone else was driving the vehicle. The bill ensures the second recipient would get a "notice of violation" instead of a traffic citation carrying court costs.
Groups like the National Motorists Association supported the original version of the bill, although it wanted a provision mentioning speed cameras struck out.
"Short of a full camera ban, this act will at least help to curb the inevitable abuses that occur when government agencies focus more on revenue generation than on protecting citizens' rights," the group wrote in a message to Florida activists. "We support this legislation and encourage you to as well."
Camera opponents, nonetheless, were divided because of a line stating that photo radar devices would be subject to the testing requirement. Because speed cameras are not authorized under Florida law, the language would be seen by the court as the legislature's approval for their use, which is the very technique used by Tennessee lawmakers to bring red light cameras and speed cameras to the state.
Other legislation pending before the legislature would encourage longer yellow times as well as an all-out repeal of the red light camera authorization bill.
Queensland - False Speeding fine was last straw
The Bulletin News 26th Dec 2011
AFTER nine weeks of radium treatment in Brisbane, the last thing Sidney Dooley wanted to come home to was a $200 speeding fine.
Especially when the December-issued ticket was for his boat trailer, which hasn't left the shed at his Zilzie home in nine months.
"I thought, what's going on here?" Mr Dooley said.
After taking a closer look at the infringement notice, Mr Dooley realised the photo, captured on a speed camera, was of a four-wheel-drive vehicle caught speeding in Brisbane.
"I don't own a 4WD and I've never ever driven a car in Brisbane," he said.
The 69-year-old, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer 18 months ago, said that at this stage of his life it was something he didn't need to deal with.
Mr Dooley said it was mistakes such as this that showed a need for human contact to be brought back into the system.
"Everything is done by a computer these days. But we've got a brain and they haven't," he said.
A spokesperson for the Queensland Police said the incorrect infringement notice was a result of human error and apologised for the inconvenience caused to Mr Dooley.
They said the police had a rigorous quality assurance process in place to adjudicate on camera detected offences to minimise errors similar to the one present in this matter.
They confirmed that the notice had been waived and no further action would be required from Mr Dooley. But Mr Dooley said it came down to better surveillance. "Things have got to be checked and then double checked."
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Speed Camera Company Boasts "20,000 Perth Motorists Fined "
(openPR) - Wiesbaden / Perth. Only a few days into operation a PoliScanspeed speed enforcement system is currently delivering convincing results in Australia: In just five days the system from machine vision specialist VITRONIC caught 20,000 speeders – despite widespread publicity of the system’s installation.
The Australian website “Perth Now“ quotes Police Minister Rob Johnson “When you get 20,000 people in five days exceeding the speed limit on the Mitchell Freeway, these people are just absolute plain idiots.”
The Australian Police’s figures once again show the superiority of modern speed enforcement systems. PoliScanspeed from VITRONIC captures considerably more violations than conventional technologies. It operates with state-of-the-art LIDAR technology that makes in-road loops and sensors a thing of the past. The laser based enforcement system is reliable even in challenging situations such as road work areas and bends or when vehicles tailgate or change lanes.
Since its foundation in 1984, VITRONIC GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, offers machine vision systems in three main areas: industrial automation, logistics and traffic technology. The product range spans from standardized to individually customized solutions. All products are developed and produced in-house by VITRONIC.
VITRONIC's core competence in the field of traffic technology is the enforcement of vehicles in free-flowing traffic. State and local authorities as well as private service providers use VITRONIC products for increased safety. Tolling system operators use these technologies for automating toll collection and enforcement.
The company is the among the world's leading industrial machine vision companies and has a workforce of about 340 in five continents. VITRONIC products are currently in use in 40 countries.
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Queensland Australia - More than 3000 speeding drivers nabbed
Almost 100 people have been booked for drink driving and more than 3000 have been detected speeding in the first 24 hours of the annual Christmas Queensland police road blitz.
No deaths were recorded, although 24 people were injured in 20 accidents across the state, police say.
In the 24 hours from midnight on Thursday, police conducted 11,914 breath tests and 37 drug tests on Queensland drivers.
Just one person tested positive for drugs while 95 drivers were taken off the road for driving with a blood alcohol limit above 0.05.
Police cameras detected 2318 vehicles speeding while another 854 were booked manually.
Both figures are up on last year, when during the same period 1720 motorists were booked by speed cameras and 561 manually.
Overall 900 more people were booked (3316 offences) in the first 24 hours of the annual Christmas police road blitz than for the same period last year (2408).
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Add a commentVictoria (Australia) - Speed cheats pay to keep licence
Herald Sun -
EXCLUSIVE: SPEEDING drivers are keeping their licences because they are exploiting a legal loophole to pay a fine to avoid getting demerit points.
Up to 50,000 rogue drivers each year pay a fine to avoid demerit points.
The Herald Sun has learned the "pay-to-speed" clause has boosted government coffers by $112 million in three years.
The loophole allows motorists to cop an extra $717 fine on top of their original traffic fine if they do not tell police who was driving at the time of the offence.
The points attached to the original fine are not recorded against any driver's licence.
There is no limit to the number of times a driver or a company can pay the extra fine to avoid demerit points.
A police source said cab and truck drivers were the worst offenders, with companies blatantly allowing drivers to stay on the road.
The revelation comes as the Herald Sun today reports that more than 11,000 years have been lost due to fatal accidents on Victoria's roads already in 2011.
Road safety campaigners have called for the farcical loophole to be immediately overhauled.
"The sooner we can get these idiots off the road the sooner we can start to reduce the carnage," RoadSafe spokesman Andy Milbourne said.
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Switzerland - Sharing Online Speed Camera Warnings to be Banned
People who reveal the location of Swiss speed cameras on the internet face fines of up to 10,000 francs ($10,700), under new laws.
Like rebellious drivers everywhere, Swiss motorists have been using the internet to stay ahead of the police. Facebook group ‘Mobile radar reports: Switzerland’ has about 14,000 users. But a new law passed this week by the Swiss parliament will make it illegal to share information online about the location of speed cameras.
With 91 votes in favour and 72 against, the National Council approved the ban on speed camera warnings. The ban will come into effect in 2013 at the earliest.
According to socialist Edith Graf-Litscher, the spokeswoman for the national commission that proposed the ban, individuals will still be allowed to warn each other about cameras, but it will be illegal to make a public announcement on the subject on Facebook or Twitter.
Both the Swiss People’s Party and the Radical Party rejected the ban.
“This is a totally disproportionate decision,” said Radical Party councillor Markus Hutter, pointing out that even the police erect speed camera warning signs and that GPS navigation systems often alert drivers when they are approaching cameras.
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Victoria (Australia) - Speed Camera Commissioner a New Avenue of Complaint
Heral Sun
THE man who exposed rampant corruption in Victoria's racing industry is turning his sights on the state's controversial speed and red light camera system.
Former County Court judge Gordon Lewis will today be named Australia's first road safety camera commissioner.
His appointment means motorists who believe they have been wrongly snapped by dodgy cameras will at last have an independent body to complain to.
More than 1.3 million Victorian motorists paid just under $250 million in speed and red light camera fines in 2010-11.
It was Mr Lewis who produced a damning report in 2008 which revealed organised crime had infiltrated the racing industry, that racing had a culture of tolerating criminality and that it was "commonplace" for criminals to use the betting ring to launder money.
Camera issues Mr Lewis is expected to investigate include:
WHETHER faulty fixed speed cameras on EastLink have churned out thousands of dodgy fines.
WHETHER senior traffic cop Trevor Bergman was correct in his recent claim that 4343 motorists were wrongly booked by a mobile speed camera in Kingsclere Ave, Keysborough.
EXAMINING claims by hundreds of motorists that a malfunctioning red turning arrow at the notorious intersection of Nepean Highway and Bay Rd, Cheltenham, resulted in them being snapped and fined when they had done nothing wrong.
Add a commentRead more: Victoria (Australia) - Speed Camera Commissioner a New Avenue of Complaint
Fixed speed cameras for freeways
WA's first fixed speed camera will be installed this week on the Mitchell Freeway in a bid to slow down speeding motorists and reduce WA's road toll.
Road Safety Minister Rob Johnson said the camera would be placed northbound near the Karrinyup Road exit.
There were four fatal and two critical injury speed-related crashes on that section of the freeway between 2006 and 2010.
“Speed camera operations in this area detected 18 per cent of vehicles exceeding the speed limit between August and December 2011,” Mr Johnson said.
“It is recognised nationally and worldwide that the use of fixed cameras, combined with mobile and red light speed cameras, is one of the most effective ways of reducing the level of speed-related crashes.
“These cameras will complement the additional motorcycle police patrols on Perth’s freeways and main arterial roads and ensure motorists drive at safe speeds to reduce the risk of serious and fatal crashes.”
Mr Johnson said any motorist who wanted to ignore the new fixed cameras would be financially contributing to the Road Trauma Trust Account , which currently receives two-thirds of all revenue raised from speed and red light camera infringements.
From July next year, the RTTA will receive 100 per cent of all camera revenue.
Video of Channel 7 News (Top - After the adverts)
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