New statewide Arizona freeway speed camera tickets will come without point penalties to your driving record.

In a severe blow to the insurance industry, the cash-strapped Arizona state legislature yesterday approved an expansive speed camera program designed to boost state revenue by dropping license points and eliminating costly legal challenges. Governor Janet Napolitano (D) first announced the proposal in January, expecting it to generate $165 million in revenue from new $165 “civil” tickets mailed to vehicle owners.

The plan was adopted as part of a much larger $9.9 billion budget package that passed 16-10 in the state Senate and 31-29 in the House. Lawmakers had been desperate to find new ways to cover a $2 billion deficit. The approved budget authorizes the Department of Public Safety to hand a private company up to $20,361,300 to set up and operate speed cameras on freeways throughout the state. The first $3 million of net profit generated will go to police agencies to buy tasers, $4 million will go to the courts and the remainder will be deposited in the general fund for spending by lawmakers.

Until now, Arizona had been one of a handful of states, including California, Colorado and Illinois, to issue points against the driver’s license of the owner of a car accused by a machine of speeding. Although motorists may prefer not having points on their license, the change to a civil citation is designed to reduce costs and court challenges. Instead of proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt, the state will only need to show that it was “likely” that a vehicle was speeding. The owner of the car would then be liable, regardless of whether he was actually driving.

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Finally, someone’s fighting back against the fleecing of the general populace

Famous for liking things big, Texas lawmakers have laid the smackdown on red light and speed cameras in a big way!

HB.922 addresses this issue:

House Bill 922 amends the Transportation Code to prohibit a municipality from implementing an automated traffic control system to enforce compliance with speed limits and requires the attorney general to enforce the prohibition.

This means that cameras, automated radar or laser, or anything else designed to snag an image of a car, driver, or license plate and record its speed is now forbidden.

The even larger racket of red-light cameras have had the brakes applied by HB.1052, which requires warning signs, at least 100 feet out, before intersections at which a municipality uses a photographic traffic monitoring system to enforce compliance with a traffic-control signal.

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The most profitable UK speed camera issued $26 million in tickets at night when a speed limit change warning sign was completely unlit.

M11 cameraThe UK’s most profitable speed camera that has been sending £60 (US $120) tickets to vehicle owners at the rate of 2000 per day may now be forced to issue refunds. The device, located on the southbound M11 at Woodford, Essex is situated at the point where the speed limit suddenly drops from 70 MPH to 50 MPH. Last month motorist Simon Grills forced the Crown Prosecution Service to drop his speed camera ticket after he proved the signs warning of the speed change were effectively invisible at night. Grills produced evidence showing the lights meant to illuminate the signs had been burned out since November 18, 2005. Grills had spent months fighting the ticket he received in September 2006.

“When I got flashed I couldn’t work out how I’d missed the sign,” Grills told the Sunday Mirror newspaper. “Then it clicked — it’s simply not visible at night.”

It is estimated that since the bulbs burned out, at least 214,000 drivers had been trapped by the camera at night, generating £13 million (US $26 million) in revenue.

The speed camera in question has been the center of controversy since it was first installed, inspiring one group to take its disagreement outside the courtroom. Captain Gatso, the leader of the anti-photo enforcement vigilante organization known as Motorists Against Detection (MAD), cited the M11 camera as evidence that officials were engaging in “fleecing, not policing” and proceeded to use a heavy truck to yank the device off of its mounting in late 2002.

“We have spoken to numerous police officers and emergency service personnel countrywide and they agree that the majority of speed cameras are sited for revenue, not safety, and in a lot of cases they just impede general progress,” Captain Gatso said in a statement at the time.

Source: (Sunday Mirror (UK), 3/30/2008)

Nine out of ten speed camera tickets in New South Wales, Australia go for violations of 2 to 9 MPH over the limit.

Let’s say that again!

Nine out of ten speed camera tickets in New South Wales, Australia go for violations of 2 to 9 MPH over the limit.

A little over zealous, don’t you think?

The state of New South Wales, Australia generated A$143 million in profit from ticketing motorists last year. One of the largest sources of this revenue came from tickets issued to motorists accused of driving between 2 and 9 MPH over the limit. Documents obtained by the Sydney Daily Telegraph show that of 620,194 fixed speed camera citations issued in 2007, a total of 542,290 were for violations of 9 MPH or less. These minor violations generated $49,256,687 in revenue, helping the state to more than double the amount of fines collected over 2006.

Some state residents claim that inaccurate cameras are trapping the innocent. A lone speed camera located on St Helena Hill generated 19,381 in fines worth $2,646,916 last year. The number of fines issued exploded from an average of 13 per day in 2006 to 97 per day last year. Over a thousand motorists have insisted to local officials that they were not speeding when the camera issued a citation.

The Roads and Traffic Authority has refused to provide refunds because the agency finds no reason to question the citations.

“The RTA examined a random sample of speed camera offences that were recorded in June and found that in every case the camera was correct,” Minister for Health Reba Meagher said in answer to a parliamentary inquiry. “RTA technicians, along with the camera’s manufacturers, visited the St Helena Hill site to conduct further tests on the speed camera. These tests also proved the camera was working accurately and there were no faults in the system.”

Source: (Sydney Daily Telegraph (Australia), 3/18/2008)

A villager who lives near one of the most dangerous roads in Britain erects a fake speed camera in a bid to slow motorists down.

Gordon Crosbie said he was so fed up with drivers who hurtle along the narrow country road at speeds of up to 70mph that he built the replica Gatso using a plastic board and some reflective tape.

The 63-year-old oil worker, from Glentham, Lincolnshire, said the “camera” was so effective at slowing cars down that the villagers could once again move around the tiny village without fear of being mown down.

“It has had a 100 per cent success rate so far,” Mr Crosbie said. ”You can see it working and if it saves just one child’s life then it’s more than worth it.”

The notorious A631 Gainsborough to Market Rasen road, which runs through Glentham, is 17th in the AA’s survey of Britain’s most dangerous A roads. With the number of serious and fatal accidents on the stretch being three times the national average, it is hailed as the worst road in the East Midlands. But despite this, Mr Crosbie claimed his campaign to have fixed speed cameras installed in the village had fallen on deaf ears.

“I have lived in this village for 35 years and it really is one of the worst roads in the whole of Great Britain.

“It’s been noted by the AA and the RAC as having more accidents than any other villages. I’ve spent 20 years complaining about the traffic to the Road Safety Partnership and the police.

“All they do is come out checking the road but nothing gets done.”

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