Comments on: It’s all about the money: Revenue drives red-light cameras, not road safety http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2008/08/22/revenue-drives-red-light-cameras-not-road-safety/ The voice of Clarksville, Tennessee Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:42:47 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: LookUp http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2008/08/22/revenue-drives-red-light-cameras-not-road-safety/comment-page-1/#comment-9950 LookUp Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:30:12 +0000 http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/?p=4417#comment-9950 In many things, good and bad, where California goes so goes the nation. In CA they now have contractually-specified ticket quotas. For example: The June 2008 camera contract between Roseville and RedFlex penalizes the City if: "...the City or Police waives more than 10 percent of valid violations forwarded to the Police for acceptance...." The contract between Los Angeles County MTA ("Metro") and ACS requires: "The Contractor shall be required to maintain, at a minimum, the existing rates of citations issued by location...." The other problem in any locale is that the city will be dealing with a private company that HAS to keep its income up, or go bust. Within a couple months after the first batch of tickets is sent out, there will be a big drop in the number of new tickets, and a commensurate drop in the company's income. When that happened in California, they re-focused the cameras to write tickets for rolling right turns. A huge cash crop... Look Out! In many things, good and bad, where California goes so goes the nation. In CA they now have contractually-specified ticket quotas. For example: The June 2008 camera contract between Roseville and RedFlex penalizes the City if:
“…the City or Police waives more than 10 percent of valid violations forwarded to the Police for acceptance….”
The contract between Los Angeles County MTA (”Metro”) and ACS requires:
“The Contractor shall be required to maintain, at a minimum, the existing rates of citations issued by location….”

The other problem in any locale is that the city will be dealing with a private company that HAS to keep its income up, or go bust. Within a couple months after the first batch of tickets is sent out, there will be a big drop in the number of new tickets, and a commensurate drop in the company’s income. When that happened in California, they re-focused the cameras to write tickets for rolling right turns. A huge cash crop…

Look Out!

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