The Pelican Post

The State Legislature has essentially killed a bill that would have done away with the much-maligned red light/traffic cameras. House Bill 160 byRep. Jeff Arnold (D-Algiers) was the first of five which sought to either eliminate or place restrictions on the implementation of these cameras.

While proponents of the cameras have repeated the chorus that they make our streets safer, it doesn’t take a cynic to determine the underlying motivation behind their installation. That being said, Professor Jeffrey Sadow, who operates the blog Between the Lines, posits a very compelling compromise between the two factions.

If these cameras are going to stick around, and it looks as though they are, then the municipal governments which use them should do so properly and effectively. If they are truly concerned about driver safety, then Sadow argues (and I concur), that the fines accumulated should, for example, be directed towards funding driver’s education programs or subsidizing schools which use driver’s ed. Collected money should not be going into a general fund, used to “offset … additional administrative and legal costs…, or worse, line the pockets of various officials and bureaucrats.

Of course, this is Louisiana, so to put it euphemistically, it is often uncertain how taxpayers’ money is being spent. This entails internal auditing and transparency of record so that the public can see how their collected money is being used and whether traffic cameras are actually benefiting us.

Due process won a victory in New Orleans last week.  A civil court appeals judge threw out a traffic ticket (for a right turn on red) because there was no human witness to the infraction.

The ruling comes a few months after Jefferson Parish temporarily suspended the program amid questions about the propriety of a revenue-sharing agreement with the cameras’ manufacturer.  Let’s hope Orleans suspends its program as well, before it gets as cynical as some other cites and starts to really sacrifice motorist safety for revenue.

Attorney Joe McMahon had challenged the the ticket he was issued by Orleans Parish for an illegal right-turn on a red light at the intersection of Carrollton Ave. and Earhart Blvd. back in October 2008.  Although his vehicle was caught on camera, McMahon argues the city cannot prove he was actually driving the car.  McMahon told WDSU, “The law requires that evidence be introduced at trials… to make sure the evidence is authentic and reliable. By not having a witness there to authenticate these pictures, there is no reliability. I think that’s why the judge ruled the way he did.”

Under the Eighth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, an accused criminal has a right to confront witnesses against him in a court of law.  Louisiana state law dictates the criminal penalties for running a red light.  But like other jurisdictions across the country that have installed the revenue-generating cameras, Orleans Parish treats the traffic violations as civil matters rather than criminal ones.

That creative dodge may not hold up if McMahon continues to win in the courts.  Besides the case involving his own ticket, McMahon has filed a class-action suit against Orleans Parish with other camera victims; and acting as an attorney for others has filed similar class actions in Jefferson and Lafayette parishes.

Here’s to hoping for his future success and for more judges that treat Louisianans as people with Constitutional rights to due process; and not just ATMs for local governments.

NPR reports on a public backlash in Arizona against the state’s use of highway traffic cameras, similar to the controversial cameras in New Orleans. This has resulted in Governor Jan Brewer announcing that she will not renew the state’s contract with Redflex, the Australian “photo enforcement” company hired to install and maintain the cameras.

Meanwhile, a number of bills intended to kill the program have been introduced into the State Legislature. Similar to the case here in New Orleans, criticism of these cameras in Arizona has been fueled by the charge that it is a transparent attempt by the local government to bring in more revenues under the pretense of transportation safety, a charge even reiterated by Governor Brewer.

While Arizona can at least boast a discernible decline in highway fatalities since the implementation of this camera network, the municipal government of New Orleans lacks any comparable justification for its overreach into the daily lives of New Orleanians.

Unless city officials can present statistics verifying that the presence of a camera at the corner of St. Charles and Louisiana has done anything to make motorists safer (which some argue it most certainly has not), we can assume that the only byproduct of its installation has gone straight into the pockets of City Hall.

Recently, Jefferson Parish put an end to its traffic camera program after it was revealed that the company in charge of installing the cameras planned to give a portion of the collected revenues to a lobbyist who had steered Jefferson Parish in their direction. The company in question?: Redflex.

This revelation begs a reiteration of the question: what are the real motives for the New Orleans traffic cameras? This question, however, is essentially rhetorical; our municipal leaders need to follow the lead of Jefferson Parish and Arizona and pull the plug on this shameful chapter.