As a percentage of the total general fund, red light cameras alone now account for 3.6 percent in 2011, up from 0.7 percent in 2008. Revenue from all fines is set to comprise 7.5 percent of the general fund.

Sen. Danny Martiny (R – Metairie), has introduced Senate Bill 75 to eliminate speed cameras across the state, and he is not surprised by the increases in revenue. He believes the city avoids putting cameras in poorer neighborhoods, and instead targets wealthy areas.

He contends that classifying red light camera tickets as an administrative violation, as opposed to a criminal violation, allows the justice system to circumvent the standard rules associated with the submission of evidence.

“If a policeman stops you and writes you a ticket for speeding, you have the right to go to court and argue your case. For [red light camera violations], there’s nobody saying they saw you speeding, so it’s much more difficult to fight.”

Attorney Joseph McMahon III echoes Sen. Martiny’s statements, and claims that municipalities have designed civil statutes associated with camera allegations to favor themselves. “We feel the entire process is unfair and heavily favors the city. People don’t have a way to realistically defend themselves, since the ordinances subvert the laws of Louisiana. So generally, you cant win.”

McMahon states that since red light camera violations do not fall under the Uniform Motor Vehicle Law of Louisiana, making it an administrative violation, certain constitutional rights are forfeited. “What the municipalities have done is created civil statutes that take away all of those rights so they can change the playing field in favor of the city.”

Robert Ross is a researcher and social media strategist with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be contacted at rross@pelicaninstitute.org, and you can follow him on twitter.

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BATON ROUGE, La – As Louisiana municipalities struggle to mend their financial straits, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu may soon be without one of his most productive, yet controversial revenue generators: automated speed cameras.

Since 2008, Orleans parish officials have depended on an ever-expanding grid of red light and speed cameras to provide revenue for their budget. Currently, the New Orleans program of “Automated Traffic Enforcement Systems” (ATES) is comprised of at least fifty-six high tech optical devices that cast an ever-watchful eye over the city’s streets.

These devices face termination in the current legislative session with Senate Bill 75 and House Bill 347. The former, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Martiny (R – Metairie), would prohibit local municipal authorities from authorizing, installing, using, or enforcing electronic vehicle speed enforcement systems to regulate traffic laws. Here, the key word is speed, meaning that red light camera systems would be unaffected. (Click here for a list New Orleans area traffic cameras.)

The House bill, whose primary author is Rep. Jeffery Arnold (D – New Orleans), would prevent local governing authorities from imposing or collecting fines from both speed and red light infringements. Only a voter approved local referendum could overturn the prohibition.

The cameras under consideration operate as you would imagine: a vehicle traveling through a red light after a predetermined time or exceeding a specified speed limit stimulates an automatic response from the cameras. And, as many of us are all too familiar, the identifying features of the motor vehicle are recorded.

Unfortunately, suspected traffic violators caught in the lens of the cameras face an uphill battle if they choose to contest the matter.

According to Joseph McMahon III, a Metairie attorney, who has been challenging the system for the past three years, says parishes and other municipalities across Louisiana have turned traffic violations, which were previously criminal offenses, into civil matters.

The adjustment, he claims, has deprived citizens of their constitutional rights.

“They have basically altered the system. They have changed the rules in such a way that anyone who gets a ticket is at an absolute disadvantage”.

The Senate Bill’s sponsor, Daniel Martiny, echoes the notion that the burden of proof is on the motorist to prove they weren’t speeding.

“The system ought to lend itself to a fair resolution of dispute, and it doesn’t.”

Martiny also conveyed a common perception shared by opponents of the system “It’s so obvious that it is a money grab by local governments.”

At $145 for a red light violation and between $80 and $240 for speeding tickets, the money quickly adds up. In 2009 and 2010, the revenue in Orleans was more than $13 million and $24 million, respectively. That suggests more than 10,000 tickets every month.

For the 2011 fiscal year, the Mayor’s budget projects $23 million in revenue – around 5 percent of the general fund – though critics suspect even this estimate to be a gross understatement.

The National Motorists Association has publicly voiced its opposition to speed and red-light cameras, with the claim that niether improve safety. In fact, a University of South Florida report claims that red-light cameras “increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections.”

Courtesy of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

To place the safety motive for camera use under further suspicion, six U.S. cities have been convicted of shortening the yellow light so as to catch more people on the red. However, none of those were in Louisiana.

These aren’t the only major complaints against the ATES. Last fall, plaintiffs successfully argued that the current city charter was not amended to give the Department of Public Works, who then administered the program, authority to regulate traffic violations.

Eventually, the issue made its way to the Louisiana Supreme Court which ruled that the city’s management of the program was illegal. Consequently, the use and enforcement of the cameras was temporarily suspended.

After going through a series of appeals, the New Orleans City Council eventually shifted administrative duties away from the Public Works Department to the New Orleans Police Department, on November 4, 2010. Traffic cameras then resumed business as usual.

Not surprising, the transfer of responsibility to the NOPD created its own set of problems. Most recently, a WDSU investigative team uncovered that a private, Jefferson Parish based firm, Anytime Solutions, was delegated the responsibility of reviewing the footage, ultimately determining what instances were ticket-worthy.

Ironically, the company’s vice-president is Police Commander Edwin Hosli. All of the company’s employees are high-ranking city police officers working as “paid” details. According to the same report, Anytime Solutions was paid up $10,000 every two weeks to review the material.

Since making headlines, Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas shifted duties to the motorcycle department of the Traffic Division.

Mayor Landrieu’s office has previously argued that this a crucial revenue source for the city and that the elimination of traffic cameras or red light cameras, in particular, could “impact essential city services and could result in additional furloughs and closing of city facilities.”

Despite repeated invitations, Mayor Landrieu’s office did not release a statement on the latest proposed legislation.

Justin Spittler is a research assistant with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. Spittler studies economics at Loyola University in New Orleans, and you can follow him on twitter.

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.

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.