Big Brother may soon be watching…
Posted By J.T. on April 28, 2009
The House Transportation Committee unanimously passed Senate Bill 58, which will most likely expand the use of red-light cameras in Missouri.
The Bill is known as the Missouri Universal Red Light Enforcement Act (MURLE) and would regulate how the cameras are to be used, in addition to sending some money to the state, via the “Red Light Enforcement Fund”. There will be a $500 fee for each camera installed and the “money in the fund shall be used to conduct audits to ensure agency compliance with the provisions of sections 304.271 to 304.281, including, but not limited to, ensuring that the agency is distributing the fines collected as required under section 304.288.”
“Any agency that implements a system shall submit an annual report to the Missouri department of transportation. The report shall include, at a minimum:
(1) The number of intersections enforced by active systems;
(2) The number of notices of violation mailed;
(3) The number of notices of violation paid;
(4) The number of hearings; and
(5) The total revenue collected as a result of the program.
What this means is that each municipality is to figure out how much money is being collected and how many people are actually contesting the tickets. If everyone who received a ticket showed up to court instead of mailing in the fine then the cities would end up losing money in the long run.
Privacy advocates are up in arms about this Orwellian practice, upset mainly because this is an issue the citizens are not even allowed to vote on. In most cities this is an act the elected officials will vote on, with no input from the pubic. The reason is because there is no way the people would vote for red-light cameras. The owner of the vehicle receives the ticket regardless of who was driving. This seems to run contradictory to the 6th Amendment, which guarantees your right to confront the witnesses against you.
The Bill would, however, regulate a few of the more dubious practices associated with the law - the length of the yellow signal and the cost of the fine. The fine will be capped at $75 (except in places that already have them) and the yellow light will be set at 4 seconds throughout the state. This is good news since other cities have placed the cameras at intersections with short yellow lights, resulting in more tickets and revenue. Dallas, Texas had to increase the timing of the yellow lights after complaints, and once the cameras were no longer profitable they were removed.
Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield already have red-light cameras. KC went live with it’s first red-light camera on April 1 and issued 610 tickets in the first month. City Councilman Russ Johnson all but admitted the cameras were solely for revenue purposes: “Other cities have installed cameras at red lights. Once people stop running them the cameras no longer become profitable and the cameras usually get taken down. There’s a good chance the same thing will happen in Kansas City.”
As of right now there are no red-light cameras in Cass County.
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