OPINION:
Everyone who lives or works in Washington knows that speed and red-light revenue cameras aren’t there for anyone’s safety. After an exhaustive review of the sordid facts, the D.C. inspector general on Monday confirms it.
The $89 million the system collects every year still isn’t enough to satiate city hall greed. The District has now signed contracts with just about every revenue-camera vendor in the country with the view of collecting still more loot.
The D.C. Council violated its pledge never to do business with an Arizona company (over immigration policy) to let American Traffic Solutions set up cameras. It signed another deal with Redflex Traffic Systems, whose former CEO currently faces federal corruption charges, to photograph and mail tickets to “overweight” commercial vehicles. Sensys, an offshoot of a Swedish company, will set up “gridlock cameras” to ticket drivers who get trapped in an intersection during heavy traffic. Xerox, which got caught issuing thousands of fraudulent tickets in Baltimore, will process tickets.
According to the inspector general, the District’s ticketing standards are so slapdash that the ticket “reviewer” is free to declare the accused “guilty” even when there’s doubt about it. “The onus in these instances should be on the District — to make issued tickets irrefutable,” says the inspector general, “not on vehicle owners to prove how the District erred when it issued the tickets.”
The audit offered the eminently reasonable suggestion that the District not send a speed-camera ticket when the machine is not certain about which car in the photograph triggered the camera. Determining actual guilt is too much trouble. “If the District followed the report’s recommendation,” wrote Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy L. Lanier, “it would become nearly impossible to enforce traffic violations against any vehicle unless that vehicle was the only vehicle on the roadway.” This is the Feerless Fosdick school of law enforcement from the comics pages — nail everyone, and you’re sure to include the guilty party.
Cameras are being added so rapidly that soon there won’t be a street in the city free from the flashing menace. The city insists that a camera is needed at 27th and K streets in Northwest to protect kids at Georgetown Montessori School and the students at the Fashion Institute of Design. The inspector general points out that the institute is actually a small administrative office, located blocks away from the proposed camera location. It has no students.
A camera is proposed for the 6500 block of Western Avenue, which has no speeding problem and hasn’t recorded any accidents. The District obviously didn’t expect anyone to check their work. The city stepfathers are determined not to repeat the gaffe of former Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who described the revenue-camera program as necessary “to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues.” He forgot the prescribed ritual to speak the safety blah-blah.
The District talks big about safety, but the inspector general offers proof that the safety blah-blah is only for show. If this were vaudeville such a show would get the dreaded hook.
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