OPINION:
Maryland is hiking the maximum cost of a speed camera ticket tenfold. A citation that runs $40 today will siphon up to $425 from vehicle owners’ wallets on Wednesday, when the new fine schedule kicks in. Such leaps are common in a multi-billion-dollar industry that spins a tale of improved safety for the gullible while extracting profit from the dangers it creates.
Speed cameras in the District have multiplied even faster than the inflation rate in the Old Line State. Verra Mobility, a rent-seeking contractor, controls 547 robotic highwaymen in the federal city, yet traffic fatalities aren’t decreasing. The latest data show 52 deadly traffic collisions in 2024, equal to the 2023 toll of 52.
That’s nearly double the number of deaths compared to 2019, when there were 400 fewer devices supposedly protecting the public. Mailing bills to people driving a bit more swiftly than the speed limit hasn’t prevented vehicular mayhem.
There’s a reason that’s true. Wrecks happen when panic-prone drivers slam on the brakes at the sight of a roadside camera. If the following car is caught off-guard, a nasty fender bender ensues. The District compounded the impact of this well documented side-effect by lowering the city’s already paltry speed limits to help balance the budget.
The municipal looting may not last much longer. Rep. Scott Perry, is on a crusade to terminate D.C.’s robotic cash grab and its photo-enforced ban on turning right on a red light. Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Republican introduced H.R. 5525 to repeal the city’s authority to have the cameras.
House appropriators rolled his proposal into this year’s funding bill for the District, but lawmakers must hold the line to ensure it survives in the inevitable end-of-year omnibus government spending spree.
Automated ticketing programs deserve to be shut down because they are riddled with fraud. Jen Barber, an intrepid independent reporter in Arizona used freedom of information requests to reveal the scandalous way Verra Mobility handles the city of Mesa’s cameras.
Apparently inspired by President Joseph R. Biden’s staff and their use of the autopen to issue pardons to friends without the commander in chief’s knowledge, Verra Mobility mailed thousands of legally consequential notices bearing falsified judicial signatures.
Mesa Court Supervisor Melanie Real confirmed this in a July 2024 email to a city official: “We should not be issuing citations with a Judge who no longer presides at the Mesa Municipal Court.”
Up to that point, tickets were going out under the names of two former judges who couldn’t have possibly approved what was going on. Not only was the city’s traffic enforcement outsourced to a private firm, the judicial power was as well. The court happily supplied the vendor with an updated digital signature for Judge Stephen Umpleby, the current presiding magistrate.
Mesa isn’t alone in the shenanigans. Paradise Valley Municipal Court Director Jeanette Wiesenhofer wrote in a January email: “We are having massive issues with Verra and they sent out thousands of complaints using the first attachment format, that we didn’t approve.”
As long as these schemes continue raking in billions nationwide, municipalities and courts won’t complain too loudly about paperwork irregularities or the rise in accidents the machines are known to cause.
That’s where Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has an opportunity to make American streets safe again. He can stop the madness by cutting off the federal grants that encourage cities to implement these dangerous and unethical swindles.
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