Bill in Missouri House could give KC’s red-light cameras a green light
Red-light cameras have a great view around Kansas City, but no power to ticket intersection scofflaws. Court rulings have, for the moment, turned the cameras into harmless voyeurs.
Now, the Missouri General Assembly looks poised to deputize the artificial traffic cops with legislation that would clarify what the courts have found cloudy.
The House is expected to approve legislation this week that Kansas City officials hope would let the red-light camera program blink back on.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Dave Hinson of St. Clair, said no state rules currently govern the use of traffic enforcement cameras. Hinson said he would prefer to see red-light cameras outlawed, but he’s crafted a compromise to implement tough regulations while leaving final decisions in the hands of local officials.
“This is a way to provide some certainty to cities,” Hinson said. “Ultimately, it’s a local-control issue. If the cities want to do it, that’s up to them.”
Court rulings nixed the camera-generated tickets because they don’t assign points to a driver’s record, contrary to state law. The legislation would grant special exemption for points-free moving violations for red-light camera cases.
While the House is on board with the plan, the Senate may be a tougher hill to climb. Opponents there fear that enshrining traffic enforcement cameras into state law ultimately would lead to greater proliferation around the state. That, said Democratic Sen. Jason Holsman of Kansas City, could be a slippery slope toward greater government surveillance of law-abiding citizens.
“The road to 1984 was paved with good intentions,” Holsman said. “You can do all sorts of things in the name of public safety.”
Kansas City suspended enforcement of its program in November 2013, but while the city no longer issues citations, the cameras are still on and flash when someone runs a red light.
“We’ve seen a great increase in the number of people running red lights at the dangerous intersections that we had cameras at,” said Councilman John Sharp, chairman of the Public Safety Committee. “We just don’t have the police enforcement resources to have officers there all the time”
Sharp said he has seen the videos of violators “just blasting through” red lights. He’s amazed the city hasn’t had more serious accidents since enforcement was suspended.
Under
, traffic infractions captured by cameras would not lead to points on a motorist’s driving record. Appellate courts in Kansas City and St. Louis in recent cases have raised concerns about local red-light ordinances based in part on how driver’s license points are handled. The courts have ruled that, contrary to the ordinances, running a red light is a moving violation and that Missouri law requires points be assessed.
The Missouri Supreme Court last month refused to hear Kansas City’s appeal of that ruling.
Hinson’s bill also would set a maximum fine for violations at $135.
Sharp said the no-points program changed driver behavior. In Kansas City, roughly 86 percent of people ticketed by a red-light camera never received a second citation.
No one likes getting a red-light camera ticket, Sharp said, but paying a fine “is sure a lot less cost than when you get a point violation when an officer sees you running a red light.”
City Manager Troy Schulte agreed that the city wants the program to resume.
“The data has suggested that the incidents of red-light running decreased significantly while the red-light cameras were in place, and then have started to come back up now.”
Schulte said the program is not a huge revenue source. He said the program raises about $2.2 million in fines annually, but the camera vendor gets about $1.6 million of that, for a net gain of about $600,000.
“It is a net positive generator, but the big issue is public safety.”
In an open letter published last month, the police chiefs of Kansas City and St. Louis backed the red-light cameras, saying they use the technology “to save lives and operate more efficiently.”
“The temporary suspension of some of these programs is already affecting public safety,” Kansas City’s Darryl Forté and St. Louis’ Sam Dotson wrote. “After the red-light camera enforcement was suspended, Kansas City saw a 48 percent increase in events captured by the cameras compared to the year before, when police were issuing red-light camera citations.”
St. Louis is still enforcing its program. According to the chiefs’ letter, that has resulted in safer roads. Traffic fatalities in St. Louis dropped 19 percent from 2010-2012 and total crashes dropped 12 percent, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol reports.
Holsman said the legislation probably will face fierce opposition in the Senate, where several of his colleagues have raised concerns.
“It’s red-light cameras today. Tomorrow it’s speed-trap cameras and license-plate readers. At some point in the future, it’s (radio-frequency identification) chips,” Holsman said. “This isn’t black helicopter stuff. Unless you’re diligent about preventing those technologies from impugning individual sovereignty, you’re setting up a situation where those technologies are abused by the government.”
In addition to the restrictions on penalties for a citation, the legislation would mandate that cities utilizing red-light cameras undergo engineering and crash studies for intersections where the cameras will be installed. Cities would also be required to display signs ahead of each intersection notifying drivers that the traffic signal is photo enforced. The cities also would have to launch public awareness campaigns at least 30 days before issuing citations.
This story was originally published March 10, 2014 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Bill in Missouri House could give KC’s red-light cameras a green light."