Traffic Scameras

The evil alliance between traffic camera makers and local municipalities heads to a new level in Los Angeles:

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) has installed the first-ever automated camera in the US designed to ticket drivers who make "boulevard stops" or slow to a crawl at a stop sign without fully ceasing forward motion. The little-known agency will begin issuing $100 fines next Monday, July 9, at Franklin Canyon in the heart of Los Angeles, located off of Mulholland Drive and at the top of Topanga.

The stop sign devices are based on red light camera platforms, but they differ greatly in use. The more familiar stoplight cameras typically photograph a vehicle entering an intersection if a signal light changes to red between 0.1 and 0.3 seconds after the car crosses a stop bar line (view recent report). With the new stop sign cameras, a machine will make calculations to determine whether a vehicle did not stop for a long enough period and deserves a fine.

The cameras are being installed as a prelude to the agency's expected installation of speed cameras on popular canyon roads, as first reported by TheNewspaper in April. Australian camera vendor Redflex will operate every aspect of the program in return for a $20 cut from every ticket the company is able to issue (view contract). California law explicitly prohibits both speed cameras and per-ticket photo enforcement contract provisions, but the MRCA believes the law does not apply to them.

This is another money grab by a local government agency, in cahoots with a private company that profits every time their product nabs some motorist. There was quite a scandal in San Diego in the last few years when it was shown that traffic signals were intentionally shortened in order to create more violations and thus more fines and profits. Because the MRCA doesn't choose to obey existing California law, some poor schmuck who gets a ticket will have to challenge it in court, at great expense, until the MRCA is finally put in their place. In the meantime, untold numbers of others will have gotten citations and will have paid them. It's a numbers game.