Maryland Speed Cameras

Legislation to End Workerless Workzone Cameras Reintroduced

2012-01-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

Legislation has been introduced to the general assembly which would remove a provision of state law which currently allows freeway "workzone" speed monitoring systems to be used "regardless of whether workers are present". The proposed legislation (Senate Bill 57 and House Bill 326) would allow the cameras only when a worker is present on the roadway, median divider, or shoulder within or adjacent to the work zone.

The proposed legislation was introduced last year as Senate Bill 30 and was championed by Senator Jim Brochin. The bill was killed in committee. This year the legislation is being sponsored by Senators Brochin(D, District 42), Jacobs(R, District 34), Kittleman(R, District 9), and Stone(R, District 6), and in the house by a bipartisan group of 46 lawmakers : Delegates Frank (R, District 42), Aumann (R, District 42), Bates (R, District 9A), Beitzel(R, District 1A), Boteler(D, District 8), Bromwell(R, District 8), Cluster(R, District 8), Conaway(D, District 40), DeBoy(D, District 12A), Dwyer(R, District 31 ), Eckardt(R, District 37B ), Elliott(R, District 4B ), Fisher(R, District 27B), George(R, District 30), Glass(R, District 34A), Guzzone(D, District 13), Hogan(R, District 3A), Hough(3B, District 3B), Impallaria(R, District 7), Jacobs(R, District 36), Kach(R, District 5B), Kelly(D, District 1B), Kipke(R, District 31), McConkey(R, District 33A), McDermott(R, District 38B), McDonough(R, District 7), Miller(R, District 9A), Minnick(D, District 6), Mitchell(D, District 44), Morhaim(D, District 11), Myers(R, District 1C), Norman(R, District 35A), Olszewski(D, District 6), Otto(R, 38A), Parrott(R, District 2B), Ready(R, District 5A), Robinson(D, District 40), Schuh(R, District 31), Schulz(R, District 4A), Serafini(R, District 2A), Smigiel(R, District 36), Stocksdale(R, District 5A), Szeliga(7, District 7), Vitale(R, District 33A), Weir(D, District 6), Wood(D, District 29A).

The current wording of state law permits citations to be issued on interstate highways in 'workerless' work zones where no actual work has been taking place for an indefinite period of time. Some workzones have reduced speed limits, even when no work is taking place and all lanes are wide open and un-obstructed. Data from the SHA website shows that the 'SafeZones' program has issued approximately 849,442 citationsas of 1/24/2012, with cameras now deployed on most of the major interstate highways in the state. Many of those $33million worth of citations were issued when no workers were present and no work taking place.

The SHA had previously written two reports showing how other types of speed control, "speed display trailers" and "Portable Changeable Message Signs with Speed Display" were extremely effective at reducing average traffic speeds in work zones.... producing average speed reductions of 2-7mph and 5.6-7.9MPH respectively. This is as good if not better than the speed reductions the SHA has claimed were produced by speed monitoring systems, yet the use of such relatively inexpensive traffic engineering solutions was NOT made standard by the SHA in workzones where speed monitoring systems are NOT in use.

And why should other traffic engineering solutions be considered, when they can treat the every problem as a law enforcement problem and extract money from motorists? And if the cameras, or the reduced speed limit set to keep cameras profitable, produce a little extra traffic congestion due to overly cautious motorists slamming on the brakes at camera sites -- all when there is no work taking place and thus no threat to worker safety-- oh well. It's just a few hundred thousand peoples' time being lost every day for NO safety benefit. And certainly not for any benefit which according to the SHA's own studies could be achieved in other ways.

Citizens who have an opinion on this legislation can find their own legislators' contact information at www.mdelect.net.

Photographing Cops in Maryland a Risky Proposition

2012-01-27T17:24:00.000-08:00

Police departments in Maryland can photograph motorists with impunity. But as one photo journalist learned, police in Montgomery County have a serious double standard when it comes to citizens photographing cops.

Photo Journalist Mannie Garcia of Kensington shot a video of Montgomery County Police on June 16, 2011 making an arrest. According to Garcia's account ""When an officer came up to me, I let the camera go, I opened up my hands, and I said, 'I'm Mannie Garcia, and I'm with the press.' Then two things happened at about the same time: he grabbed me by the neck and says, 'That's it, you're under arrest'; and he pulled my arm behind me, put me in a choke hold, and started dragging me across the street."

Police charged him with "disorderly conduct". The account in the police report differs wildly from that of the reporter. Garcia lost his white house press credentials due to the charges, which need to be renewed every year. He was eventually acquitted of all charges against him in December, and stated that he might seek a civil rights suit against the county. The card containing the video he was taking the video was never returned. Garcia claims the incident is an example of a "catch and release" policy used by police to stop photographing off arrests by journalists by charging with offenses such as trespassing, resisting arrest, or disorderly conduct.

In 2010, two citizens were charged under Maryland wiretapping laws for filming police officers. An attorney general's opinion was issued that filming police is not illegal. No worries though, plenty of other charges they can make up. Meanwhile, surveillance of Maryland drivers by police continues to expand with no end in sight.

Studies Refute Insurance and Camera Company Red Light Camera Claims

2012-01-26T05:26:00.000-08:00

New studies from Kansas City and Florida debunk claims by the insurance industry and photo enforcement companies that red light cameras reduce accidents.

A report appearing in the Florida Public Health Review evaluated claims made by a previous report by the IIHS (an insurance industry funded group) which had claimed that red light cameras broadly reduced accidents in many US cities. The critique, entitled "Counterpoint: The Insurance Institute for highway Safety Study Actually Found Cities Using Red Light Cameras Had Higher Red Light Running Fatality Rates" was written by three PhDs identified numerous flaws in the IIHS study (read complete report and the report summary on the hsc.usf.edu web site). "Our review reveals the 2011 IIHS study is logically flawed and violates basic scientific research methods that are required for a study’s findings to be valid. It has neither internal nor external validity."

The Florida report noted that there was an extreme sampling bias in the study, given that 25% of the cities in the 'control' group in the IIHS study had extremely low red light running fatality rates(0-2) in the "before" period, and as such it would have been impossible for those cities to 'improve' in the after period. The Florida study also noted some math errors in the IIHS data "For example, population is the denominator in both outcome measures reported (e.g., fatalities per 100,000-population), as well as a numerator in the variable 'population per square mile."

The Florida report concluded "Thus, cities using cameras are estimated to have a 25 percent higher red light running fatality rate in the 'after' period relative to cities not using cameras, despite the greater reported percent reduction in the former," and that "This suggests other interventions were more effective in lowering fatality rates at signalized intersections. However, the authors of the IIHS study did not cite these findings."

The Florida report also noted that insurance companies actually make more revenue in those states where red light camera tickets carry 'points', and that in fact insurance companies actually make more money if tickets are accompanied by 'points', or and are 'ambivalent' about reducing accident accident rates because "crashes resulting from engineering defects of automobiles can be imputed to drivers, which is also true of roadway engineering defects, such as yellow light timings that are set too short, thereby forcing red light running". So if traffic engineering decisions make accidents more likely, your insurance rates go up and the insurance company may make the same or even more money in the long term.

Meanwhile, a study by the Kansas City Police showed that overall accidents increased after red light cameras were deployed. "In the cameras’ second year of use, accidents were higher at 11 of the 17 intersections being monitored. Overall, wrecks were up 18 percent at those locations." writes the Kansas City Star. The study also showed
"• Wrecks more than doubled at 59th Street and Bruce R. Watkins Drive, the intersection that posted the largest increase.

• Rear-end wrecks were the most common type of wreck in all three years studied, before and after the cameras were installed."
The Kansas City report also noted that more than half of the violations written were going to motorists who don't stop completely before turning right at a red light, rather than for 'straight through' red light running.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/23/3387905/kc-police-study-suggests-red-light.html#storylink=cpy

Baltimore City Speed Camera Issues Ticket To the Dead

2012-01-20T03:46:00.000-08:00

WBFF reports that a Speed Camera in Baltimore City issued a citation to an Anne Arundel County man who passed away over 3 years previously.

The citation was issued by a camera on Sinclair Lane in Baltimore to Michael Keith for traveling 43mph in a 30mph zone on November 25, 2011 and demanded a $40 payment. Unfortunately Mr Keith was unable to pay the fine or contest the citation, having passed away in 2008. The family of the deceased stated that neither the tag nor the pickup truck shown on the citation were ever owned by Michael. The family was originally concerned about identity theft. After police were contacted, they stated that the tag was in fact not even valid. "The fact that my son passed away in May of 2008 and something like this is surfacing in November of 2011... which it's really against his name. It's not right. It's not something that should happen." stated the mother of the deceased.

See complete story on WBFF

The camera, owned by ACS State and Local Solutions (a division of Xerox Corporation) is located at one of approximately 142 sites published by the city of Baltimore. Baltimore officials, like all jurisdictions using speed cameras, claim that all photo citations are carefully reviewed before being issued.

In February 2011, WBALTV reported that a police officer who had been deceased for months had 'signed' 2000 red light camera citations after his death. Also in February 2011, StopBigBrotherMD reported on another instance where a Baltimore City camera cited the wrong vehicle, where the image was so dark the vehicle was barely visible. In that instance it took the motorist 7 months to get the flag cleared from his registration at the MVA, eventually telling StopBigBrotherMD that he would seek to register his car in another state to avoid these types of problems in the future. In April of 2010, WBFF news reported that a speed camera in the city of Baltimore had mistakenly issued over 900 citations when it was configured to the wrong speed limit.

National Camera News: Iowa Town Blames "Bermuda Triangle" For Speed Camera Errors

2012-01-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

Engineers from Speed camera vendor Redspeed have blamed erroneous speed measurements recorded on the town of Fort Dodge, IA on an electromagnetic anomaly dubbed by the police chief as the "Bermuda Triangle".

"Police Chief Tim Carmody called the spot in the 1200 block of Sixth Avenue North the ''Bermuda Triangle." It's a spot where drivers of school buses, big panel trucks and similar vehicles have been clocked speeding by the city's mobile speed camera and radar unit even though they were obeying the 25 mph speed limit.

The problem was brought to the attention of the City Council on Dec. 19 by drivers who had wrongly received tickets in that area.

Carmody said Monday police officers did extensive testing after those complaints were received. He said they found that for a fraction of a second the speed of a large vehicle was doubled on the radar system in that block."

Now is this the part where they tell everyone "Don't speed and you won't get a ticket"?

Read the complete story on The Messenger

2012 to See Addition of Numerous Camera Sites

2012-01-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

Numerous municipalities and county governments in Maryland are planning to expand or implement new camera programs this coming year.

Prince Georges is planning on adding as many as six new cameras each month this year, with the goal of having 72 by July, according to the Washington Examiner. In the short period of time the county's current 20 cameras have been in place(since September) they have issued over 93,425 citations (face value $3.7million).

Baltimore County is planning on adding additional camera sites to its, so far, relatively small program. Under the current contract, speed camera vendor ACS State and Local Solutions (a division of Xerox Corp) receives close to 90% of the revenue, prompting some council members to seek a renegotiation of the contract terms.

In addition, other jurisdictions such as Hagerstown and Mount Airy are currently considering in the process of implementing speed camera programs, hoping for their own cut of what is now an over $77milion industry statewide. Hagerstown approved a contract with Brekford Corp to provide up to 16 cameras in exchange for 39% of the revenue. "Where not already established by the state, the city will still need to define its school zones and speed limits in those zones though another ordinance" Hagerstown Police Chief Smith said -- and indication that the designation of new school zones never previously marked as such (what has recently become an extremely common practice), or even altering existing speed limits (almost certainly downwards if other jurisdictions are any indication), may be on the table in that city.

Mount Airy raised a similar possibility of both creating new school zones and altering some speed limits as it began discussing the implementation of speed cameras.

DC Issuing Parking Tickets to Motorists Who Paid

2012-01-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

The Washington Examiner reports that the Districts 'pay by phone' parking system is causing numerous drivers to get parking tickets even though they paid.

Annandale resident Kristin Stone and her daughter found a ticket on their car last week, even after accidentally paying twice for the space outside Arena Stage. Customer service at ParkMobile, the company that runs the service, was unhelpful, they said.
"I was pretty upset. I was very frustrated," Stone said. "It wasn't working, and I thought they should make it right. If they want it to succeed in D.C., they should be taking all measures."
Stone's daughter Elizabeth said she's already received three tickets after paying by phone, two of which were dismissed after she appealed them.
Arlington resident Laura Howell was not so lucky. She received three tickets after paying by phone, none of which was dismissed after she fought them. She tries not to park in D.C. anymore, she said.
"The mobile payment system is flawed and should not be grounds to receive a ticket until all system issues are resolved," she told The Washington Examiner.

DC acknowledged to the Examiner that "glitches" are causing about 25 tickets to be mistakenly issued every day. "We're working to eliminate those problems, and if it does happen to somebody, they can appeal to the Department of Motor Vehicles."

Read more at the Washington Examiner

2011 Year in Review

2011-12-31T06:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy year for Maryland speed camera. New speed cameras and new camera programs are popping up all over the state, with camera vendors and local governments are all scrambling for their piece of what is now an over $77million per year statewide industry (and growing). Here is our 2011 year in review:

1) Speed camera vendor ACS State and Local Solutions (A division of Xerox Corporation) was revealed to be running "Astroturf" website, claiming to be grass roots organizations supporting speed cameras in Baltimore County and Howard County, when in fact they were started by a public relations company hired by ACS. ACS revealed their affiliation with the websites only after the association was revelead by Patch.com. The campaign nevertheless proved successful, with the Baltimore County County voting to expand their program and Howard County voting to begin a new speed camera program.

2) A legislative change, which would have required that "workzone speed cameras" only be deployed in workzones where there are actual workers, was rejected by the state legislature. Current law permits "workzone" cameras to be used "regardless of whether workers are present", and many if not most of the tickets issued by SHA cameras so far have been issued when no work was taking place. The SHA this year began deploying cameras on I-270, in a zone where the speed limit is reduced by 10mph, and on the DC Beltway (495).

3) Legislation was proposed which would have removed all police oversight from the issuance of speed camera citations. StopBigBrotherMD.org argued that this change would increase the likelyhood of errors and a reduce accountability by local governments. The requirement that sworn police approve citations was one of the main arguments made by camera supporters that there is an adequate level of review before citations are sent. The proposal which was rejected but the City of Rockville is lobbying to revive it, along with the city of Laurel (who initially proposed the change in 2011), and by the City of Gaithersburg.

4) Claims that all photo citations are currently inspected by police were questioned. In one incident, the City of Baltimore issued 2000 red light camera tickets which had been "approved" by a police officer who had been deceased for months.

In another incident, Baltimore ticketed the wrong vehicle. The citations in fact did not clearly show the vehicle at all, and the plate number was not clear, indicating that citation review procedures apparently do not always include looking at the citation images. The ticketed motorist was forced to spend months getting the bogus citation removed from his record after this registration was flagged by the city.

5) It was revealed that speed cameras provided by speed camera vendor ACS to the SHA's freeway workzone camera program, to Baltimore County, and other jurisdictions all failed to meet a requirement that they be certified by an "independent calibration laboratory", instead the cameras were all certified by the vendor. Baltimore County was unable to answer questions about the testing of their cameras at the time of our inquiry. After StopBigBrotherMD.org exposed the fact to the state legislature and members of the press, ACS arranged to find a company willing to re-certify the devices.... meeting the letter of the law only after the devices had already been in use for over a year and issued hundreds of thousands of citations. Even after that, the devices were still only tested according to a "manufacturer specification", testing the frequency the devices transmit on, and were not certified by the IACP (a much higher standard that was a requirement of the SHA's rfp for speed monitoring systems).

6) Some jurisdictions in Maryland are engaging in the practices of issuing red light camera tickets to vehicles which come to a full stop but are past the white 'stop line'. The practice has been defended by Prince George's County authorities. Other jurisdictions have been issuing red light tickets for other types of "technical fouls" including rolling right turns. Public relation campaigns by camera vendors and local governments supporting red light cameras almost always focus on 'straight through' red light running, despite the fact that when 'technical fouls' are ticketed only a minority of tickets are for actual red light running.

7) The consumer advocacy group USPIRG released a report cautioning on the privatization of law enforcement associated with automated enforcement. The report cited the effects of turning law enforcement responsibilities over to for-profit companies, typically under contract arrangements which incentive them to maximize the number of tickets issued (a common practice in Maryland). It also warned of the political clout camera companies have accumulated through lobbying activities to increase the revenue potential of cameras. The report also warned that private vendors can conceal information from the public since they are not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

8) There has been an ongoing dispute over the accuracy of speed cameras built by Optotraffic, a division of Sigma Space Corporation. A business owner in Forest Heights successfully contested several citations issued to vehicles run by his business using time-distance calculations from citation images to show that the vehicles could not have been traveling the speed shown on the citations. Another motorist presented electronic evidence recorded by a "carchip" showing his vehicle had not been traveling the speed on the citation issued by an Optotraffic camera in College Park. Other motorists made their claims publicly in letters to the editor. Forest Heights responded to the charges by plagiarizing an earlier response from the town of Cheverly where similar claims had been made earlier. There were also frequent denials of requests for information about camera programs under the Maryland Public Information act, camera logs which appear to have been falsified or filled out weeks after the fact, and motorists who tried to contest citations but were unable to get hearings for months or in some cases over a year. In addition, it was discovered that Optotraffic had removed information from citations, specifically lowering the precision of the timestamps from 3 decimal places to 1, after motorists started using the timestamped images to challenge speed readings.

Optotraffic continued to deny the errors, and public officials in Prince George's county remained unconcerned about the issue, which the county having already selected Optotraffic as their vendor (a company which had made thousands of dollars in contributions to the campaign and inauguration of the county executive.) Prince George's County unveiled a plan to deploy 72 new speed camera sites, with proposed locations including newly minted school zones created solely for speed camera use. One of the new cameras experienced technical glitches shortly after going online, but nevertheless the first few cameras pulled in $527,000 worth of fines in the first month.

9) After the county program started, Prince George's county courts eventually stopped hearing arguments about accuracy all together. One motorist contesting a citation from Forest Heights was arrested and throw in a detention cell merely for stating "I was not speeding" in court. Another Prince George's County Judge threw out the presumption of innocence completely, stating to an entire courtroom full of defendants prior to hearing any evidence that "The only defense that the court is going to accept if you were not the driver of the vehicle" and that the court would not consider any evidence questioning the accuracy of the devices.

10) Eventually the town of Cheverly disclosed documents PROVING that errors with Optotraffic cameras were real . The town's contract with Optotraffic was ended after the vendor failed to respond to questions from the town about errors, including cameras "recording" a bicycle going 57mph, "invisible vehicles" traveling 76mph, "false triggers" caused by moisture in the air, and "false speed readings for vehicles that have an irregular size such as buses and trucks with ladder racks." Optotraffic cameras are still being used in numerous municipalities, issuing thousands of tickets per month.

Given the rate at which automated enforcement is growing in the state, we're sure 2012 will be even more "interesting" than 2011. We'll be all over it.

Mount Airy Considers Speed Cameras, Creating New School Zones

2011-12-21T04:29:00.000-08:00

The town of Mount Airy is considering the deployment of speed cameras, in a plan which involves creating new school zones specifically for speed camera use and possibly lowering speed limits as well.

Since, other than in Montgomery County and a few select locations, local governments can only deploy speed cameras in designated school zones. Under state law, school zones can be legally created within 1/2 mile radius of a school, a very large geographic areas which can encompass most of the roads in any given town or city. However all roads within a 1/2 mile radius of all schools are automatically considered school zones until they are designated as such by an official act and marked with school zone signs. The precise locations they are seeking for cameras were not specified, however since the locations are not already designated as school zones this means that town officials never previously considered that simply putting up a sign labeled "school" in those locations to notify drivers of the presence of a school to be worthwhile for safety before speed cameras were considered. The fact that speed camera use was limited to school zones one of the primary arguments for selling statewide speed cameras to the public, yet the fact that cameras are being deployed in school zones which did not exist before cameras were approved has become so widespread that it rarely even merits a mention in the press when it occurs.

The Carroll County Times further reports that Commissioner member Fred Goundry "said he would also like to see the speed limit for the entirety of Main Street go down to 25 miles per hour, instead of being 30 miles per hour in some places". This change obviously has nothing to do with a desire to increase the number of citations issued to out of town drivers, even though the town had apparently considered a 30mph limit acceptable before speed cameras were introduced. There are many school zones in the state with speed limits greater than 25mph, some at 40 or 45mph, and as such it is not a standard practice that all school zones have a 25mph speed limit. Lowering a speed limit could turn vast numbers of ordinary drivers into lawbreakers merely for traveling a speed previously considered safe.

Under the plan a speed camera contractor would receive a 37% cut of the citation revenue (ie, a fee contingent om the number of tickets issued) to deploy the cameras and run the program, giving them an incentive to take whatever steps possible to maximize the number of tickets issued. While under such contracts the devices are NOMINALLY operated by city officials in order to circumvent a restriction in state law, in practice the vendors have full control over the devices and the review of citations by police is little more than a rubber stamp.

Carroll County does not currently have speed cameras. The one jurisdiction in Carroll County where a speed cameras was approved by the town government was Sykesville. The residents of Sykesville overwhelmingly rejected the program in a referendum in 2010. Photo enforcement has been placed to a popular vote a total of 24 times in the US, and has lost 23 of those times, a 95.8% rejection rate. However in Maryland putting local legislation to referendum requires collecting a very large number of signatures from local registered voters within an extremely short period of time (ie a few weeks) after the enabling legislation is passed. As such residents cannot wait to see how a program will in fact be implemented in order to put it to a vote, and collecting the signatures may be almost impossible for local opposition groups which may not even have existed previously since there were no speed cameras to oppose. In some cases local officials would promise the cameras will be used in a certain way to sell them to the public and mute opposition (such as only using them in certain locations or existing school zones), only to then go back on those promises later (such as creating new school zones, or lowering speed limits and placing cameras directly at the new point where the speed limit drops) after the camera program is a fait accompli. Residents who are later ticketed for exceeding the recently lowered speed limit in the newly created school zone based on the testimony of a vendor paid based on the number of tickets issued can thus conveniently be told to pay up and shut up.

Speed Cameras Now a $77Million Industry in Maryland

2011-12-01T05:03:00.000-08:00

The Maryland Comptroller's office has released data to StopBigBrotherMD.org in response to a Public Information Act request revealing that 13 municipalities reported speed camera revenue totaling $36million in the Fiscal Year from July, 2010-June30 2011. Combined with other cities, counties, and the State of Maryland's program whose revenue data is available in open sources, this adds up to approximately $77million worth of speed camera revenue in one year, or the equivalent of approximately 1.9million citations.

When Statewide speed cameras were passed, a provision of the law law includes a provision that
"(ii) 1. For any fiscal year, if the balance remaining from the fines collected by a political subdivision as a result of violations enforced by speed monitoring systems, after the costs of implementing and administering the systems are recovered in accordance with subparagraph (i)1 of this paragraph, is greater than 10% of the total revenues of the political subdivision for the fiscal year, the political subdivision shall remit any funds that exceed 10% of the total revenues to the Comptroller."

All municipalities running speed camera programs were required to file an SMS-1 form with the comptroller's office reporting their total speed camera revenue, program expenses, total municipal budget, and remit a portion of their revenue if it exceeded 10% of their budget. Only 10 jurisdictions reported by the deadline, with 3 more reporting within 6 weeks after the due date with the Comptroller's consent. The data reported was as follows:

Several Municipalities running speed camera programs did not report by the due date, including Rockville, Gaithersburg, New Carrollton, Glenarden, District Heights, Capital Heights, Landover Hills, Chestertown, Seat Pleasant, and Frederick. It is not obvious whether the volume of the tickets issued by any of these programs in FY11 would have been sufficient for them to have owed any revenue to the state under the provision, or whether they received permission for the delay in reporting.

Only 5 jurisdictions owed money under the '10% rule': Riverdale Park, College Park, Forest Heights, Chevy Chase, and Mount Rainier. Baltimore had by far the largest haul among cities, but due to the size of their budget was nowhere near the provision.

When adding to this the value of citations issued by the State of Maryland, and revenue reported by several other jurisdictions in open sources, this adds up to a one year total of over $77million.

There was insufficient public information available for Glenarden, District Heights, Capital Heights, Landover Hills, Chestertown, Seat Pleasant, or Frederick to estimate their revenue totals so the total amount could be somewhat greater.

Most of the jurisdictions included the speed camera revenue (including the contractor's fee) as part of their 'total revenue' reported to the Comptroller and used that to compute the maximum 10% they were allowed to retain. If the amount of revenue earned is modest this has only a small effect. However in the case of Forest Heights and Chevy Chase the effect was huge: Forest Height in particular had more revenue from speed camera than from all other sources, meaning that the 10% they were permitted to retain actually represented increasing their budget without speed camera revenue by 22.13%. This way of measuring budget size also permitted the town of Brentwood from paying any revenue to the Comptroller under this rule.

In addition 'expenses' were not defined by the state law. Chevy Chase in particular cited 72% of their speed camera revenue as an expense, largely because they had shifted regular police salaries into the 'expenses' of the safe speed budget, declaring over $360,000 worth of police salaries as expenses of the speed camera program. Forest Heights also appears to have a larger than normal portion of 'expenses', declaring expenses which are approximately $270,000.00 above their contractor's fee : an amount equal to about10% of their non-speed camera funded budget. This means that all together Forest Heights used speed cameras to increase their budget by more than 30% beyond what it would have been without speed cameras.

Forest Heights apparently plans to retain a larger proportion of this revenue in FY2012, having included an undefined $4,492,524.00 "INTERGOVERMENT" fund as part of their FY2012 budget. This means that their budget used to compute their "10%" in FY2012 is projected to be $7,768,726.00, compared to a budget of less than $2million prior to the town's adoption of speed cameras... more than tripling the size of their budget in 3 years. The Comptroller was asked in our Public Information Act request for an opinion as to whether counting this type of fund for this purpose was legal, and stated that they were unable to provide one.

In addition to the municipalities reporting, Rockville earned a projected $2.1million in revenue and Gaithersburg $2.4million. New Carrollton did not file a report within the scheduled timeframe, but their FY12 budget document showed a projected $750,000 in speed camera revenue for FY11. Baltimore County collected about $2.3million.

Montgomery County's FY12 budget projected speed camera revenues in FY11 of $10,687,000 in citations, as well as $1,200,000 in late fees and $320,000 in flagging fees. The $25 late fees imposed by most camera programs have the potential to increase revenues earned from the tickets. In addition the contractors collect an additional fee of about $3 per ticket from drivers who pay through their online payment websites, adding to their bottom lines.

Total payments to the State of Maryland by municipalities were $2,241,385.00. Of the 5 jurisdictions who reached the threshold under this provision, 4 of them were Optotraffic contractors. The Optotraffic programs who reported brought in a total of $13million (and several others did not report), placing Optotraffic's cut of that revenue at over $5million. ACS State and Local Solutions however remains the largest contractor, since they control the large contracts with Montgomery County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Takoma Park, Chevy Chase, and the State of Maryland.

The only program to claim a loss was Cheverly, who reported expenses exceeding camera revenues. Cheverly's contract with Optotraffic was recently broken off after they experienced numerous technical issues. Documents released by Cheverly revealed that the Optotraffic cameras they had been using (the same type used by programs in College Park, Forest Heights, New Carrollton, Riverdale Park, Prince George's County, and several other jurisdictions) had produced speed measurement errors, a revelation which supports the assertions by some who claimed they received erroneous citation from Optotraffic Cameras in jurisdictions like Forest Heights, College Park, and Brentwood, where alleged errors have also been reported. Cheverly had at one time predicted annual speed camera revenue of $2,808,500.00 in FY11 in an earlier version of their 5 year budget forecast. But instead after several citizens complained about receiving erroneous tickets the town was forced to institute tighter procedures. They eventually experienced new technical issues which forced them to stop approving citations and take cameras offline, and the revenue never materialized. After the contractor was unable to resolve or adequately explain the problems, Optoraffic declared that Cheverly's speeding problem was 'solved', broke of the contract, and Cheverly signed a new contract with speed camera contractor Brekford corp who uses a different model of camera. Cheverly then took the appropriate and courageous step of coming clean and released the telling documents revealing the issues they had experienced. We will never know for sure how much if any of the revenue collected by the many other jurisdictions using these cameras might have come from innocent drivers, and their contractor denies any errors have ever occurred.

The State's own SafeZones program issued a total of 522,802 citations during the same July 2010-June 2011 time period, according to information on the SHA website. These citations would have a net value of $20,912,080.00 if fully paid. Some citations will go unpaid, however like Montgomery County they will also collect additional revenue from late and MVA flagging fees which will at least partially offset that.

The "10% rule" went into effect on October 1, 2009 when statewide speed cameras went into effect. The attorney General had sent a letter of advice to Chevy Chase Village, stating the following:
"Thus, it is my view that, after costs of implementing and administering the system, any fund balance from fines remaining at the end of fiscal year 2010 (June 30, 2010) and each fiscal year thereafter that is in excess of 10% of the total revenues for a political subdivision, must be remitted to the comptroller for deposit to the general fund of the state. It is further my view that any funds collected under a current speed monitoring system that are not spent or encumbered by the political subdivision by June 30, 2010 will be included in the balance remaining from the fines for the purpose of determining whether the balance is greater than 10% of the revenues of the political subdivision."

Despite this, the Comptroller reported that no money or information about speed camera revenues were collected from municipalities for FY2010 (July 1,2009-June30 2010), and was not able to provide a document explaining this apparent discrepancy.

Chevy Chase Village had a large amount of speed camera revenue prior to FY2010, as well as an approximately $3million dollar speed camera reserve fund which the AG's letter opined was also to be counted towards the total. We asked the Comptroller's office to provide documentation for why no revenue information or payments were collected for the FY10 year and they were unable to provide any. Several jurisdictions besides Chevy Chase had existing programs or started programs early in FY2010 which at least in theory could have reached the 10% budget threshold.

Under state law, municipalities and counties are only supposed to be spent on "public safety". However the term is completely undefined under state law, and jurisdictions are permitted to supplant existing expenses previously paid for out of the general fund. For all intents and purposes a jurisdiction can declare any amount of existing expenses . We have previously documented how Chevy Chase Village has included items general operating expenses as well as items like copiers, Cable TV lines, and a Segway. In their FY11 budget included additional items such as snow plows and sidewalk or road paving, on the grounds that there is some relationship to safety.

Prince Georges County Court Openly Presumes All Defendants Guilty

2011-11-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

Prince George's County Courts have apparently now removed even the trappings of due process and the presumption of innocence from speed camera hearings. On November 9th, Prince George's County Associate Judge Jean Baron made the statements that the court would not accept any evidence or arguments regarding the accuracy of the device, and that the only defense they would accept was that someone else was driving and to provide that person's identity. The following opening statements were made by the judge to an entire room full of defendants in Forest Heights Speed Camera cases, before any cases were presented or any evidence or arguments heard:

"The only defense that the court is going to accept if you were not the driver of the vehicle, and you have the name and the address of the person who was driving, and you present that to the court under oath I will accept that as a defense. Please don't tell me that you know you couldn't have been going that fast or there is something wrong with the equipment. There is someone here from the jurisdiction who testifies that the equipment was calibrated and validated, or is "self calibrating", and then I'm not going to be able to accept that as a defense."

The statements were made less than two days after documents disclosed by the town of Cheverly were made public, about numerous technical problems they had experienced with the same type of speed cameras (made by Optotraffic, a division of Sigma Space Corporation) as the ones which issued the Forest Heights citations being contested. The documented errors included an "invisible vehicle" traveling 76mph, a bike traveling 57mph, "unlikely" speed readings for "irregular shaped" vehicles and vehicles with ladder racks and trailers, and "false triggers" caused by moisture in the air. The cameras Cheverly had been using had the same "self calibration" mechanism as the Forest Heights camera tickets being contested in the November 9th hearing, yet the documents did not state that the automatic calibration tests had failed when the errors occurred. Cheverly and Optotraffic broke off their contract after the town raised the technical problems and Cheverly has since signed with a new vendor. The contents of those documents supported claims that the Optotraffic cameras had produced significant number of errors, documented extensively on this site, while Optotraffic has flatly denied they have experienced any errors. Optotraffic cameras are also used by Prince George's County's new speed camera program and several other municipalities in Princec George's County.

Listen to the recording for yourself:

and decide whether a hearing held after statements such as the ones made on this day could even remotely be considered a fair, that it is possible the judge had not pre-judged every case that day. And since she was so confident in what town officials would testify to and what the conclusion she would draw from that would be, should one not wonder what evidence or direction she had been given outside this courtroom setting, and don't the principals of our legal system require defendants be given access to that and have an opportunity to challenge it?

It is a sad sad day for Maryland drivers and for our Justice System. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears that all that stuff you believed in about "reasonable doubt" and the "presumption of innocence" are really just childish fantasies like the tooth fairy... not a fact on the ground for ordinary citizens. When push comes to shove, the system will not suffer The People to interfere with their cash cow by contesting tickets or perhaps even proving the devices might be flawed. This is How Justice Dies: with the Presumption of Guilt.

Note: StopBigBrotherMD.org does not believe this is reason to capitulate and stop contesting citations. Citizens who believe they have received an unfair or incorrect ticket should contest it and insist as loudly as possible that they be provided real due process. If the people meekly accept this, matters will only get worse. Fighting back against an unjust system is your civic duty!!!

Red Light Cameras Ticket Stopped Cars

2011-11-18T04:10:00.000-08:00

Cha-Ching!

Prince George's County Police are defending a policy of using red light cameras to ticket motorists who come to a full stop at intersections just past the white 'stop line'.

Nolan Church said he received a ticket there for running a red light, in a location where the stop line was three car lengths away from the intersection. "I absolutely stopped. I was stopped." County police respond that the stop line is placed where it is to leave space for emergency vehicles. AAA Spokesman John Townsend disagreed "What the municipality did was to expand the crosswalk. To entrap and ensnare people."

Under Maryland law it is a technical violation of the law to come to stop at a red light past the stop line, even if the car does not enter the intersection or the crosswalk. However in some cases the stop line is place several car lengths prior to the crosswalk, giving many drivers the impression that they can proceed farther. In some cases motorists may wish to see into the intersection in order to make turns (for safety), or the driver may simply miscalculate their stopping distance.

Most people are unaware that at some intersections the large majority of red light camera citations are for these 'technical violations' which have almost no chance of causing an accident, rather than 'straight through' red light running -- until they receive such a ticket themselves. Stop line violations can greatly outnumber actual red-light running violations, so ticketing for such offenses increases the profitability of a red light camera system, both for the municipalities and the contractors who are paid based on the number of citations.

In Maryland red light camera tickets typically carry a $75 fine, with an implied threat to increase the penalty to $100 if the violation is challenged, discouraging many from contesting tickets. Some violations issued by municipalities such as New Carrolton, which have a policy of using cameras to issue stop line tickets, have been successfully challenged in court.

--------------
1/12/2012: Observe how this is part of a national trend, with red light cameras used to ticket motorists engaged in perfectly safe behavior: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/36/3687.asp

Optotraffic Contract with Cheverly Canceled, Town Records Expose Camera Errors

2011-11-08T02:00:00.000-08:00

Optotraffic's speed camera contract with the town of Cheverly was canceled in August of this year, and records released by the town in response to a public information act request reveal a variety of errors and technical issues with the Optotraffic cameras which the town had complained about.

In a July 26, 2011 letter to Mario Bohorquez, Chief Commercial Officer of Optotraffic (a Division of Sigma Space Corporation), the town administrator discussing a variety of errors which the company had been unable to satisfactorily explain or remedy.

------------------------------------------------------------

I am writing as a follow-up to my April letter and our subsequent meeting on May 4rth regarding various problems with your equipment and administrative issues.

Violations with tags visible in only one photo were an issue in April.

At the meeting, you indicated that these were false triggers that could have been caused by moisture in the air. We note that if 90% of the photos collected were false triggers, then we were concerned about the accuracy of the remaining 10% where two tag images were captured. You noted that the cameras were working correctly, however, you agreed to have the technicians look at the camera. They did, and it was removed from service. The cameras returned to service in a number of days later and was capturing photos of vehicles doing less than the posted speed limit, vehicles doing the speed limit and still vehicles in violation, but with only one tag image.

On July 21rst I was called to a meeting by your staff members to again discuss the situation. Mickey was ill-prepared and had us all wait while he read the technical staff report provided by Ms. Anjenette Cramer, which he noted was very technical and could not be explained in laymen's terms. He did state that there was nothing wrong with the camera and it was taken to download upgraded software. We noted the capturing of speeds under the posted speed limit and he explained it as having been set low in the shot, but not reset when put back in service. We noted that we were still getting one tag pictures for violators, this precluding us from issuing tickets in accordance with the state law. He did not believe us and would not accept our statement unless he saw proof. Not having it in hand the meeting was concluded until we could provide proof. ENCLOSED is the proof.

Not only are the cameras still not functioning properly, they now are producing violations for invisible vehicles going 76 miles per hour (violation # 79) and bicycles going 38 and 57 miles per hour (violation #2790 & #2783) and now violations with just a part of a vehicle in only one photo.

Finally, we continue to get false speed readings for vehicles that have an irregular size such as buses and trucks with ladder racks.

Rather than have meeting to have Mickey tell us "that it’s technical" we would like you to have an explanation for the equipment problems provided to us in writing. I look forward to hearing from you in the next 10 days."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The town did not release citation images, which are exempt from disclosure under the Public Information Act. No written response from Optotraffic was included in the disclosure, if one was ever provided.

Shortly thereafter in August, with Cheverly officials apparently having lost faith in their company and hardware and had previously declared them to be "in breach of contract" in an April 21rst letter, Optotraffic sought to get ahead of the situation by exercising the option in the contract to terminate it (thus making it appear that the decision to do so was theirs). At the same time Optotraffic widely distributing press releases declaring that it had "successfully accomplished its mission to support the Town of Cheverly in its efforts to reduce speeding". The company even claimed that they had brought about a 96% reduction in speed violations, BUT FAILED TO MENTION THE FACT THAT THE REDUCTION IN CITATIONS WAS DUE TO HARDWARE MALFUNCTIONS. In fact this was noted in another document disclosed by the town "Finally, I would be remiss to not note that the reduction /elimination of the ticket volume in the month of July and August were a result of the malfunctioning of the camera, which was the topic of our discussion at our June 14th meeting and resulted in the removal and attempted repair of the camera. The explanations from your staff of the calibration error codes, false positives, malfunctions due to moisture in the air, uploading of new software and the break down of the generator served to reduce the number of citable speeding violations."

Unfortunately, the Optotraffic press release was only the latest in a long string of deceptions by the company. Optotraffic employees have been standing up before the public, elected officials, and the press stating that the company had never seen proof of any errors by their cameras. Those statements do not seem to be true.

In addition to the errors, other documents describe how calibration tests were not working properly, with calibration logs not appearing in the system until days after they were supposed to have been performed.

Additional documents dating back to August 2010 show police voiding citations for vehicles with ladder racks or trailers under the apparent belief that the speed measurement was incorrect. "Also, if ladders atop trucks fives a false reading do roof racks, ski rackes, etc, cause a similar false reading? Such as the following events..." a Cheverly Police officer wrote to Optotraffic CFO Mario Bohorquez in an August 6 2010 email.  No response to that question from Optotraffic was included in any of the disclosed documents.
SEE ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS FROM CHEVERLY DISCLOSURE

(update 11/12/2011): Cheverly published a statement saying that it is "confident that all citations issued through its Speed Enforcement Program are accurate", stating that they had a strict standards for issuing citations "above and beyond the normal citation issuance process" and that all citations issued passed that review.

We have reported extensively on the situation with Optotraffic cameras previously, including how some citizens in Cheverly had confronted the town council in the summer of 2010 about camera errors.  Other town residents had complained to town officials in private under the belief they had received citations with erroneous speed readings prior to the disclosure.

Reports of erroneous speed reading with large vehicles in other towns, like those described in the Cheverly documents, date back to summer of 2010 at the same time similar incidents had been reported elsewhere.  We have documented how errors have also been reported in College Park, Forest Heights, and several other towns. Yet unfortunately, other local government clients chose to circle the wagons and deny the errors took place. When defendants from those other towns go to court to challenge their tickets, representatives from those governments and Optotraffic have been standing up in court making claims about the accuracy and reliability of these machines and that they are operated and maintained properly (often without proof), and judges tend to believe those claims. It seems reasonable to assume that innocent people may have been found guilty based on such testimony.

Cheverly has done the responsible thing, by admitting the problems they experienced and removing the cause of those problems (Optotraffic). They should be commended for taking the risk and doing the right thing. But other towns have not done so. It is time for an independent investigation into Optotraffic's cameras, but more importantly into Optotraffic itself. It is time for the public to find out whether other local governments have had similar issues, and who knew about these errors when Optotraffic was standing up before elected officials, the press, and in court, stating that they have had no errors. It is time for other local governments who, unlike Cheverly, have obstructed public information act requests to keep the truth from the public (we will be placing a spotlight on THOSE local governments in the near future), to come clean and release ALL the records they have pertaining to errors with these devices. And perhaps it is time to investigate whether some obstructions and deceptions may in fact constitute criminal violations of the law.

We will have MUCH more on this story. Please come back soon.

Additional Coverage:
Washington Examiner
  Washington Times
  WJLA

DC Council Members Propose Lowering Speed Limits to 15mph

2011-11-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

DC Carpoolers May Soon Really be Slugging it to Work

Two DC council members have proposed legislation to lower speed limits on numerous residential streets in the District from 25mph to 15mph. According to WTOP, Council Members Muriel Bowser and Tommy Wells say their proposal would make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. "Dialing back our speed 10, even 15 miles per hour while we're on neighborhood streets, it literally adds up to second, maybe a minute or two," Miller says. "Isn't the safety of our children and our seniors and everybody worth a couple of minutes of driving safely?"

DC has one of the most extensive photo enforcement programs in the nation, bringing in $40.7million in speed camera revenue in FY2010. Unlike Maryland, there are no specific restrictions on where cameras can be placed, and no specific 'threshhold' above the speed limit when tickets can be issued. Were the proposal to go forwards, there would be no legal reason the District could not deploy speed cameras to ticket previously law-abiding drivers for traveling at breakneck speeds in the range of 16-20mph.

In addition, since driving even 1mph over the speed limit is a technical violation of the law, a driver recklessly traveling over 15mph could be legally be pulled over by police and ticketed. Given that most cars can exceed 15mph without even touching the gas pedal, nearly every driver would end up exceeding 15mph at some point. From a civil liberties perspective DC would be giving police probable cause to stop any driver at almost any time, charge them with a traffic violation, and thereby potentially subject their vehicles to a search as well.

The proposal is likely based on the common misconception that drivers always drive 5-10mph over the speed limit regardless of what it is set at. However numerous studies have shown that this is not the case: the reality is that most drivers travel at what they believe is the safe speed for conditions, that lowering (or raising) speed limits has little overall effect on traffic accident rates, and that the primary affect in lowering speed limits is to reduce compliance and increase the public's contempt for the law (See studies listed on the NMA's website). If DC has such contempt for their own residents that they wish to turn reasonable safe drivers into lawbreakers and encourage the belief that speed limits are unreasonable and not set by any rational standard, by all means set the speed limit to 15mph.

Study Cautions on Privatizing Law Enforcement

2011-10-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

A new study by a pro-consumer group says the practice of privatizing law enforcement of traffic violations may be putting profits ahead of safety and accuracy. An estimated 60 million Americans live in communities where the are monitored by automated ticketing machines, according to the study by the US Public Research Group (US PIRG), a left-leaning public interest group.

"Pitfalls can arise when contracts encourage vendors to treat automated traffic enforcement systems as a profit center: by maximizing the number of tickets written, regardless of the impact on public safety; by limiting the ability of governments to set traffic safety policies according to community needs; or by constraining the ability of cities to terminate contracts early in the event that automated enforcement systems are rejected by the electorate or fail to meet safety goals," the study explained.

The report points out how most contract arrangements provide incentives to contractors which could compromise the integrity of the system:

"Contracts between private camera vendors and cities can include payment incentives that put profit above traffic safety.", "The most problematic contracts require cities to share revenue with the camera vendor on a per-ticket basis or through other formulas as a percentage of revenue. In other words, the more tickets a camera system issues, the more profit the vendor collects."

In Maryland, state law was supposed to forbid per-ticket contracts, by including the following : ""If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid." However this provision has been effectively circumvented in nearly every jurisdiction in the state, starting with Montgomery County, and soon followed by similar per-ticket contracts in Baltimore City, Forest Heights, Brentwood, Mount Rainier, College Park, New Carrollton, Riverdale Park, Frederick City, Prince George's County, and many others. In nearly every case the vendor provides, installs/deploys, and maintains the machines, then processes violations, mails violations, and collects payments. In some cases vendors have also provided the traffic surveys used to determine where cameras should be placed. Also, in many cases the vendor also schedules court hearings. Failure of one vendor to provide timely hearings created situations in Forest Heights where drivers needed to wait OVER A YEAR to receive hearings, by which time the "speed monitoring system operator" who signed the logs, was no longer available to testify about an apparent possible failure to perform the required tests or what appeared to be falsification of evidence -- the testimony of a company representative was accepted instead.

The study also cautions how "The privatized traffic law enforcement industry has amassed significant political clout that it uses to shape traffic safety nationwide.". This has manifested itself in Maryland in the form of camera companies lobbying for statewide speed cameras, treating lawmakers to expensive steak dinners, and even one company creating "Astroturf sites" in Baltimore County and Howard County to promote the expansion of speed cameras there. Another concern would be that contracts might be awarded to companies which have made substantial campaign contributions.

Unlike some other studies supporting speed cameras, studies funded by camera companies or other entities which benefit financially from photo enforcement, USPIRG does not have a specific financial interest in photo enforcement one way or the other.

One issue mentioned in the report which we would add is the loss of accountability and transparency, particularly that placement of responsibility in the hands of a private company also places certain records out of the reach of states' open records laws.

"Unlike a public entity, a private operator is not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the public. It may also seek to prevent public scrutiny by declaring certain information to be a “proprietary business secret.” This should not be allowed."

StopBigBrotherMD.org has witnessed the effect of this in several cases where local governments have claimed that records pertaining to the operation or technical characteristics of speed cameras were in the hands of the contractor rather than the police. The vendor would then claim that they cannot release the documents, effectively denying a defendant access to evidence they were seeking for their legal defense. In some cases even documents which by their nature must have been in the hands of the local government which is claimed to "operate" the devices, rather than a contractor which the police claim do not operate the devices, were effectively denied in this way.

Read FULL STUDY

More Information on:

U.S.PIRG Website

TheNewsPaper.com

USA Today
Washington Post

State Looks to Solve Budget Woes on Backs of Motorists

2011-10-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

Faced with yet another looming budget shortfall, the state of Maryland believes it has found a panacea which will solve all its money problems: tax motorists.

The state legislature is set to consider increasing the state's gas tax by 15 cents per gallon in (a 63.8% increase over the current rate of 23.5 cents per gallon). In addition to a gas tax hike, the proposal would include increasing the vehicle registration fees by 50%, increasing the titling fees from 6% to 6.5%, and doubling the cost of vehicle emissions inspections.

State Senate President Mike Miller has made clear his own intention to ram though a gas tax hike regardless of any opposition, "There's going to be a gas tax." Miller told the Maryland Chamber of Commerce in blunt terms, "It is going to have to get done now."

Supporters of the proposal stated that the revenue is needed, and that it is necessary to shore up the Transportation Trust Fund in order to improve and maintain our transportation infrastructure. Critics claimed that the state has been raiding the Transportation Trust Fund for years in order to support non-transportation projects.

These increase come after the state decided to substantially raise most tolls in the state, with the new rates going into effect November 1. As an example, the cash toll rate for the Bay Bridge will be rising from $2.50 to $4, a 60% increase. The toll at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (I-95) and Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge (US 40) will increase from $.80 to $1.50, an 87.5% increase.

DHS Doesn't Want Their Plates Photographed

2011-10-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

You have probably all seen or heard about the license plate covers which are supposed to shield your plate number from being photographed by speed and red light cameras. It appears that some police vehicles are equipt with such plate covers, including one FPS(Federal Protective Services, a component of the Department of Homeland Security) vehicle which was photographed in Montgomery County Maryland.

If you enlarge the image, you can see the plate numbers are actually pretty much legible, not a good indication of the effectiveness of the device. However another photo taken at the same time which was in somewhat poorer focus showed the characters on the plate at least partially obscured.

So perhaps they are 50% effective. However that's not a particularly good ratio, given that the devices are illegal in Maryland. In Maryland a "registration plate cover" is defined as "any tinted, colored, painted, marked, clear, or illuminated object that is designed to:
(1) Cover any of the characters of a vehicle’s registration plate; or
(2) Distort a recorded image of any of the characters of a vehicle’s registration plate recorded by a traffic control signal monitoring system under § 21-202.1 of this article."
and having one on your plate carries a $60 fine. In Virginia, the devices could run you up to a $200 fine, and in DC the maximum fine would be a whopping $500.

In 2005 WTOP reported how some local DC police vehicles had been found with the plate covers, and police responded that they would inform the officers to remove the covers from their plates. In fact in DC city officials have gone so far as to claim even a license plate frame is illegal if it covers the "Taxation Without Representation" slogan on the plates.

Of course the DHS does not run speed or red light cameras the way local police in Maryland and DC do. They only have mobile vans which can look inside your car and covertly scan people in crowds.

PG County Cameras Issue over $500,000 worth of tickets in first month

2011-10-25T04:50:00.000-07:00

The Washington Examiner has reported that Prince George's County's 14 new camera sites have issued $527,000 (13,173 citations) in the first month of their program. The article compares this to the early phases of Montgomery County's program, which issued 40,000 citations in the first six months. The county plans to expand the program to a total of 72 sites, just for starters.

The revenue is divided between the county and the contractor, Optotraffic, who receives a 37% cut of every citation. The per-ticket contract is despite a provision of state law which reads "If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid.". That provision which has been essentially nullified and is being ignored by almost every speed camera program in the state, simply by claiming that the contractor (who maintains and substantially controls all the cameras) does not 'operate' the devices. The first of many restrictions in the law to be circumvented, ignored, or otherwise rendered meaningless.

The county's camera vendor, Optotraffic, has been the target of criticism over claims of inaccuracies in their hardware as well as other issues. The county claims that their cameras are calibrated regularly (using tests which this site has demonstrated to be meaningless and which were not diligently followed by local governments making the same claims), and that citations are all inspected by police. However despite these claimed inspections in the first week the program went live the county's cameras erroneously issued citations on a weekend when the devices are legally required to be switched off, with a county spokesperson claiming they were 'improperly programmed by the vendor'.

PG County's New Speed Camera Issues Erroneous Tickets

2011-10-05T04:28:00.000-07:00

After only a few days of issuing tickets, officials in Prince George;s County have already reported their first erroneous speed camera citations. PG County reported that a speed camera located along the 6800-7800 block of High Bridge Road in Bowie sent out 18 erroneous citations. Police stated that the problem was not due to a speed measurement error but rather because the device was improperly configured to issue citations on a Sunday. Under Maryland law 'school zone' speed cameras are authorized to issued tickets M-Fri. (Note: Cameras in Montgomery County and those used in SHA workzones are NOT restricted to week days).

A police spokesperson stated to NBC news 4 "On this particular Sunday, Sunday September 25th there were 18 citations issued incorrectly. We then reviewed all of them. We got in touch with the individual drivers, one of them had already paid. They will be reimbursed. The rest had their tickets waived".

Under state law, all citations are supposedly inspected and approved by a police officer BEFORE tickets are issued, and all citations contain an (electronically imprinted) signature affirming this. In the case of these citations apparently did not include checking the date of the violation. Also under state law speed cameras are supposed to be inspected by a county employee 'daily' who signs a 'daily setup log' to that effect... apparently in this case that inspection did not include looking at a calendar to find out what day of the week it was. The county's speed cameras are provided by their vendor, Optotraffic(a division of Sigma Space Corporation), who maintains the cameras in exchange for a cut of the speed camera revenue from each ticket.

According to NBC News 4, PG County police stated that this was an isolated problem with this one speed camera "improperly programmed by the vendor". However a spokesperson from AAA Mid Atlantic referred to the many other complains about erroneous citations issued by Optotraffic cameras in the past, complaints which have been disregarded by county officials.

We have previously reported how some municipalities using Optotraffic cameras appear to have taken shortcuts in the operation of their cameras, filling in logs on days operators were apparently not working. StopBigBrotherMD.org has also previously argued that if certain claims by Optotraffic and county officials are taken at face value, then no meaningful inspection of citations could possibly be taking place.

National Camera News:

2011-10-05T03:46:00.000-07:00

Albuquerque, New Mexico has joined the list of communities which has rejected photo enforcement at the ballot box. In an October 4rth vote, 54% of the 40,000 people voting in the referendum said "NO" to the question asking "Shall the Albuquerque City Council continue authorizing the 'safe traffic operations program,' commonly called the 'red light camera program'?"

The Albuquerque measure was placed on the ballot by a . The company which runs the red light camera program on the other hand invented a grass roots "Astroturf" campaign supporting the camera program, with Redflex spending $142,050 on a group(the group's entire budget) called "SafeRoads Albuquerque" which sent out mass mailings designed to look like they came from a 'Grass roots' organization. Redflex reportedly changed the name of the group to reveal its relationship to the organization after it was threatened with an ethics complaint.

Camera companies have conducted similar astroturf campaigns in other parts of the US, including Baltimore County and Howard County Maryland when a leading speed camera contractor (ACS) .

Photo enforcement companies and programs as well as some insurance industry backed groups repeatedly claim that photo enforcement and red light cameras are overwhelmingly popular among the public. However the reality is that when photo enforcement has been placed to a popular vote in the US, the people have voted against the cameras every single time. Cities which have rejected photo enforcement at the ballot box (often despite intervention by photo enforcement companies with a large financial stake) include:
Sykesville, Maryland

Houston, TX
Baytown, TX
Garfield Heights, OH
Mukilteo, WA
Sulphur, LAChillicothe, OH
Heath, OH
College Station, TX
Cincinati, OJ
Steubenville, OH
Peoria, AZ
Batavia, IL
Anchorage, AK
Arlington, TX

An effort to place Maryland's statewide speed camera program on the ballot for a public vote in 2009 failed due to the state's extremely strict time constraints for bringing legislation to referendum, and due to the extremely restrictive signature requirements imposed on the petitioners by the state at that time. Some of the state's signature requirements that were imposed on the Maryland speed camera petition effort were ruled invalid by the courts when an unrelated petition effort was challenged a year later in Montgomery County.

Forest Heights Speed Camera Defendant Arrested For Asserting Innocence

2011-10-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

A defendant in a recent Forest Height speed camera hearing was ordered to be arrested and held in contempt of court for asserting his innocence. (This post was updated on 10/15/2011. Please see the courtroom recording added to the end).
The case was heard on Friday September 23rd in Prince George's County district court, more than a year after the citation had been issued. The defendant was described by several courtroom observers (both defendants and some who were not there to fight citations) as an African American man who had an apparent disability or injury and required two canes for support to walk. His defense was based on the fact that when traveling South on Indian Head Highway entering from Livingston Road, there are no '35mph' signs between the intersection and the camera location. (StopBigBrotherMD.org has confirmed using Google Street View that it is possible to drive south on I210 towards the cameras without seeing any 35mph speed limit signs, and that on that route the first sign one would see -- which is visible from the location of the cameras enforcing a 35mph limit-- is a 40mph sign located immediately past the camera.) This defendant and/or others had apparently presented this claim to the town previously, but rather than correct the signage problem Forest Heights chose instead to stand their ground on the signage and come to court with a photo of the 35mph sign located at Aubrey lane, which is located 1/3 mile north of the camera. There are at least 2 places one can enter route 210 without passing that 35mph sign (a fact the city reportedly did not mention). After seeing this Judge Gerard Devlin pronounced the defendant guilty, but the defendant wanted to present the rest of his evidence : "After saying I was not guilty, and wanted to talk about my route home that didn't include Aubrey Lane, and that I come down Livingston Terrace and make a right at Livingston Road, and then a left on Indian Head Highway. I had pictures to show that there were no 35 mph signs on that segment of Livingston RD either. He didn't give me this opportunity. He said if I said another word, he would find me in contempt. I said why can't - he said "I find you in contempt - handcuff him and lock him up." I didn't say another word. I was humiliated and embarrassed. The guard was coming with the handcuffs, when I rose from my seat. He noticed that I walked with two canes, and said the handcuffs were not necessary" ... "The guard walked me to a back room and asked for all my items except my clothes and shoes. I was taken to a cell that had a bench and a toilet. After I sat down, my canes were taken. " He was released later the same day.

This incident is the first report StopBigBrotherMD.org has received in over 3 years of reporting of a defendant being arrested or held in contempt over a Maryland speed camera ticket.

Judge Devlin is the same judge who recently made a ruling that defendants could not use citation images to exonerate themselves even if the time-stamped images showed the vehicles were not traveling the recorded speed, even though other judges had previously ruled otherwise. That decision (which involved a different defendant than the individual in the contempt case), was widely publicized and distributed by Optotraffic and some local speed camera programs which use Optotraffic cameras.

The town issuing the citation disputed in the hearing, Forest Heights, issued over $3million worth of citations in fiscal year 2011, compared with the town's entire budget of $1.7million prior to introducing speed cameras. Optotraffic(a dicision of Sigma Space Corporation) builds, owns, maintains, and processes violations from the cameras, scheduling court hearings (something which in this and other cases it took them over a year to do), and has been sending a marketing executive to act as an 'expert witness' at those hearings. Optotraffic receives a percentage cut of the town's ticket revenue, and has a similar arrangement with several other local governments in the area as well as a newly activated speed camera contract with Prince George's County.

Stop Big Brother Maryland often gets information about speed camera hearings from defendants and courtroom observers which we can investigate further. Anyone with information about interesting 'speed camera day' events should please report them to StopBigBrotherMD@gmail.com.

This posting was originally posted on 9/27 and was updated on 10/1/11 after we received additional information from the defendant.

Google street view shows no 35mph speed limit signage proceeding camera as seen from Livingston Rd Intersection, click to enlarge

Google Street View shows that a 40mph sign can be seen from the camera site, the camera enforces a 35mph limit, click to enlarge

Signage on Indian Head Highway, click to enlarge

Update 10/15/2011: We have obtained the audio recording of the court hearing. In the recording you can hear Judge Devin order the defendant, James Bradford (a 71 year old poet), put into handcuffs and threaten him with 6 months in jail for asserting that he was not speeding.

Damascus Resident Beat Workzone Camera Ticket

2011-09-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

Ridge Road speed limit sign placed far from the side of the road

In an August 29 court hearing an attorney from Damascus successfully beat a speed camera ticket issued by Montgomery County at 27000 block of Ridge Road in Damascus.

Mr Layer made several points in his defense relating to the restrictions on both 'residential zone' speed cameras and workzone speed cameras under state law. In addition, he also argued that, based on the speed camera photos, that it was a construction zone, which could clearly be seen, which could have obstructed signage and arguably made the site a 'workzone speed camera' which is only permitted on highways with speed limits of 40mph or greater. It was notable that after the lanes were shifted for the construction the sign for the 30mph speed limit was located 20 feet away from the side of the road where it was no longer clearly visible and could easily have been concealed by construction signage or equipment at any given time. The speed limit on ridge road is 40mph a short distance from the cameras.

In a March story in the Gazette, Captain Tom Didone, head of the Montgomery County Police Department Traffic Division, agreed Mr Layer 'had a point on the signs' and conceded that one of the signs had been removed by the company doing the construction. "I want to personally thank the gentleman for bringing that to our attention." Captain Didone stated to the Gazette.

In court, the county claimed that the machines are inspected by police daily and that the device had been re-calibrated to target vehicles in the shifted lanes, however they provided no documentation to prove such a recalibration took place. Despite these daily inspections, nobody noticed the problems with the signage.

The Gazette reported that the county gave them the following number of citations issued from these cameras in each of 2010 and 2011:
-January-February 2010 — 1,381
-January-February 2011 — 1,586
This shows that the camera issuing the ticket in this location saw a 14.8% increase in citations from January 2010 to January 2011 (after the signage was changed), whereas the normal trend is for citations to decrease at fixed pole cameras as local residents learn about the camera locations.

The county willing turned over that data to a newspaper which is generally friendly to their positions. However Mr Layer stated to us that he had requested discovery and filed a Maryland Public information Act request (Maryland's equivalent to the Freedon of Information Act) with Montgomery County for information he sought for defense against his $40 ticket, and the county demanded a more than $1000 payment for access to those public records. He stated that was unable to spend the time contesting the $1000 fee in court.

By the way, StopBigBrotherMD.org is still waiting for Montgomery County to provide an explanation for the >$43,000 fee they demanded before they would even begin to look for records (involving an unrelated situation) which we requested under the MPIA in January. One might ask whether the county's fee structure for public record requests is inversely proportionate to how friendly the requester is to the county's position?

The county claims that only 25 citations were overturned in court last year, however only a tiny percentage of the $40 tickets are ever contested.

Millions Drive to Work on World Car-Free Day

2011-09-23T02:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, September 22nd, was designated as "World Car Free Day". 9000 people pledged to walk, bike, use mass transit, work from home or find other alternatives to cars (most of whom already did so at on a regular basis). However for most of the millions of other commuters in the region and the tens of millions in the US who drive to work every day, the day passed without notice, and with no discernible difference in the number of cars on the road or levels of traffic congestion.

Perhaps World Car day provides an opportunity to ponder how much the automobile has improved the quality of life for so many.

A 2005 US Census bureau data showed that nearly 9 out of 10 Americans drive to work. Only 4.7% take public transit and about 2.5% walk to work. Why is that? Some would have the public believe that driving is a matter of laziness or lack of concern for the environment. Those who NEED cars know that is not true. We drive because cars offer us the freedom of mobility that no other form of transportation can, and our decisions to choose cars over other options are driven by extremely practical concerns. This author personally sometimes enjoys taking alternate transportation to work, sometimes including a 10 mile run which is awesome when it is possible. But as a practical reality that is limited only to those times when personal and profession obligations, the weather, health, and other constraints all cooperate to make that possible. Like so many mass transit is not a practical option... I need to walk over a mile to the closest bus stop and that will only take me to the metro station 6 miles away. By the time that's done I've spent almost an hour longer than a car would take on my worst traffic day. Telecommuting does not allow me to attend in-person meetings that are expected of me almost every day. And how am I to drop the kids off at daycare with any of those options? No, most people NEED cars to keep up with the modern, fast paced lives we have come to expect and which are expected of us by our employers who make up the nation's economy and pay our bills.

A salute to the automobile, our indispensable friend

Consider what would it be like if you were *forced* to be "Car Free". What would you need to give up? Would you be able to live and work where you choose, or would you be limited to only home/work choices either very near each other or only near 'government approved' mass transit sites? If you own a house now, would you surrender the dream of owning a home in a safe, affordable area of your choosing in exchange for living in concrete termite mounds crowded around metro sites? Would you be able to take your kids to the daycare center or school **of your choosing** in the morning and still get to work on time? And when they're older how are you getting them to that soccer match or softball game? Could you actually run that important errand during the day if you had to walk, or figure out bus schedules or mooch a ride? Maybe, but maybe not. Then there's all the services provided to you by car, whether you drive yourself or not. Could the cable guy or plumber really hike all his gear on the bus? And then there are the less tangibles. Would you still have the freedom to wake up on Sunday an say 'Let's go to the mountains!' and just go? Or, if your parents live in a rural area out of state, would they ever see their grand kids? Oh such a crass concern that Grandma might get to hug little Timmy from time to time... but for many this is a thing made possible by CARS!

We propose that Car Free Day is a reminder to say a big THANK YOU to the automotive pioneers who made this freedom possible. And we should be thankful that we live in a world where we do not need to be "free" of a thing which brings every bit as much value to our lives as electric lights, telephones, and running water.

Automobiles are THE essential transportation for many people. They are the life-blood of our transportation system and our economy. When you hear someone say "driving is not a right it is a privilege" BEWARE! That person wants to use an absolutely essential "privileged" to coerce you into accepting some reduction your constitutional rights. Your right to due process, right to face an accuser, and right to be presumed innocent may not seem urgently important to you right here right now, at least not as important as getting to work on time. The proverbial 'they' know that, and they know you're willing to give up a 'right' for the sake of the 'privileged' of getting to work and keeping your job. Don't fall for that. If cars are essential to your 'pursuit of happiness', then you should demand that your elected officials understand that you do not concede any of your legal and constitutional rights while you are on those roads.

PG County Cameras Now Live

2011-09-21T03:16:00.000-07:00

Prince George's County's new speed camera program is now going live and now issuing tickets. The initially selected locations are as follows:

File Photo of an Optotraffic Camera

8400-9000 block(s) of Allentown Road
9000-9200 blocks of Muirkirk Road
5700-6300 blocks of Ager Road
7600-6900 blocks of Adelphi Road
9400-9700 blocks of Temple Hill Road
6900-7400 blocks of Walker Mill Road
9100-10000 blocks of Ardwick Ardmore Road
6800-7100 blocks of High Bridge Road
1800-2400 Owens Road
2100-2600 blocks of Sansbury Road
11600-11900 blocks of Old Baltimore Pike
5400-6100 blocks of Sargeant Road
6700-7100 blocks of Columbia Park Road
2100-2400 County Road
9800-9900 blocks of Good Luck Road
9800-10000 blocks of Allentown Road
8300-8600 Contee Road
2200-2500 blocks of Ritchie Road
800-1100 blocks of Hill Road
000-800 blocks of Harry S. Truman Drive
6100-6400 blocks of Auth Road
2000-2300 blocks of Church Road
500-1100 blocks of Brightseat Road
4600-5600 blocks of Brinkley Road
5000-5300 blocks of Marlboro Pike

Tickets will be issued M-Fr 6am-8pm. The cameras provided by the camera contractor, Optotraffic (a division of Sigma Space Corporation), are housed in a small trailer which is mobile. New locations can thus be added at any time, including locations which might only recently have been designated as "school zones" specifically for the purpose of adding cameras. No "warning period" will be required for new locations. PG county has considered adding as many as 72 speed camera locations, including some locations not previously designated as school zones. The county signed the contract with Optotraffic earlier this year and selected the initial 'school zone' locations from a list of proposed locations which included both existing school zones and locations never previously designated or marked as school zones.

Tickets will go to the owners of vehicles (not necessarily the driver) who are accused of traveling 12mph over the posted speed cameras. However speed cameras do sometimes issue tickets in error. Optotraffic cameras in particular are of a proprietary design that works entirely unlike traditional police radar or lidar. A number of drivers have independently asserted that they received erroneous citations from these types of cameras in Brentwood, Cheverly, Forest Heights, College Park, and other locations.

Recipients of questionable citations can either pay the $40 fine like a good compliant sheeple and encourage further negligence on the part of the government and contractors who run speed cameras, or they can request a court hearing. In some cases people challenging Optotraffic speed camera tickets from Forest Heights have had to weight over a year to receive hearings (Optotraffic has been permitted by the court to schedule court hearings, giving them some control over the timing and setting of court hearings). Some successfully had their citations overturned. In ther cases judges accepted the word of Optotraffic (a company paid based on the number of tickets issued) that essentially there is no evidence the court can accept to challenge the accuracy of the speed measurement and exonerate a driver who believes himself to be innocent -- worse than "Guilty until proven innocent" you are "Guilty even if innocent". Those who have complaints or concerns should direct them to state and county elected officials who voted for speed cameras rather than to police or the camera contractor. Officials in agencies which run speed cameras are required to implement and support policies which are set by elected officials.

DC Getting 19 New Speed Cameras

2011-09-08T04:20:00.000-07:00

DC police have activated 19 new speed camera sites in the District along major commuter routes. The new locations are:

1900 block of Independence Avenue SE east bound - speed limit 25 mph
Military Road 0.2 miles west of the 16th Street ramp NW southwest bound - speed limit 35 mph
Military Road 0.1 miles prior to 17th Street NW northeast bound - speed limit 35 mph
1700 block of Rhode Island Avenue NE northeast bound - speed limit 30 mph
1800 block of Rhode Island Avenue NE southwest bound - speed limit 30 mph
4000 block of East Capitol Street NE west bound - speed limit 35 mph
4000 block of East Capitol Street SE east bound - speed limit 35 mph
800 block of Ridge Road SE southeast bound - speed limit 25 mph
600 block of Southern Avenue SE southwest bound - speed limit 30 mph
1400 block of Southern Avenue SE southwest bound - speed limit 30 mph
1900 block of Branch Avenue SE north bound - speed limit 25 mph
1900 block of Branch Avenue SE south bound - speed limit 25 mph
1100 block of Bladensburg Road NE northeast bound - speed limit 30 mph
1100 block of Bladensburg Road NE southwest bound - speed limit 30 mph
200 block of 19th Street SE north bound - speed limit 25 mph
4800 block of Connecticut Avenue NW northwest bound - speed limit 30 mph
4900 block of Connecticut Avenue NW southeast bound - speed limit 30 mph
600 block of Missouri Avenue NW northwest bound - speed limit 30 mph
600 block of Missouri Avenue NW southeast bound - speed limit 30 mph

A 30 day 'warning period' began Sept 1 in order to alert local drivers to the new cameras before they begin ticketing out of town drivers in earnest. Unlike Maryland, the District does not specifically state any 'threshold' over the speed limit above which tickets are issued, so technically they could issue tickets for 1mph over in order to meet whatever revenue goals they have.

The nation's capital has one of the most extensive photo enforcement systems in the world, which includes not only numerous speed cameras and red light cameras, but also cameras deployed on street sweepers to enforce parking violations, and last year new cameras for enforcing violations such as 'blocking the box', 'rolling right turns' and stopping slightly past the white line. TheNewspaper.com reports that as of 5/30/2010 DC's ticket cameras had issued $312million worth of tickets since the program's inception. District red light and speed cameras issued approximately $50million worth of tickets in FY11 alone.

Is it "for safety" or "Municipal Extortion" (as one Washington Post writer recently put it)? You decide.

Scamera Van Driver Seen Driving Distracted

2011-09-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

A motorist sent us this photo taken of a SafeZones van which appears to show the operator talking on a cell phone without a hands free device while driving. The motorist stated that he spotted the van on the inner loop of I-695 near Reistertown Road at 6:25pm Friday Aug 26, 2011.

Last year the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 321/HB538 banning the use of cell phones while driving unless a hands-free device is used. In Maryland this is now 'secondary offense' which carries a $40 fine for the first offense and up to $100 for subsequent offenses. The law exempts "law enforcement personnel", however the SHA's safezones vans are driven by employees of their private contractor, ACS, rather than by police. Police officers receive special driver training at a level which most motorists (including private contract drivers) generally do not.

The Maryland Department Of Transportation (of which the State Highway Administration which administers the SafeZones programs is a part) claims that cell phone use is responsible for 28% of all traffic crashes and causes 1.6million traffic accidents every year nationwide.

Earlier this year a SafeZones van driven by an ACS contractor was caught on video speeding at 80mph. The video was broadcast on a local Baltimore news station.

Readers who observe dangerous driving behavior by camera vans should feel free to report it to StopBigBrotherMD@gmail.com. Please remember do not drive distracted.

Optotraffic, Local Governments "Circle the Wagons" to Protect Cash Cow

2011-08-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

Optotraffic and various local government clients have launched a coordinated legal and public relations blitz to protect their profitable camera program from claims of errors and other improprieties. Meanwhile, officials in Prince George's County are attempting to enforce an interpretation of the law which denies drivers the right to use photographic evidence to exonerate themselves, makes the mere accusation by a machine unquestionable proof of guilt, renders the review of citations by police meaningless, and would ensure that for all practical purposes a defendant cannot challenge the accuracy of a camera in court.
Optotraffic recently distributed a gloating press release, singling out a case involving a business owner who unsuccessfully challenged a number of tickets issued to him in a recent court hearing, arguing that this decision against a defendant with no attorney disproves claims that their cameras have produced errors. The claims of errors were first raised about cameras in Forest Heights last summer, including one case of an RV towing a vehicle recorded moving uphill at an impossible speed for conditions. At the same time similar claims of errors were independently raised in Cheverly and Brentwood. Other drivers have also claimed errors in Forest Heights, as well as other locations using Optotraffic cameras based on completely different evidence.

The Optotraffic press release was written in such a way as to give the false impression that all of the citations involved in the case were all issued to Mr Will Foreman and that he was the driver. The citations in the case were issued by the town of Forest Heights to a business owned by Mr Foreman, which maintains a fleet of delivery vehicles with multiple drivers which accumulated the citations over 15 months. Forest Heights issued over 75,000 citations worth $3million last year, which works out to 28 citations per resident of the town of pop 2600. This is out of proportion to the number of violations issued by most other towns of similar size.

Mr Foreman became an outspoken critic of Optotraffic's cameras since the cameras have placed him in a position of having to decide whether or not to punish his drivers when he does not have confidence in the accuracy of the devices. He had successfully defeated other citations by presenting photographic evidence which demonstrated that the speed measurements from some of Forest Height's cameras were mathematically impossible. At least three other judges have ruled such evidence can be admitted. Other defendants have also previously defeated citations using the same technique. However in this case, Associate District Court Judge Gerard Devlin (who retired as a full time judge in 2001), ruled differently. The judge did not disagree with the defendant's estimates of the distance the vehicle traveled between frames or with his calculations about speed based on that distance and the .363 "delta time between frames" imprinted on the citations. He nevertheless ruled against the use of photographic evidence to disprove speeding, accepting Optotraffic's explanation that citation images cannot be used to determine speed. Judge Devlin stated to the Examiner in an interview that an expert witness would be required to challenge the accuracy of a device : "He's a layperson, and lay people in courtrooms aren't supposed to give opinions. Only experts give opinions".

Retaining an expert witness for a court hearing typically costs thousands of dollars, and would probably also necessitate having an attorney which would cost thousands more. It is unclear who other than the employee of a speed camera company would be accepted by this judge as an expert witness on speed cameras, even though the calculations involved require nothing but high school level math. Under this ruling if defendant could even find a satisfactory "expert", they might need to incur a cost equal to as many as a hundred speed camera citations to defend a single ticket in court. Thus there would be no meaningful legal way to challenge the accuracy of a $40 ticket without spending vastly more than they cost, and no mechanism to recover such costs should the defendant prevail.

The judge did accept the word of expert witness Mickey Shepherd, a marketing and public relations specialist whose company has a financial interest in the outcome, regarding technical information about the cameras, without requiring him to provide proof or documentation of those claims. Mr Shepherd was the publisher of the Optotraffic press release on the hearing, further demonstrating his conflict of interest in the matter. We previously posted our analysis of what it would mean if Optotraffic's claims that photos cannot be used to verify speed were true. If Optotraffics's story -- a story which has changed several times since the first reports of errors -- and their convenient interpretation of the law is taken at face value, then there is no meaningful review of citations, no verifiability of speed measurements after the fact, and a total presumption of guilt. Make no mistake: that situation is more disturbing than the errors themselves.

Mr Foreman is appealing the decision in his case.

Optotraffic has been given the authority to schedule court hearings for its speed camera citations. Some of the citations in Mr Foreman's court case were 15 months old. Mr Foreman had been seeking hearings for his other citations for 4 months since his successful court challenges, during which time Optotraffic secured a contract with the Prince George's County Government, having already selecting the Lanham based company apparently for political reasons. Other defendants have also faced long delays for Forest Heights tickets of up to a year, even though the courts reportedly offered Optotraffic additional dates to hold hearings. Such a delay would have given them time to determine which judges would rule their desired way on this matter of law, and to ensure judges have been presented with certain information prior to hearing a specific high profile case. Why Optotraffic is permitted to make decisions regarding the timing of court hearings and which defendants get hearings and which do not is completely unclear. It is also unclear whether the delay in these court hearings could have been deliberate on the part of Optotraffic to serve their own interests.

This particular hearing was timed to occur 3 days before the initiation of that new speed camera program, and was timed to correspond with the release of press releases and public relations videos created by Prince George's County police defending the use of Optotraffic cameras. Those videos claims the devices are accurate based on a limited number of speed tests. The test data shows instances where the speeding from the Optotraffic device differed from the reading from a handheld device by 2mph, twice out of only 12 test cases(17%). The county chose to explain them away the routine occurrence of 2mph errors in their test (which the video itself described as "unscientific" ) and declare this to be acceptable and proof that the devices are reliable, rather than viewing this as cause to examine whether larger errors might occur at a lower rates which would only be seen with a much larger test sample. They are hoping that you, the members of the public, will believe that because one device CAN be made to produce correct results in a limited number of tests under controlled conditions with an Optotraffic engineer standing by to make sure nothing goes wrong, that they always produces the correct result under all conditions and that there have never been any errors in the past. That is basically your IT guy claiming that because your computer is not crashing right now, it has never crashed before even though you know it did so yesterday. A camera placed on a major state highway might have 10,000 vehicles passing it every day, so if a larger error happens one time in 1000 it would happen 10 times per day.... yet would be very unlikely to show up in a sample of 12 tests. (This assumes that if there had been a single example of a larger error during the test, that you would ever have heard about it and that they would not have declared a 'do over'). The system used in the demonstration at the very least had a different version of software from the one which issued the citations in Forest Heights last year, and was not the same physical device under the same conditions. The types of defects which we have proposed would be sporadic, and might only appear under certain conditions. The devices are mobile, meaning they can be redeployed frequently, and the conditions for errors might exist under one deployment but not another.

Forest Heights had conducted a similar "demonstration" after questions were raised about their cameras. In that case we showed that the vehicle moved much farther in the "non erroneous" images from the test than in citations with allegedly erroneous speed readings, even though the vehicles were supposedly moving the same speed. This validates that photos CAN be used to verify vehicle speed, because if an error did not take place the vehicle does in fact move the expected distance between frames. We've also demonstrated how the testing and maintenance of the devices in Forest Heights may not have been as diligent as is advertized, something which this demonstration did not evaluate.

StopBigBrotherMD.org has written to the Prince George's county council twice asking for the opportunity to present the technical information we have about the alleged errors, claims made by multiple other drivers independently. The county council did not respond to those emails. A real review to see whether errors have occurred must first involve getting all the evidence of errors. It should also involve bringing in an outside expert with no financial interest to examine citations taken at the time those errors took place, from the same device, including rejected citations to see whether there is a pattern. It would also involve requiring Optotraffic to make public ALL of its technical documents about their cameras including the technical details of how the timing of the cameras work, so that an outside expert can examine them. Our conclusion is that this has not taken place, because those in power are not actually interested in knowing whether or not errors have taken place. The appearance to us is that they are merely circling the wagons, and throwing up as many legal barriers as possible for anyone who wishes to present proof of errors in court.

One claim StopBigBrotherMD.org has never made is that speed camera defendants typically get fair hearings. Receiving due process and a presumption of innocence on 'speed camera day' is the exception not the rule. If a defendant without an attorney challenges a huge corporate-government partnership which is throwing massive resources into a proceeding with a reduced burden of proof, and where an entity with a financial interest controls the courtroom setting, then it is the expected outcome for the defendant to lose regardless of the evidence. In the past defendants of Optotraffic tickets were facing local governments like Forest Heights which may be corrupt, but since they are also less experienced in these matters defendants still stood a reasonable chance. Since the county government is now in bed with Optotraffic and has written the promised revenue into their budget, defendants must now face a much larger government entity with more resources and the means to control the courtroom setting. All of these players have a financial interest to ensuring that defendants stand no chance of receiving a fair hearing and proving errors in court.

With massive resources being used to establish the absolute presumption of guilt in the courtroom, Prince George's County drivers should expect to receive little respect for their legal rights or the norms of justice. "You are guilty regardless of the evidence, Pay up!" That is how the powers that be like it. If you don't like that, write to your state lawmakers or to the county council. Ask them their position on whether drivers have a right to be exonerated if photographic evidence shows that they were not speeding, and whether they believe this was the legislative intent when speed cameras were approved. Ask them whether they believe it is appropriate for a contractor who is paid per ticket and with a vested financial and public relations interest in the outcome to be allowed to schedule court hearings and have substantial control over the timing and setting where hearings are held.

National News: Houston City Council Yields on Camera Referendum

2011-08-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Houston City Council has yielded to public pressure and is once again switching off their red light camera program. The voters rejected the cameras last year in a referendum and the cameras were switched off for several months. However the City arranged to lose a lawsuit filed by the camera vendor challenging the public vote, in which the petition supporters were not permitted to participate. The city turned the cameras back on sparking loud protests from the public. The city council has now reversed its position, voting 14-1 to repeal the ordinance granting American Traffic Solutions the right to issue photo tickets.

Optotraffic Representative Caught Speeding

2011-08-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

Public records reveal that the senior official and spokesperson for Lanham-based Optotraffic was recently issued a speeding ticket for traveling 15mph over the legally posted speed limit.

The Baltimore City court record shows Mickey E Shepherd was issued the ticket on 4/06/2011 at 3:38pm by an officer in the MD Transportation Authority Tunnel Command for traveling at the dangerous speed of 70mph in his red Nissan with license plate #6CXT98. Mr Shepherd plead guilty to the charge and was given "probation before judgement" on 6/10/2011, which normally means that the defendant receives no points and the violation may be stricken from their driving record. The record shows he was ordered to paid a fine of $70 plus court costs.

Mr Shepherd is the Senior Account Manager handling Optotraffic's speed camera contracts including those in Prince George's County, College Park, and Forest Heights. He frequently appears at local government hearings and media/public relations events speaking about the dangers of speeding while selling speed camera services.

Mr Shepherd has also been appearing as an 'expert witness' at speed camera hearings of defendants who received tickets from Optotraffic cameras located in Prince George's County municipalities. In those cases he often presents testimony about the technical workings of the devices, even though his primary role in the company is marketing and public relations, without being required to document or prove his claims. Under its speed camera contracts, Optotraffic receives a percentage cut of every citation to build, deploy, maintain, and also processes and mails violation from cameras. Optotraffic has also been permitted by the Prince George's County Court system to schedule court hearings. This gives the company substantial control over the chain of evidence submitted at hearings and also the time and circumstances in which court hearings are held. As a result the company has some ability to influence the outcome of speed camera court hearings in which they have a substantial financial, marketing, and public relations stake. The Prince George's County government now shares that stake, as they have recently initiated a multi-million dollar a year speed camera program utilizing Optotraffic cameras.

Mr Shepherd did not respond to an emailed request for comment about this speeding offense after more than 24 hours.

Baltimore City Councilwoman Calls for Repeal of Speed Cameras

2011-08-20T05:10:00.000-07:00

Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway(D, District 7) has proposed legislation to end the use of speed cameras in Baltimore City. Conaway argued that if the devices had been working correctly to reduce speeding then revenues from should have been declining, but this has not occurred. "We can see that this is a safety measure that is not working."

Conaway proposed that the city department of transportation to look at "hotspot areas" and create "traffic calming measures" in those areas. Other types of engineering traffic calming measures have been demonstrated to be at least as effective as speed cameras in controlling traffic speeds.

Conaway suggested that any city residents who wish to see speed cameras repealed need to let their council members know.

AAA Says College Park Cameras "Flunk" Basic Standards

2011-08-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

AAA Mid Atlantic held a press conference in College Park on August 17th at the speed camera on Metzerott Road, claiming that the camera "flunks" basic standards for accuracy and placement. AAA pointed to the fact that the camera does not comply with SHA guidelines because it is placed in a 'speed transition zone', located 100 yards after a 10mph drop in the speed limit, and in the Westbound direction the drivers can clearly see the 40mph sign in front of them by the time they are passing the camera enforcing a 30mph limit.

In addition, AAA pointed to the case of a driver who received a citation from a college park camera who had a device electronically records the speed of his car, which indicated he was traveling far slower than the speed recorded on the citation and was not speeding at the time of the violation. The driver's citation was dismissed in court on a technicality, with the judge refusing to rule one way or the other on the accuracy of the camera.

AAA has sometimes publicly argued against specific speed camera locations which are 'cash cows'. However AAA is not an anti-speed camera organization. Their revenue generating business does not come from public advocacy but from their travel agency and insurance businesses. As such AAA is not serving any particular 'agenda' or financial interest by arguing against these particular cameras, as Optotraffic and their clients (who DO have an agenda to make money from the cameras) might like the public to believe. In fact when statewide speed cameras were being discussed in the Maryland General Assembly in 2009 AAA testified that they supported the legislation, only arguing that more restrictions be added to the law. Most of the restrictions AAA requested in their testimony were either not implemented or have been circumvented by local governments.

College Park issued over 60,000 citations last year worth approximately $2.4million. Under their contract with Optotraffic 40% of the revenue goes to Optotraffic. A prohibitions on paying companies based on the number of tickets issued has been ignored and successfully circumvented by College Park and most other municipalities in the state simply by not using the word "operating" to describe what the contractors do, regardless of how much control they have over the devices, their maintenance, placement, and calibration. Because College Park does not maintain its own police force, the have contracted Prince George's County police officers to ~~rubber stamp~~ electronically review and approve citations using Optotraffic provided software.

Optotraffic cameras are currently used in at least 14 municipalities in Maryland. The reports of errors by this type of camera are widespread, have arisen in different areas independently for some time. Errors have been previously reported by Optotraffic cameras in the mainstream press in Forest Heights and Brentwood a year ago. Citizens in the town of Cheverly independently raised accuracy issues about that town's cameras, confronting the town council in a public hearing (Cheverly's response to the complaints was later plagiarized by Forest Heights). Citizens have independently written to the Gazette about the errors. We've also reported on such errors in College Park and New Carrolton, and have received other reports of errors from Berwynn Heights and Riverdale Park as well. We were contacted by 2 other individuals claiming errors from College Park cameras who did not wish to go public.

Most people who receive questionable citations probably assume their only options are the two stated on the citation: pay the ticket (meaning the complain will never be heard) or take a full day off work and challenge it in court. In fact many people do challenge citations in court claiming inaccurate speeds, but typically this does not come to the attention of either the press or elected officials. Most such defendants typically have no legal experience or knowledge about the systems with which to build a defense. Speed camera cases are heard in a proceeding where the burden of proof has been explicitly lowered under Maryland law below that of any other type of violation (ie the verdict is based on whether the judge believes it is 51% likely the car was exceeding the speed limit, not 'beyond reasonable doubt'), and evidence may legally be admitted against defendants 'without authentication' by authorities (according to the wording of state law).

StopBigBrotherMD previous reported on the possible mechanisms of errors from these types of cameras, including a video demonstration with a scale model (our belief is that the problem is a design flaw, rather than a 'calibration' issue with one or two specific cameras). We've also demonstrated how the certification and testing of Optotraffic cameras used in some jurisdictions may be insufficient to ensure accuracy.

StopBigBrotherMD.org had previously obtained copies of documents from the City of College park pertaining to this specific camera location. The permit application from the city of college park showed different boundaries for the 30mph zone in the eastbound direction, with the transition from 40mph to 30 placed substantially farther to the east than the camera is currently placed. When StopBigBrotherMD.org asked College Park officials about this their response was that the documents in their permit application showing the 40mph limit in that section of road were "an error", even though the "error" was repeated at least 4 times in the comments we received and were supported by legacy Google StreetView images. The documents included a traffic survey which showed the enormous impact placing a camera near a 10mph drop in the speed limit and enforcing a 30mph vs a 40mph limit might have on the number of tickets issued.

Prince George's county has approved a contract with Optotraffic and will begin deploying 72 Optotraffic cameras on August 22, creating a large number of new school zones never previously designated or marked as such for speed camera use.

Frederick City Cameras bring in $216,000 in Four Weeks

2011-08-14T03:43:00.000-07:00

Frederick City speed cameras issued 6,922 citations worth $216,000 in their first four weeks of operation. The city had originally conservatively estimated $450,000 worth of revenue for an entire year.

Cameras are currently posted on Hayward Road, Opossomtown Pike, Butterfly Lane, North Market Street, and East Street, and the city reportedly plans to have a total of 18 cameras in use by the end of the year. In June 2010 the city of Frederick had created a large number of new school zones specifically for the purpose of deploying "school zone" speed cameras. Cities have had authority to designate and mark school zones within their boundaries for many years to alert drivers to the presence of schools and deploy other types of safety measures in those zones, but have only been authorized to deploy speed cameras in them since October 2009.

The city's contractor, ACS State and Local Solutions(a division of Xerox Corp) receives a fee of $3000 per month fee for each of the city's cameras, plus a $8.75 per ticket contingent fee. A provision of state law which was supposed to ban paying speed camera contractors based on the number of citations has been successfully circumvented by nearly every speed camera program in the state by simply not using the word "operate" to describe what the contractor does, even if they control most aspects of the program and devices' functionality. This demonstrates how all of the supposed restrictions on speed camera use are largely irrelevant to how they are actually implemented whenever there is a financial incentive for either the government or the contractor to sidestep those rules.

Lt Heatherton of the Frederick Police, who heads the city's camera program, stated to the Gazette that "I think I am the most hated man in Frederick these days". In June the Frederick Post reported that two Frederick City speed cameras were destroyed by unknown individuals shortly after they went online.

Auto Insurance Industry Charges Maryland More Despite Increasing Camera Enforcement

2011-08-02T03:30:00.001-07:00

Maryland drivers pay higher auto insurance premiums than drivers in most other states, and last year rates went up faster than in other states despite stricter enforcement of traffic laws which insurance industry funded groups support.

In 2010 Insure.com website ranked Maryland as the 17th most expensive state for auto insurance, with an average rate of $1,550.13 compared to the national average of $1429.26.   In 2011 Maryland moved up to 10th most expensive on the list, with rates increasing substantially to $1807(compared to a national average of $1,561). This was despite a tremendous expansion in the number and areas covered by cameras in 2010 which insurance industry funded groups have actively promoted.

Insure.com based their survey on the same insurance policy in each state with the same sample subject: a 40-year-old single male driver who commutes 12 miles to work, with policy limits of 100/300/50 and a $500 deductible on collision and comprehensive coverage. Another insurance group, insweb.com, examined the median rate per state and found similar result: listing Maryland as #2 most expensive in 2011, moving up from 6th most expensive in 2010.

Insurance companies have promoted the use of photo enforcement nationwide by funding advocacy groups such as the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. In 2010 Maryland saw new deployments of speed cameras on interstate highways, and new local speed camera programs in Baltimore County and numerous municipalities in Prince George's County, while Montgomery county approved an unlimited number of new speed camera sites.   This was in addition to the introduction of stricter traffic laws such as a new cell phone and texting bans. In theory measures which improve safety should lower costs for insurance companies and translate into lower rates. Yet as photo enforcement and other new restrictions on drivers were being implemented in Maryland our rates went up relative to other states.

DC, which has one of the most extensive speed and red light camera programs in the nation, performed similarly poorly in both rankings, coming out 6th most expensive in insweb's median cost ratings and 5th most expensive on insure.com's average cost rating for 2011. Next door Virginia, which has no speed cameras and only recently added red light cameras in a few cities, as which has comparable per-capita traffic fatality rates. Virginia was listed by insure.com as the 9th least expensive state, with an average rate $570 lower than Maryland.   The 4 least expensive states for auto insurance according to either the average or median rankings have neither speeding nor red light cameras:
    Insure.com : Vermont, South Carolina, Maine, Wisconsin

Insweb.com : Idaho, Maine, Vermont, and North Dakota

(states using speed and red light cameras based on data from the IIHS)

Tale of the Fishy Camera Logs

2011-07-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

One of the arguments made to show that cameras are accurate is that they are “tested annually” by an “independents calibration lab” and “tested daily” by police or city officials. But what does that actually mean? Out investigation into camera logs in Forest Heights and other towns using Optotraffic cameras shows that “independent” testing is not quite so independent, that daily tests for “accuracy” show nothing of the sort. Plus officials are either unwilling or unable to show that a human operator was present at the time of the test.

Click to enlarge

Our search began in September when we first became aware of the reports of errors by Optotraffic speed cameras. The recipient of some questionable citations (who had also been unable to receive a timely court hearing) filed a public information act request (at our recommendation) for records pertaining to camera errors, maintenance of cameras, and causes for the delays in court hearings. The town denied her request for all information except the following log.

The driver showed us the log, and we immediately realized that the signature of the same “operator” had signed the log which states “Signature of operator who performed self-test prior to producing recorded images”…. For 42 consecutive days, including weekends (when the devices cannot legally issue tickets) and the 4rth of July, with no days off, with signatures in nice neat straight rows. While we admire such a diligent employee it did raise suspicion, since almost nobody works 42 consecutive days. We also noticed that the released “log” excluded the ‘self test results” which are normally considered part of the “daily setup log” and are normally admitted as evidence as well.

On November 12, StopBigBrotherMD.org sent the town a follow-up request on behalf of this driver for the following information:

- the timecards, or if no timecard exists then other records of hours worked, for the speed monitoring system operator who signed the attached log for the speed monitoring system located at Indian Head Highway/Livingston Road NB, for all days from 6/22/2010 through 8/03/2010.
- A copy of the actual self test results (the actual output of the test), the system logs showing speed monitoring system's settings (threshold speed limit, setup-time, photo interval, etc), and system error logs for the speed monitoring system located at Indian Head Highway/Livingston Road NB on 7/4/2010, 7/5/2010, 7/8/2010, 7/20/2010, 7/22/2010, 7/27/2010.
- A copy of the certificate of calibration and/or calibration test record for the speed monitoring system referenced in the attached log.

The timecards of course would have proven whether or not the “operator” was in fact “working” on the day he signed that he “performed” the test. In other words, they would show whether the signed, sworn statement on a document admitted as evidence in court was true or not.

No response was received from Forest Heights within the 30 day time period permitted by law. The driver in this case eventually got a court hearing in December and needed to present her case without the requested evidence and was forced to pay the citations (this was before the technique for challenging citations based on time-distance calculations was well known). Finally in APRIL StopBigBrotherMD.org received a response from Forest Heights, denying access to timecards. However they did agree to release the camera logs and calibration certificates in exchange for a small fee. That response was back dated to December 16, 2010 (which was still after the 30 days permitted by law, and no response had been received in December). In May we sent payment for copies of the logs and calibration certificates which they had agreed to release. A month later we finally received these daily setup log files, but the annual calibration certificates were still missing from the released documents.

Click to Enlarge

We quickly noticed that on every log file there was in fact a SECOND DATE, days or weeks after the test date. Most of the logs had the second date 7/28/2010 regardless of the date of the test. This seems to support the idea that the tests were all run automatically, and the ‘operator’ signed the statement after the fact. Which would indicate that the "operator" did not "perform" the test "prior to producing recorded images" as the signed log files stated. We also made a request for an administrative hearing with respect to the timecards, which as of this writing has not been honored.So what do these daily setup tests show? Well lots of fancy charts and numbers, and seems to indicate everything is working right and a ‘Speed Error’ which seems to be very small. But what is it actually testing? Since this is an automatic test, it could not possibly bean actual vehicle driving past the sensor, so what is the claim of accuracy based on?

Well above the “speed error” it actually tells you what is tis based on “GPS Timing to Sensor Fire Timing Results”…. It is merely comparing the device’s internal timer to the time generated by the GPS satellites. That’s all. This is supported by the statement fromOptotraffic’s own technical document which describes the daily test as follows “the relative time between sensors is calibrated daily using the 1 pulse-per-second (PPS) signals from the global Position System (GPS) satellites”. All the other items in the test are basically just saying the components are turned on and have power. Optotraffic’s assertion is that the mere fact that the beams are firing at the correct rate and that the device’s internal timer is correct that it is accurate to much less than 1mph. That is even though there is no test that the beams are aligned correctly, no ACTUAL speed measurement test, and certainly no test for the types of errors we have demonstrated are possible if the device’s two sensors strike different portions of the same vehicle.

But what about the annual test certificate? Certainly that test covers everything else, right? Well unfortunately to this date we have yet to receive the annual calibration certificates which Forest Heights stated they would provide. Police Chief web stated that it was included in the documents he mailed us; it was not and he was informed of this, yet we have still to this date not received the certificates.

Fortunately, we have managed to acquire some calibration certificates from OTHER municipalities using Optotraffic cameras. According to Optotraffic’s technical document, the annual test is described as follows ”Each Lane Sensor is third-party calibrated annually (by Maryland law) to verify the beam distance”. That’s it. Optotraffic is basically asserting that if the ‘beam distance” is correct, and the internal timer is correct, then this means there are no other sources of error. Never mind any factors that could come up in the real world environment (as opposed to the laboratory) such as the fact that the device is mounted atop a 32 foot tall pole that sways in the wind, or that the two beams could strike different portions of the same vehicle.

We had previously managed to acquire a calibration certificate for one of New Carrollton’s cameras, which would have been one of the first such devices deployed anywhere in the state.

Page 1: Click to Enlarge

Page 1: click to enlarge

Observe the following:

1. On the first page you should note the following: The "Applied Specification" only says "Manufacturer Specification".. They ONLY tested what Optotraffic TOLD THEM TO. Basically Optotraffic wrote their own test, one they already knew they were certain to pass. Think of it as if the specification consisted of “the device will be 27 inches long” and they measured it with a ruled, INSTEAD OF testing the device as a whole to measure actual speeds. Optotraffic paid CustomCal to certify the device, but Optotraffic told them on what the basis to test it.

2. The following disclaimer appears at the end of the "Measurement Assurance" section: "due to any number of factors, the recommended due date of the item calibrated does not imply continuing conformance to specifications during the recommended interval". This disclaims the entire test. These are mobile cameras, and have been handled in any of a number of ways between the date of that test and actual deployment, there is no way to know the beams are still properly aligned on the citation date. The distance between beams is NOT part of the daily test! In fact Optotraffic can, and has, modified the software on the devices over the course of the past years since the tests, and possibly the hardware as well. Arguably this should also void the certification since it is no longer exactly the same device that the test was run on.

3. Now notice on pages 2 and 3, the user name is "Don Cornwell", and on 001007, the "approver" is "Jose Tillard". Google "Jose Tillard Sigma Space" and you will see a Linkedin page for a systems engineer at Sigma Space. Google "Sigma Space Don Cornwell" and "Optotraffic Don Cornwell " and you will get the following email addresses: don.cornwell@sigmaspace.com and don.cornwell@optotraffic.com. Don Cornwell is the Chief Technical Officer of Optotraffic. In this case they actually crossed out Mr Cornwell’s name and wrote in the name of a custom cal official on the signature line. And then there’s the big word “Optotraffic” across page 2, rather than the name of the independent lab.

4. Notice also the word ‘speed SIMULATOR ID’… this was not an actual test of a moving vehicle, it was some form of automatic software system test. A ‘simulation’ performed by the Optotraffic employee, not a real world test by an independent lab on an actual moving object.

We also managed to later acquire some logs from Berwynn Heights. These were similar, sowing the same “Manufacture specification”, describing the speed test as a “speed simulator”, with the same optotraffic employee username of dcornwell (or no username) for some of the speed simulator tests (in one case there was another user we could not identify). The Berwynn Heighs tests simply showed no signature on the pages.

A question worth asking is in what way is this level of testing adequate to ensure the reliability of the devices in a real world environment. It seems clear from the description of the tests that Optotraffic is making assumptions that only a limited number of issues can affect accuracy, with all other factors being ignored. And there is reason to believe the "operators" of the devices have in some instances been permitted to "operate" the devices while sitting on the beach. Optotraffic gets paid based on the number of tickets issued, and local governments profit significantly from them as well. The cameras in Forest Heights issued over $3million worth of tickets last year. Forest Height’s entire budget prior to getting speed cameras was only $1.7million. If it is being left up to those with such an enormous financial incentive to decide what constitutes adequate test, and how loosely the law can be interpreted, can the public and the courts and actually know whether the evidence being used against citizens is in fact reliable? We'd believe they know nothing of the sort, particularly given the number of speed measurement errors that have been reported already.

Camera Sites in Brentwood, Mount Rainier to Shut Down

2011-07-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

The SHA has notified the towns of Brentwood and Mount Rainier that they will be removing the school zone signage on US1 (Rhode Island Avenue) near 37th street where two "school zone" speed cameras were placed. The Montessori school for which the school zone was marked in April 2010 was recently moved out of its Mount Rainier location to a new location in DC.

Each town controlled one of the two cameras. we had previously reported that the section of road where these cameras are located was previously posted at 35mph but was re-posted as 25mph shortly before the cameras were deployed. The exact number of violations issued by these cameras is unknown at this time, but Mount Rainier's FY12 budget shows that in the 8 months from 7/1/2010-2/282011/ the town received $1,087,591 in total speed camera revenue. This is equal to at least 27,189 citations in 8 months. For comparison Mount Rainier has a population of about 8,500 and a total FY12 budget of $4.6million.

StopBigBrotherMD.org received to reply from either town in response to our questions about the change and how many citations had been issued since the school moved. While we have no specific information indicating that either the towns or the SHA were aware of the school's move before mid July, drivers who received citations from either camera in July 2011 or later and have not yet paid might consider contesting citations on the grounds that the school was no longer present.

There are still other speed camera sites on US 1 farther north in College Park.

National Camera News: Los Angeles City Council Shuts Down Red Light Cameras

2011-07-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles, CA city council has officially voted to end the city's red light camera program. The council unanimously voted to accept last month's decision of a police commission against continuing the camera program. "We need to be honest and transparent with this," city council member Zine said. "This program did not work as anticipated."

The red light camera program for the nation's second largest city, which issued $476 tickets and included ticketing drivers for rolling right turns, will be ended July 31.

Annapolis City Council Prepares Speed Camera Ordinance

2011-07-25T03:18:00.000-07:00

The Annapolis city council is preparing to discuss an ordinance to deploy speed cameras in the city. The first reading of the ordinance will be at a Monday July 25th special council session.

A public hearing must still be scheduled before it can be voted on. Citizens can also express their opinions on the subject by contacting the city council.

Prince George's Moves Ahead with Optotraffic Contract Despite Citizen Complaints

2011-07-21T04:45:00.000-07:00

A panel of Prince George's County officials have selected Optotraffic, a division of Lanham Based Sigma Space Corporation, as the vendor for its speed camera program.   The decision to select the local vendor comes despite reports of errors by Optotraffic's cameras, as well as other issues such as drivers being denied court hearings.

We've previously reported how these errors have been independently reported in the mainstream press in Forest Heights and Brentwood, and that some citations have been shot down in court on the basis of accuracy. We've pointed out that several citizens in the town of Cheverly completely independently raised accuracy issues about that town's cameras, confronting the town council in a public hearing (Cheverly's response to the complaints was later plagiarized by Forest Heights). Citizens have independently written to the Gazette about the errors. We've also reported on such errors in College Park and New Carrolton, and have received other reports of errors from Berwynn Heights and Riverdale Park. The errors were reported by a significant number of individuals independently of each other.

Under the contract, Optotraffic would provide the cameras for use at up to 113 sites, including areas that are being newly designated as school zones solely for the purpose of deploying speed cameras.

The county claims to have investigated, and rejected, the concerns about this type of camera. "When that was publicized, we stopped what we were doing and we checked into those claims," the Washington Times quoted county police Maj. Robert Liberati. "Optotraffic was chosen based on their history and their equipment most matching what the county wanted to do."

StopBigBrotherMD.org wrote to the county executive's office and members of the council on July 14th with specific technical information regarding Optotraffic cameras. We humbly submit that StopBigBrotherMD.org has done more research into this particular type of camera than any other organization which does not profit from the cameras (and probably more than those which do profit from them). No response from any county officials was received, indicating that county officials are in fact not genuinely interested in seriously evaluating the evidence of errors and other issues.

At the county's July 12th hearing two citizens spoke out about camera errors. In addition. Response from police speaking on behalf of Optotraffic run municipal camera programs was that there is 'no relationship' between timestamps on citations used to prove errors and the actual time between frames. Another citizen who spoke against the cameras pointed out that his evidence was based on an electronically recorded vehicle speed, not photo evidence. None of these specific cases of errors was addressed by the camera supporters at the hearing.

AAA also expressed concerns about the cameras. "I don't think they know of the problems and complaints we've received (from members) about this company (Optotraffic)," AAA spokesman John Townsend said. "I don't trust their technology and we at AAA don't think it's the most reliable system out there."

We've written several times about these errors, and shot down the various arguments Optotraffic has made that there cameras are error-free, in particular their claim that citation images cannot be used to verify speed. We even produced a video demonstrating three possible mechanisms of errors using a scale model. (short version: Optotraffic's cameras are fundamentally different than normal police radar or lidar because it uses two laser 'triggers' to detect passing vehicles and determine its speed, instead of a single beam. If the two lasers strike different parts of the vehicle for any reason, a speed measurement error would likely result.)

Rather than get into that again, let's look at this another way. Suppose we assume, for arguments sake only, that Optotraffic is correct, and that WITH THEIR CAMERAS, verifying the speed measurements from citation images is not possible. What would that mean?

First, we'd need to ignore the fact that some of the error claims were NOT based on such images, particularly two such claims in College Park and New Carrolton. And of course the claims in Brentwood and at least one of the claims in Forest Heights was based on the driver's belief that the recorded speed was physically impossible. So for this argument we'll follow Optotraffic and PG County official's lead: problem ignored. Next you need to ignore Optotraffic's own claim in their own technical document which states "While the primary evidence for issuing a speeding citation is the calibrated Lane Sensor, the two photos provide the secondary evidence of speeding that is presented to the citation recipient."(pg 4) and "Since a stationary object is present along with the vehicle, a photographic method also determines speed, guaranteeing fairness"(pg 2, last paragraph). We'll need to ignore Optotraffic's flip-flopping as well.

Of course we are also expected to believe that a company which is not capable of the relatively simple task of recording accurate timestamps on their citation images, is capable of measuring speeds precise to
a fraction of a mph with absolute reliability under all conditions. This seems to stretch credibility. We'll ignore that too.

So ignoring all of this and accepting Optotraffic's claims there is still a problem: If it is not possible for ticket recipients to verify speed from citations, it is not possible for POLICE to do so either. For all the faults of Maryland State law, lawmakers did at least put one provision into the law designed to offer some protection to drivers. Citations must include two timestamped image showing the same stationary object, and that a police officer must sign a statement that he inspected and approved the tickets. In fact it is written right on Optotraffic's citations "I am an agent or employee of the City of _____. Based on inspection of the recorded images shown above, the motor vehicle was operated in violation of TA 21-809, as evidenced by the above images. Sworn to or affirmed by : _____"
But wait... how can anyone swear "based on recorded images" that someone was speeding, if verifying their speed from photos is not possible? It would seem this sworn statement could not be true. No meaningful review of citations by police would be possible since there would be no way to retroactively verify speed, even just as a 'sanity check'. In many cases with other types of cameras there are lines or 'tickmarks' on the road, intended to show where the vehicle SHOULD be in each frame if it was in fact speeding. But if Optotraffic's claims are true, this type of verification would not be possible with their cameras because the vehicles might appear anywhere in the frame regardless of how fast it is going. Optotraffic's cameras would be an inferior product to cameras which DO allow such verification... at least if a government actually cares whether innocent people might get cited and values having some kind of verifiability.

Indeed, if timestamps really are not predictable at all, then how would they even know that 'target identification' would not occur, and that they would not cite the wrong vehicle by mistake? If they wanted to allow verification of targets, or to know that the recorded speed was actually the vehicle's speed rather than a random 'glitch', they'd want to ensure the vehicle was in a predictable location in at least one of the images to check that the vehicle being tagged was in fact the source of the speed measurement. But if the timestamp was off by say more than 1/2 second, you could have a situation where another vehicle had moved into frame behind the speeding vehicle, or worse yet that the speeding vehicle was approaching a slower vehicle from behind but had not yet moved into frame, and either way the wrong vehicle was cited. How could they know this would not happen if timestamps are really 'random'?

Now, likewise we'll ignore that there are other issues besides accuracy. This includes the fact that Optotraffic, which for reasons that continue to confuse us is responsible for scheduling court hearings, has been denying court hearings to some drivers fighting Forest Heights camera tickets for up to a year or more. Indeed Optotraffic was offered hearing dates by the district court, yet certain individuals who have been waiting since September of May of 2010 were passed over for those hearing dates. Why can a private company, paid based on the number of paid citations, decide who can get a court hearing and who does not? It would seem that regardless of whether the errors are real, the drivers are still entitled to due process and the right to speedy trial, not to have Optotraffic delay court hearings. Not that there are any reason Optotraffic might WANT to do that, such as preventing embarrassing information from being presented in court until after they have secured a lucrative county contract. Nope, we can't think of any reasons they'd want that.

Lastly, consider what Optotraffic's position really means in terms of the core principals of our justice system: that the accused is to be presumed guilty and cannot challenge the accuracy of the device by any means regardless of what the evidence shows. In Optotraffic's world, the ONLY evidence of the vehicle's speed is whatever THEY say the vehicle was traveling, even if the recorded images and ANY other evidence shows otherwise. Now the accusation itself is considered absolute proof of guilt. If the defendant is not actually allowed to assert their innocence and be judged based on the evidence why bother allowing court hearings at all if they are only a farce?!? It would be more honest to simply inform the public that they are now serfs who must now submit to any fine imposed by any local government and camera company, regardless of whether the accusation is true or not.

Optotraffic and the governments using their systems would like you to disregard what we've been telling you, to accept their word on blind faith, saying that camera opponents have an agenda or something. The fact is Optotraffic and the municipalities that use their cameras are making TONS of money off these devices, and PG County hopes to do the same. StopBigBrotherMD, of course, doesn't make a dime off of this issue.   Who has the conflict of interest? We say follow the money.

Contacts: County Executive and Council
               State Lawmakers

National Camera News: Voters Denied Voice In Camera Issues

2011-07-15T04:25:00.001-07:00

Voters in Houston and Washington State are fighting for the people's right to decide public matters related to cameras in a referendum.

In Houston, Texas, city officials have turned red light cameras back on which had been switched off after voters rejected the cameras in a referendum. The city officals had colluded with red light camera vendor ATS(American Traffic Solutions) in a court proceeding where ATS (the city's contractor who wanted to keep the cameras) sued the city (who also wanted to keep the cameras), while the petitioners (who didn't want the cameras) were not permitted to participate in the proceeedings. City officials were thus able to throw the case and overturn the will of the people. The petition supporters are initiating legal actions to challenge the decision. During the 5 month period since the cameras had been turned off, data released by Houston officials showed a 16% drop in traffic accidents at the 50 intersections where red light cameras had been switched off, a clear reduction in accidents during the time when the cameras were not functioning.

In Longview Washington, supporters of a petition to put red lgiht cameras to referendum have been forced to file suit against the city under a national anti-SLAPP law ("strategic lawsuits against public participation") in order to allow the matter to got to the ballot. The petitioners had submitted more than the required number of signatures to the city, but instead of forwarding the signatures to the county auditor for verification as required by law, the city council decided to file suit against Wallin on June 7, in order to prevent the revenue generating system from being put to a vote. The organizer of the petition has filed a counter suit under the federal law to defend the right of the people to take the matter to petition.

National Camera News: Incidents show photo tickets are not reviewed

2011-07-15T04:16:00.000-07:00

Recent incidents in Arizona, Iowa, and Baltimore prove that photo tickets are commonly not reviewed by humans before they are issued.

In Tempe, Arizona, participants in a funeral procession received multiple red light camera tickets after passing through an intersection with a police escort. The Camera vender American Traffic Solutions initially refused to refund citations until the media got involved. The police escourts were clearly shown on the video taken by the cameras, despite the fact that city officials and camera vendor ATS state that every single citation is always reviewed by police, a claim which ATS made in a video widely distributed to media outlets a few weeks ago.

In another incident in Sioux City, IA, 500 motorists were issued red light running tickets by a speed camera located on a freeway with no intersection. The tickets each contained a sworn statement by police stating, under penalty of perjury, that the officer had inspected the citations and that the information on the citations was correct. After the error was pointed out to city officials they corrected their mistake, by withdrawing the red light camera violations and issuing speeding tickets instead.

In another local incident in Baltimore earlier this year, 2000 citations were 'approved' by a police officer who had been deceased for several months. Even in this instance city officials swore up and down that the photo tickets are all reviewed by humans. And they never lie, right?

Just in Case You've Forgotten

2011-07-15T03:38:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when we like to remind people that 'School Zone' speed cameras DO issue tickets in summer months while schools are closed, as well as on Holidays, M-Fr 6am-8pm.

As we have documented several times in the past, many if not most of the school zones that cameras in PG county and Baltimore city are in were created recently, solely for speed camera use. And the majority of cameras in Montgomery County are not located in school zones, since they are 'grandfathered in' and exempt from the requirement that they be placed in school zones, and operate 24/7. Freeway 'work zone' speed cameras are able to issue tickets 24/7 'regardless of whether workers are present'. In some cases cameras are placed in reduced speed zones (including the new cameras going up on I-270 near Urbana) and the reduced speed limits ARE in effect when no workers are present.

So basically, just because they use the word school all the time to justify speed cameras, does not mean they are off when school is out.

Montgomery County Police Concerned with Drivers Going Too Slow

2011-07-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

From the Gazette:
"The Montgomery County Police Department is seeking to amend state law to require that drivers in the left lane of some roads yield to faster cars.

The request was among 10 state legislative proposals discussed by the Montgomery County Council on Tuesday. Melanie Wenger, director of the county’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations, said County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) supports the legislation.

Drivers would be required to pull to the right if they were driving below the speed limit, or if they were driving at or over the speed limit, but a car approaching from behind was driving faster."
See Full Story in the Gazette

Update 7/15/2010: The Montgomery County Police have since withdrawn the request for this legislation, after it received attention in the media.

Video Demonstration of Optotraffic Speed Camera Error Mechanisms

2011-07-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

StopBigBrotherMD has created a video demonstration of three possible mechanisms of speed measurement errors which we believe could occur under real world conditions with and Optotraffic speed camera.
Such errors have been reported extensively in Forest Heights, but also in Brentwood, Cheverly, New Carrollton, College Park, as well as other towns using this type of camera. The evidence of those errors is based on time stamped images in most cased, but in a few instances it also included electronic recordings of the vehicle's speed, as well as some drivers' belief that the recorded speed was impossible under the circumstances. Despite the numerous independent claims of errors Optotraffic has asserted that nobody has ever shown them proof of an error.

Optotraffic speed monitoring systems work under a fundamentally different principal than traditional police radar (which uses a Doppler effect) or police lidar (which uses a single range finder to take multiple distance measurements). Instead the device (for which you can see Optotraffic's technical description and the patent record for the devices) of uses two lasers fired parallel to each other and perpendicular to the ground from a 32 foot tall pole which essentially act as "switches" that determine the time the vehicle reaches each of the two beams and computes the speed based on the known distance between the beams. Because there are two beams instead of one, we believe the device will produce an incorrect speed reading in any instance where the two beams make first contact with different portions of the same vehicle. The video uses a 1:32 scale mockup of an Optotraffic camera with 2 laser pointers to document three possible ways the beams could in fact strike substantially different parts of the vehicle.

A written description of these error mechanisms follows:

1. If the beam ‘overshoots’ the vehicle, and grazes along the top edge of the vehicle, then if the vehicle is moving at an angle or there is even a slight change in the height of the beams, a substantial error can occur. Beam 1 could strike a point along the hood of the truck, while beam2

So the device believes the truck is traveling at:
Speed = (Calibrated Distance / ( time2 – time 1)) When the REAL speed of the truck was:
Speed = ((Calibrated Distance - Delta Dist) / ( time2 – time 1)) Delta Dist could be substantial, we believe a delta dist of a foot or more would be possible under the right circumstances. Given a 27 inch calibrated distance between lasers represents an error in the speed measurement to the order of 80%.

2. If the beam “undershoots” the vehicle, a similar error could occur if the first beam strikes the tire before striking the nose of the vehicle, then the second beam first strikes the bumper. This could happen if the beam is moving at a slight angle, from the center line towards the shoulder, or if either the beams or the road are not completely level.

The amount of error produced by undershoots would based on a delta distance of up to the distance between the front of the bumper of the vehicle and the front tire. If this amount were 1 foot, that could mean an 80% speed measurement error.

3. Interruption Error: It is possible for lasers to pass through the wheel wells of a vehicle. This would mean that the first beam will strike the front of the pickup truck first (Step 1), as expected. However when the truck advances a short distance the beams would fall into the wheel wells and strike the ground (Step 2). Both sensors would detect no vehicle present at this point. A short distance later the first beam would now strike the truck’s tire (Step 3). Then the second beam will finally strike the front of the truck (Step 4).

The result of this scenario is that the device is computing a speed based on the calibrated distance between beams, but based on the time in which the truck has in reality traveled only (calibrated distance – Delta Distance) where Delta Distance is the distance between the front of the truck and the tire.
In a real vehicle, the gaps in the wheel wells are quite sufficient for a laser to pass through, several inches:

We stipulate that if you can see pavement, a laser would go through these gaps. (But if you don't want to take our word for that, confirming this yourself is as easy as get a laser pointer and going out to the nearest parking lot).

We note that a disproportionate number of the errors observed have been pickup trucks or other large vehicles. Such vehicles tend to have the largest gaps in the wheel wells, leaving them more susceptible to interruption errors. They also have greater ground clearance than a passenger car, making undershoot errors more likely. However it is still possible that these scenarios would occur on passenger cars.

It is notable that the three error mechanisms described in the video do NOT require any assumptions the the device be incorrectly set up or that it be incorrectly calibrated. Even if the device is calibrated exactly as intended, and the device is set up exactly as designed, the problems could still happen if a vehicle is moving at a slight angle rather than completely perpendicular to the device, or if the road is not completely level, or in the case of an interruption error simply as a matter of where within the lane the vehicle is driving plus a small amount of bad luck. And, there is absolutely nothing in either the annual calibration certificates or the daily setup logs for these cameras which indicate that any of the above conditions has been tested for, absolutely nothing.

In addition to the errors documented in the video, other error mechanisms could be considered, including
a) the effects of wind, which has been shown in a video to cause the 32 foot pole to sway (see video documenting this in winds as light at 4-9mph), could cause effects the device was not designed to compensate for
b) ‘Cross eyed beams’, where the beams are not completely parallel. This could be caused if the lasers were to shift in their housing during transport or setup. The effect is that the two beams might be closer together at the target point, which would produce an incorrect speed measurement.
c) Software errors of an indeterminate nature.
In a future posting we will explain why we believe the tests behind the "annual calibration certificates" and "daily self tests" in fact do NOT ensure that any of the last three problems would not occur.

Now, we fully expect that Optotraffic will make some form of response to this, claiming that these would not result in errors, similar to the lame attempts which they made in the past to discount error claims. And one could try to argue that Optotraffic is "innocent until proven guilty", and that so long as there is some tenuous possibility that our explanations are incorrect that Optotraffic's cameras should be "presumed innocent'. There's just one problem with that: Optotraffic is NOT the accused, Optotraffic is the ACCUSER. Every week Optotraffic mails thousands of citations generated by these cameras to Maryland drivers. Evidence generated by these cameras is being submitted in court cases , with the courts by and large assuming that the devices are accurate (except of course for those drivers who have been unable to even get court hearings, including some who received tickets from Forest Heights who have been waiting over a year for hearings). And even for those drivers who DO have compelling evidence they are innocent, it still costs them many times the cost of the ticket just in terms of the value of their own time. The only people who will fight the tickets even when they know they are innocent are the few who are willing to do so out of principal.

The situation has become particularly urgent because Prince George's County is currently considering making Optotraffic the contractor for its camera program which will include over 100 new speed camera sites, that is a huge number of opportunities for false accusations. Those accusations are not just about $40 either: StopBigBrotherMD.org has received reports of drivers who have been disciplined and even fired after receiving speed camera tickets while driving a company or government owned vehicle in Maryland. The possibility exists for someone's entire career to be ruined over a false accusation.

We believe Maryland should NOT be used as a beta test site for the nation's speed camera vendors. At the very least if speed cameras are to be used, the devices should be proven accurate and reliable in real world conditions beyond doubt before they are allowed to issue tickets. Some statewide or national organization with no financial interest in the outcome should be doing that. We also believe some legislative remedy is necessary to provide more stringent standards for testing and statewide oversight. Maryland residents can help by contacting your state legislators.

Prince George's County Plans 113 Speed Camera Sites, 58 New School zones

2011-07-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

The Prince George's County Government will be holding a public hearing on July 12th on a list of proposed speed camera sites. The list include 55 'established school zones' and 58 sites which are not currently designated school zones, but which would become school zones under the new plan.

Any road within a 1/2 mile radius of a school can potentially be designated as a school zone. By that definition the combined land areas around this many sites would be larger than the District of Columbia. The state highway administration updated their automated speed enforcement guidelines earlier this year, which clearly states that not all roads withing 1/2 mile of a school are automatically considered school zones:
"The Maryland Annotated Code (TR § 21-803.1) allows school zones to be established within a one-half (½) mile radius of any school. However, not every road segment within a ½ mile radius of a school should be a school zone." and "Except in unusual circumstances and as justified by a traffic engineering study, a school zone adjacent to a school should not exceed 500 feet approaching or beyond the school or the school activity. Where that activity is a school crossing only, the school zone typically should end a short distance beyond the crossing." And that all such areas must be "established by official action by the entity that owns the highway containing the segment;" "appropriately signed in conformance with the MdMUTCD and guidance issued by the State Highway Administration"

The boundaries of the new school zones are not listed in the meeting documents. The list includes a school next to the locations, and do not give addresses for the schools or the bounds of the proposed zones. Because of that it is unclear whether they will be designating specific sections actually near schools as school zone (as they would certainly prefer the public to believe), or whether they intend to do what many Municipalities have been doing for their programs, simply "designating" all roads within 1/2 mile radius of any portion of any school facility as a school zone, including in some cases major commuter routes in places not accessible to pedestrians.

It is interesting to note that the OLD VERSION of the SHA's ASE brochure included the sentence "School zones should not be established solely for the purpose of installing speed cameras." The SHA removed that sentence (over StopBigBrotherMD's written objections) when they rewrote the document (see new version), presumably either because most local government have not been complying with that anyways and have been creating vast new school zones solely for speed camera uses, or because they did not like the fact that StopBigBrotherMD has been quoting that statement. (We keep copies of most of the documents we reference on this site, because the documents tend to be changed or deleted out from under us). Should the proposed Prince George's County site list be selected as-is, then the majority of the county's speed cameras would be in locations designated as school zones solely for speed camera use.

We previously reported that Prince George's County issued an intent to award their speed camera contract to Optotraffic (a division of Sigma Space Corporation). Optotraffic's cameras have been the subject of alleged errors as well as due process issues from citizens from Forest Heights who were unable to receive court hearings upon request(which Optotraffic is responsible for scheduling). Optotraffic/Sigma Space Corporation was a contributor to the county executive's campaign and inauguration fund. Under all of their existing contracts Optotraffic receives a percentage cut of each ticket in exchange for providing, maintaining, and processing violations from the cameras, as well as scheduling court hearings, mailing citations, and collecting payment. Police and local officials are involved in ~~rubber stamping~~ signing the citations, and also for signing the 'daily setup logs' which supposedly test the machines (but which in reality do not involve actual speed tests to validate the devices).

The hearing on this list of proposed sites will be at July 12th at 1:30pm in the County Administration Building, 14741 Governor Oden Bowie drive Upper Marlboro, Maryland. The notice also states that another hearing within the next 30 days to discuss the selection of a speed camera contractor . We recommend that anyone who has issues with the performance of Optotraffic's cameras contact the county executive and county council prior to that time.

IIHS and Photo Enforcement Companies Conduct Media Effort To Sell Cameras To Public and Press

2011-06-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

Faces with rising opposition to photo enforcement across the US, including the rejection of red light camera program by voters in Houston and the rejection by the City Police Commission of red light cameras in Los Angeles, photo enforcement companies and their supporters in the insurance industry are waging a desperate but coordinated campaign to convince the media and the public that red light cameras are popular.

The Insurance industry front group IIHS today released a fictitious survey claiming that the people in cities across the county support red light cameras. Of the 14 cities polled, 13 of them allegedly showed majority support for red light cameras. The lowest level of support for red light cameras was Long Beach, Calif. (48%).

This result is puzzling, given that PHOTO ENFORCEMENT HAS NEVER WON A DIRECT POPULAR VOTE IN THE US. Photo enforcement has been placed to referendum in the US exactly 15 times, yet every single time the public was given this choice, the people voted against the cameras. The US cities which have voted against photo enforcement are:
Houston, TX
Baytown, WA
Mulkilteo, WA
Anaheim, CA
Garfield Heights, OH
Sykesville, Maryland
Sulphur, Louisiana
Chillicothe, OH
Heath, OH
College Station, TX
Steubenville, OH
Peoria, AZ
Batavia, IL
Anchoragem AK
Arlington, TX

It is curious how none of the cities above were included in this survey. It is also strange that if almost every city supports cameras why voters have NEVER voted in favor of photo enforcement in a popular vote? One would have expected voters in at least one US city to have voted in favor of cameras, yet they have NEVER done so. In most of those cases, including Sykesville Maryland, public officials CLAIMED that a majority of the population supported the cameras, but when the voters got to the booths that was proven false.

WTOP ran the story on this report the day after the same organization publishing a propaganda video created by red light camera company American Traffic Solutions. (The video claimed that automated traffic enforcement is basically not 'automated' because every citation is thoroughly reviewed. That claim should be viewed with skepticism... earlier this year a case was revealed in Baltimore where a deceased police officer "signed" over 2000 red light camera tickets, bringing into question whether human review actually takes place.)

The IIHS apparently was reaching out, on the same day the ATS video was distributed, to news organizations nation wide under condition that they not publicly release information about the report until the next day. It is a curious coincidence that both ATS and the IIHS were reaching out to media organizations nationwide on almost the same day.

The insurance industry has been lobbying nationwide in favor of red light cameras, and particularly for photo tickets which include "points", which allow insurance companies to increase premiums. Any time a photo ticket is issued in California, Arizona, or Illinois which bears points, insurance companies that fund the IIHS are able to charge higher premiums, which is pure profit since there is no corresponding increase in cost to those companies. (While Maryland does not currently include points for now, because it requires identifying the driver, some other states do. Maryland considered introducing an entirely new type of photo enforcement with points earlier this year, although ultimately the legislation was passed without points). In addition, insurance companies have exactly ZERO interest in protecting the public's right to due process and the right to face an accuser, and as such would be willing to impose any amount of infringement on the rights of drivers for even a miniscule chance of increasing profits. Imagine you put health insurance companies in complete charge of what could be served in restaurants: the ordering fattening foods might be restricted simply because eating them might, someday, somewhere produce a small increase in claims, whereas the companies would have no financial interest in possible undesirable consequences of such a move.

Producing an opinion survey which produces a desired outcome is fairly simple, by phrasing the question a certain way, or by presenting some facts but not others. It is unlikely, for example, that the IIHS survey mentioned any possible alternatives to red light cameras, for example the fact that increasing yellow light times has been show to eliminate most red light running. Or if the wording suggested or stated that cameras reduced accidents, without mentioning that there have been numerous studies which showed that the opposite is true, and in particular that rear end collisions tend to increase when red light cameras are used. Questions can also be worded in such as way to encourage the presumption that tickets only go to drivers who knowingly run red lights, rather than drivers who do so accidentally, possibly a small fraction of a second after the red.

In fact the IIHS poll reads like a case study in how to construct a 'push poll' designed to elicit the desired response from people who have not thought about or only have weakly held opinions on the subject, something which PR specialists have down to a science:
Question #1: Do you believe drivers running red lights is a problem in city? (Goal: plant in subject's mind that red light running is a problem)
Question #2: Do you believe drivers running red lights is a serious threat to personal safety? (Goal: bring to front of subject's mind that red light running is a safety issue)
Question #3: Do you believe it is acceptable for drivers to go through red lights even when it’s possible to stop safely? (Goal: provoke outrage : 'What, there a scumbuckets out there who deliberately run red lights even if they have time to stop?' rather than the notion that red light running might sometimes be accidental or due to short yellows)
Question #4:In past 30 days have driven through a light that had turned red? (Goal: plant idea that this applies to OTHER DRIVERS not the subject: 'You're not one of those scumbuckets are you? No? Cool, so were talking about enforcement against others not you. Important for this part to choose a relatively short period of time rather than say a year so the number of yes responses will stay low.").
(Be sure that before asking the primary question to make no mention of due process issues, right to face an accuser, privacy issues, possibilities of errors, or possibility that cameras could be used to enforce other types of violations besides deliberate red light running such as stopping just past the white line or almost-but-not-quite-stopping before a right turn, or that other alternatives might exist, so those factors will NOT be in the subject's mind... as that could ruin the whole thing)
Question #5:"Do You Favor or oppose red light cameras to enforce against red light running?" (Bingo!)

We previously documented the types of public relations efforts engaged in by photo enforcement companies. Earlier we published excerpts from the Montgomery County Speed camera, where their contractor ACS detailed an elaborate media outreach campaign they would conduct to support that program, including planting favorable stories in mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post and WTOP (both were specifically mentioned in the contract). ACS's contract included organizing surveys and statistics to "clarify and amplify" program results. It was also documented how ACS created "Astroturf" groups, posing as grass roots organizations, supporting speed cameras in Baltimore County and Howard County.

In other parts of the county, an official from American Traffic Solutions has created internet sock puppets who posed as local private citizens, publishing favorable statements on photo enforcement stories. ATS has also created astroturf websites (wrongonred.org) with a URL almost identical to a local anti-red light camera website (wrongonred.com).

Voters in the city of Houston rejected red light cameras in a referendum last year, and since then accidents at 50 former camera sites fell 16% since the cameras were removed. This did not stop ATS and Houston city officials from colluding to try to have the referendum results thrown out in a court case where the camera opponents were not permitted to participate in the court proceedings. In addition to this that the Los Angeles Police Commission voted to switch off that city's camera program, representing an overwhelming rejection of the benefits of cameras by one of the largest municipal police forces in the country (not to mention the fact that since California red light camera tickets have points the insurance industry which funds the IIHS stands to loose money right off the top).

Apparently photo enforcement companies and their IIHS allies, who care exactly zero about your right to face an accuser and your right to due process, have been placed on the defensive in some parts of the country, and will do anything within their power to reverse the rising opposition to photo enforcement.

Additional Information on ThenNewspaper.com

US Supreme Court Upholds Right to Confront Accuser

2011-06-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

The US Supreme Court has upheld the right to confront and accuser in a ruling that could have broad implications for photo radar cases, according to an article in TheNewsPaper.com.
------------------------------------
In a decision that has wide-ranging implications for photo enforcement, speeding tickets and driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) charges, the US Supreme Court yesterday reconfirmed the Sixth Amendment right to confront one's accuser applies to analysts who claim to have certified evidence from a machine. The 5-4 decision concluded that "stand-in" expert witnesses are not a substitute for the individuals who actually conducted the tests. The decision broadens the applicability of the landmark Melendez-Diaz ruling from 2009, which has already led to appellate division cases in four California counties to throw out red light camera evidence.
[...]
"Suppose a police report recorded an objective fact -- Bullcoming's counsel posited the address above the front door of a house or the read-out of a radar gun," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. "Could an officer other than the one who saw the number on the house or gun present the information in court -- so long as that officer was equipped to testify about any technology the observing officer deployed and the police department's standard operating procedures? As our precedent makes plain, the answer is emphatically 'No.'"

The court majority noted that using a surrogate witness would conceal any lapses or lies on the part of the certifying analyst. It also noted that the burden on the prosecution from the requirement of live testimony could have been cured by having Razatos retest the blood sample, which was preserved in accordance with New Mexico law.
[...]
The decision represented a rare coalition of the most liberal and most conservative members of the court. Ginsburg and President Obama's nominees to the court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
------------------------------------
Read the full article and court decision on theNewsPaper.com.

The decision could have relevance to cases of denied due process and denied right to face an accuser in Maryland. Under Maryland law, drivers may request the "speed monitoring system operator" to appear in court. However this person may or may not have anything to do with the actual operation of the device, and defendants have been given no right to confront the camera contractors who build, install, maintain, and process violations from the cameras in exchange for a percentage cut of the revenue. Furthermore, in 2009 the law was changed to modify the definition of a speed monitoring system operator from "an individual who operates a speed monitoring system" to "a representative of an agency which operates a speed monitoring system", an obvious effort by some Maryland lawmakers to provide cover for jurisdictions who choose to present someone with no responsibility for running the machines in court.

Even this right to face the operator has not been consistently upheld in Maryland. When operators have failed to appear upon request, drivers are typically forced to prove they requested the operator with something like a certified mail receipt, and even in those cases district courts have not always dismissed the cases on that basis. In particular Montgomery County on several occasions asserted that they do not need to present the operator in court for fixed-pole speed cameras. This policy was adopted some time after one camera operator from Gaithersburg admitted in court that he was not working on the date of a violation, causing the judge to throw out the case. Earlier this year StopBigBrotherMD.org tried to obtain documents pertaining to the basis for the policy of refusing to present the operator, under the Maryland Public Information. Montgomery County officials obstructed this request, stating that they would only release such records after a 6 month search to be begun only after they received a massive $43,000.00 payment. When asked several times for and explanation of this expense, Montgomery County failed to respond.

We hope Montgomery County and other jurisdictions will reconsider the denial of the constitutional right to confront the accuser in light of the Supreme Court's decision.

Optotraffic Expands Business Amid Accuracy Questions

2011-06-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

Optotraffic (a division of Sigma Space Corporation) has signed new speed camera contracts with the towns of Cambridge and Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, and is well on its way to securing a county wide contract for Prince George;s County.

The Cambridge contract was approved in a May 9th meeting. One council member, Robert Hanson, voted against the contract, while three other commissioners supported the cameras (contact info for commissioners is here).

The Chesapeake Beach council empowered the town to negotiate the contract in a March meeting, with Council member Carpenter abstained, stating he had a "philosophical problem with speed cameras", and all other council members voting in favor (contact info for the Chesapeak Beach council can be found here). The article on thebaynet.com stated the town received two bids for the contract, with Optotraffic being the lower.

The expansion has occurred at a time when the company's cameras have been accused of widespread errors. The mainstream press has reported credible reports of speed measurement errors by Optotraffic camers used in Forest Heights and Brentwood last year. This website has also reported on credible errors in Cheverly , and College Park. In particular one recipient of a ticket from an Optotraffic Camera in New Carollton was able to produce multiple forms of evidence showing an inaccurate speed measurement. We have also received several reports of speed measurement errors from Optotraffic cameras in Riverdale Park and Berwynn Heights.

In addition, some drivers in Forest Heights have claimed they were unable to receive corut hearings to challenge their citations after 9 months or in one case over a year, receiving penalty notices and threats to suspend their registration instead of court dates. The contractor, Optotraffic is responsible for scheduling court dates.

In exchange for a percentage cut of each ticket Optotraffic builds the cameras, maintains the cameras, processes violations, provides software to allow police to electronically approve/rubber stamp citations. Optotraffic has asserted they have never been shown evidence of an error by one of their cameras, and earlier this year produced a public relations video which they claimed proved their cameras were accurate, but upon close examination we found that video to actually validate the methods being used to document errors. Optotraffic also began reducing the precision on their image timestamps after people started using those timestamps to prove speed measurement errors, in some cases with apparent errors of up to 30mph in Forest Heights.

Prince George's County announced this year that it would initiate a speed camera program of its own. In a May 24th letter to one constituent the county responded to a complaint about Optotraffic cameras with a letter stating "In January of this year, Prince George's County issued a request for a proposal for the procurement of an Automated Speed Camera Program. Upon Completion of the evaluation process, the County issued an intent to award to the Sigma Space Corporation which utilizes Optotraffic speed cameras. We are aware of the current issued concerning the speed cameras and are conducting further analysis in order to ensure that the County procures the most reliable camera system."

It has yet to be seen whether "further action" means doing something different, or just going ahead and signing the contract and deploying the cameras. Optotraffic's cameras are NOT on the IACP's list of conforming law enforcement products, which is arguably the most qualified organization for testing law enforcement devices, nor does it function like any of the products on that list. It is questionable how they can be described as "the most reliable camera system" compared to other types of cameras from which we have received fewer reports of errors.

Prince George's county has an unfortunate history of a 'pay to play' culture, which the Baker administration has sworn to put an end to. However Optotraffic is taking no chances on this. In addition to Sigma Space Corporation contributing $1000 to Rushern Baker's election campaign (according to the Maryland Campaign Finance database), both Optotraffic and Sigma Space Corporation are listed as a "Bronze Path Contributors" to Rushern Baker's Inauguration Fund (meaning a contribution of $2,500.00 each) Also listed at this level of contribution is The Traffic Group", a subcontractor which Optotraffic has been using to perform traffic surveys and produce permit applications by municipalities to use Optotraffic Speed Cameras on county and SHA owned roads. The Baker administration cannot be faulted for who contributes to his campaign or inauguration. However he does have a say in whether or not that affects the county's judgement on matters which affect his constituents' right to due process. We hope that it will not, and that the county will conduct a SERIOUS and TRANSPARENT investigation into Optotraffic's cameras, preferably inviting a qualified organization such as the IACP, to evaluate to accuracy of Optotraffic's cameras and the due process issues associated with them.

List of Sigma Space Corporation(Optotraffic) campaign contributions:
Sigma Space                       $4000     O'Malley, Martin Friends Of                 05/12/2010
SIGMA SPACE CORPORATION   $1000     Baker, Rushern III Friends Of-Comm For Pol Change (CPC) 04/23/2010
SIGMA SPACE                 $500     Ramirez, Victor Friends Of                 09/16/2008
SIGMA SPACE                 $500     Ramirez, Victor Friends Of                 10/26/2007
SIGMA SPACE CORP     $350     Ramirez, Victor Friends Of                 06/08/2010
SIGMA SPACE CORP     $500     Ramirez, Victor Friends Of                 01/12/2010
Sigma Space                       $250     Gaines, Tawanna P. Friends Of                 10/27/2007
Sigma Space                       $250     Gaines, Tawanna P. Friends Of                 08/03/2010
Sigma Space                       $250     Gaines, Tawanna P. Friends Of                 12/29/2008
Sigma Space                       $250     Benson, Joanne C. Friends Of                 12/27/2007
Sigma Space                       $250     Benson, Joanne C. Friends Of                 12/15/2008
Sigma Space                       $100     Pena-Melnyk, Joseline Friends Of             12/10/2008
Sigma Space                       $1000    Healey, Anne Friends Of                 06/09/2009
Sigma Space                       $100     Waldstreicher, Jeff Friends Of                 01/06/2009
Sigma Space                       $250     Healey, Anne Friends Of                 05/30/2008
Sigma Space Corp              $250     Niemann, Doyle Friends Of                 06/03/2010
Sigma Space Corp              $250     Niemann, Doyle Friends Of                 01/05/2010
Sigma Space Corpf             $100     Rudolph, David Committe, The Citizens For         07/26/2009

Driver To File Suit Against Forest Heights For Denial of Due Process, Bogus Tickets

2011-06-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

Gary Anderson has had enough. He had requested court hearings for three speed camera tickets from Forest Heights which he had received in September of 2010, believing the cameras were inaccurate. Over 9 months later all he had received were letters imposing late fees and threatening to suspend his registration.

Having failed to work out the matter with the MVA, and still unable to get a hearing date from Forest Heights (and the town's speed camera contractor, Optotraffic (a division of Sigma Space Corporation), who is responsible for scheduling court hearings), Gary decided his only recourse was to file suit in federal court against the Maryland MVA and Forest Heights.

Mr Anderson had good reason to be angry. The images for one of his citations is shown below:

(original images, click to enlarge)

(Note : We've posted other photos of such apparent errors by Optotraffic cameras in Forest Heights and New Carrollton, and a disproportionate number of errors with this type of camera seem to have been with pickup trucks. We will be posting a technical explanation why that is the case in the near future).
Here is a composite image of the two, using a technique successfully used by other drivers to challenge tickets from Optotraffic cameras.

As you can see the two images are end-to-end, meaning the vehicle traveled almost exactly one truck length. Using the formula of :
mph = ((feet traveled )/(time interval in s)) * 3600 s/hr / (5280 ft/mile)
this would, based on the 0.3s shown on the citation and an estimated 17 foot distance, indicate a speed of 38.7mph. At a .3s interval, the vehicle would have needed to travel 22 feet (5 feet more than the actual distance traveled) to be going 50mph.

Now granted, timestamps are shown rounded off to 0.1s. That is curious, because previously numerous tickets issued at this exact spot showed THREE decimal places of precision, and a time interval of precisely .363s (which corresponds to a vehicle traveling 25 feet at 12mph over the limit, which was Optotraffic's stated target distance between frames). If the .363 interval had been used (rounding off) the computed speed would have been 32mph based on the 17 foot distance traveled.

Optotraffic made this change to the precision of its image timestamps shortly after people started using time stamped images to question speed readings. A similar change has been observed in citations from New Carrollton and Cheverly (where there were also accuracy questions raised around the same time),where older citations showed 3 decimal places precision and recent citations show only 1.

Optotraffic has argued this method of verifying speeds using citation images is not valid (a convenient position for them to take). First, they tried to argue that brakes had being applied. However no brake lights are on in the photos above. Also, the distance between the sensor and the camera is in fact very short, in this case the vehicle had not even moved fully into frame so it had traveled substantially less than the designed 50 foot distance to the first image location, no more than about 33 feet. That is simply not much time to decelerate and still show no brake lights. There is a tickmark on the road, exactly 50 feet after the camera, which is near the front of the truck in the second image, however this mark is where the truck is *supposed to be* for the first image. We would not expect it to be a full truck length short of that tick mark if it had been going above the threshold speed at the camera..

Next, Optotraffic recently tried to argue (only recently after all their other arguments had been shot down) that the time interval is not correct because the photos may be delayed after the camera is triggered. That is flawed first because we are expected to believe a scientifically precise piece of equipment cannot record an accurate time stamp. But more to the point, the only way that effect could be the cause of an interval being *shortened* would be if the first image, but not the second, was delayed (if both were delayed the interval would be the same, and if only the second was delayed the time interval and thus the distance traveled would be longer). But look at the first image: the vehicle is not fully in frame! If Optotraffic's explanation were true that would mean they INTENDED to photograph the vehicle at least 5 feet sooner, when it was EVEN MORE out of frame. This conflicts with their own statements that the first photo is taken 50 feet after the camera, and doesn’ t make sense because citations would not be legal if a vehicle ended up being completely out of frame in the first image.

In addition there is a second vehicle, a red VW bug, in the second image. The length of a VW bug is about 13.5 feet, around 3.5 feet shorter than the distance this truck traveled. But look here, there is THIS MUCH space behind the VW bug:

which seems to be a good bit more than 3.5 feet. Yet in image #1 no portion of the VW is in frame. Had the truck been traveling 15mph over the limit as the citation states, we would have expected it to be traveling faster than the prevailing speed of traffic. But if anything the bug actually gained on the pickup between frames. And then there's the fact that Optotraffic did in fact lower the precision on its timestamps, which is an obvious attempt to obscure information from defendants and prevent them from doing what we just did here. Maybe Optotraffic should try rounding timestamps off to the nearest second just to be sure?

Then there is the matter of Optotraffic's own technical document which states "While the primary evidence for issuing a speeding citation is the calibrated Lane Sensor, the two photos provide the secondary evidence of speeding that is presented to the citation recipient." and "Since a stationary object is present along with the vehicle, a photographic method also determines speed, guaranteeing fairness". They said photos can be used to determine speed, yet their version of "fairness" is that citation images cannot be used to exonerate someone! (Word to the wise: ANYONE challenging a speed camera ticket issued by an Optotraffic camera should bring a printout of that document to court and highlight those two sentences!!!)

(Optotraffic Blackmail Notice: click to enlarge

But heck, let's say we are completely wrong, and Gary really was speeding. Under our justice system the accused is STILL entitled to a court hearing. And he STILL has a right to have that hearing take place before the state suspends his registration. But Forest Heights and Optotraffic have thus far not seen fit to provide a court hearing. All he received, for nine months, were notices like the one below, threatening to suspend his registration and imposing late fees.

Notice that the return address on the form says Forest Heights Police, but the address says "Lanham:. These notices are being mailed by Lanham based Optotraffic (a division of Sigma Space Corporation), and it is Optotraffic who is responsible for scheduling court hearings for the city, a duty which is apparently too difficult for them.

In fact, Mr Anderson is not the first to be in this situation. We earlier reported on similar denials of due process ant threats by Optotraffic and Forest Heights made to other drivers after they had requested court hearings.

A few weeks ago Mr Anderson got a suspension notice on his registration from the Maryland MVA, but still no court date despite repeated attempts to get one. Enough is enough, so Mr Anderson is taking the matter to federal court and has sent a notice of intent to sue. He needs to pay $350 just to initiate the suit in order to defend his right to due process for his 3 citations (worth $195 total including $75 in late fees). He is facing a local government which has issued over $2.9million worth of tickets (which represents about 32 times as many citations as there are residents in Forest Heights), and which can spend all that money taken from out of town motorists to hire attorneys to fight this 'pro se' (self-represented) plaintiff. Gary Anderson has little legal experience, but as he stated to us in an email "As a Former Marine I believe in the RIGHTS of US Citizens, I don't like to be Bullied, Threatened, or Screwed."

It is David and Goliath. But Gary is fighting back to protect YOUR right to not be mugged or blackmailed by corrupt local governments and by camera companies which get a percentage cut of every ticket. What have you done today?

I-270 To Get Speed Cameras Next Month in Reduced Speed Limit Zone

2011-06-16T00:56:00.000-07:00

The SHA will be deploying speed cameras near the construction zones for two bridge projects on I-270 near MD 80(Fingerboard Road) and Bennett Creek. The cameras will be deployed within the next 4 weeks until the end of the project in fall of 2012, according to an article in the Frederick Post.

The speed limit in the workzones has been reduced from 65mph to 55mph, meaning tickets will be issued starting at 2mph over the normal 65mph speed limit (unless of course the cameras are in error, in which case anyone can get a ticket regardless of their speed). Tickets can be issued 24/7 "regardless of whether workers are present" (the reduced speed limit will also be in effect regardless of whether work is taking place). I-270 is a major artery, with 82,000 vehicles per day.

The deployment of freeway cameras was recently announced on I-70 near South Street in Frederick, and on the capital beltway, meaning that most major interstate highways in the state will soon have speed cameras on them. Maryland's work-zone speed cameras have issued over $22million worth of tickets since the program's inception. The cameras are owned and maintained the the state's contractor, ACS State and Local Solutions, who also operates the state's customer service line, mails citations, collects payments, and schedules court hearings.

Drivers in neighboring states, who will have no practical means of contesting tickets, are advised to avoid visiting the "Free State" if at all possible. We also suggest they talk to their own federal lawmakers about the cautionary example which Maryland has become and the lack of due process being afforded to out of state drivers on interstate highways.

New Carrollton Fails to Stand Behind Optotraffic Cameras in Court

2011-06-13T04:06:00.000-07:00

Rich Ladieu had challenged a speed camera citation before, and won, and was ready for another fight. He had gotten a second citation from New Carrollton, and he had absolute proof he had not. Rich has a device called a "carchip", basically a mini "flight recorder" which continuously records driving statistics, including speed, and it showed his maximum speed at the time of the March 8th 4:01pm citation was 32mph, not 50mph as shown on the citation.(View Data)

He got to court, but when the judge called his name, nobody from the city of New Carrollton had bothered to come and represent the prosecution. The judge dismissed his case.

click to enlarge original citation image

Mr Ladieu in fact had prepared a rather excellent proof that the camera, built by Optotraffic/Sigma Space Corporation, was in error. In addition to the log file from his CarChip, Mr Ladieu also had a composite image similar to those which had been done in the case of reported Forest Heights errors.

Mr Ladieu has stated that his truck is 16 feet long. Our composite image shows a distance traveled of one truck length PLUS about 3 feet. Based on that we can estimate a distance traveled of roughly 19 feet. Given the formula of
MPH = (Ft Traveled/.4s) * (3600s/hr) / (5280 ft/hr) = 32.5mph
This confirms the speed measurement from the carship, indicating the speed on the citation was off by eighteen mph! For the speed on the citation to be correct, it would have needed to travel over 29 feet in .4s, which would have been almost 2 full vehicle lengths. The distance from front-to-front in the images above is nowhere near 2 vehicle lengths.

Now granted, we only have 2 decimal places of precision on the timestamps, which does mean there is some variance in the actual time between frames. And that is very very curious, because citation images we receieved from new Carrollton back in December 2009 (in a place where the speed limit was the same, 30mph), specifically showed a timestamp with 3 decimal places of precision, and a specific "delta time btw frames"

So why did Optotraffic change this? It is strange, because the same change was made to Optotraffic cameras in Forest Heights and Cheverly... in both towns the citations USED TO show time accurate to 3 decimal places and give a delta time bw frames, but then the precision on the timestamps was reduced to 1 decimal place shortly after citizens in Cheverly and Forest Heights began using image timestamps to prove the cameras were producing errors. The cynical answer to this (or should we say the REALISTIC answer to this), is that Optotraffic did this in order to make it harder to prove errors, attempting to deny citizens information they needed to prove their innocence.

When those complaints were first leveled in those towns, none of the explanations from either Optotraffic or the towns was that the timestamps were not accurate. But recently, after all their other explanations were shot down, they have tried to make that claim. So we are expected to believe a scientifically precise piece of equipment that they claim their speed cameras are can measure speeds accurate to within a tiny fraction of a MPH, but cannot produce an accurate timestamp.

But this time we are in luck and can put that to the test. In addition to the fact that Mr Ladieu's carchip recorded a speed pretty darn close to what our calculations produced, there is also a SECOND VEHICLE in the image, going the opposite direction. Look at the image below, and compare the distance traveled by the pickup truck and the other car.

The yellow and red lines show distance traveled by Mr Ladieu's pickup, the blue and green the distance shown by the compact car. If Mr Ladieu's pickup had in fact been traveling 20mph over the limit, we'd expect it should have been going faster than the prevailing speed of traffic. Yet the Nissan Versa(?) appears to have traveled FARTHER (just under 2 lengths) than the pickup (slightly more than 1 vehicle lengths) in the same time interval, meaning it was moving FASTER. So either the other car was traveling even faster than 20mph over the limit, which seems an unlikely coincidence, or this pickup truck was traveling at the prevailing speed of traffic... nowhere near 12mph over the limit, let alone 20.

Unfortunately, most people who get speed camera tickets simply assume the devices are accurate, that the technology is proven and reliable. However Optotraffic's cameras do NOT work the same way as traditional police radar or police LIDAR. It is a proprietary design which is NOT on the IACP's list of conforming law enforcement products, nor is their even any product which functions remotely the same way on that list. Yet Maryland law permits it to be used to issue tickets, and to be the basis for finding people guilty.... that is if the prosecution has enough confidence in their speed cameras to show up and face a well prepared defendant in court.

It has even been videotaped that the sensors on Optotraffic's cameras are mounted on a 32 foot tall pole which will visibly sway in a wind of no more than 4-9mph, just a light breeze. No amount of laboratory testing is going to tell them whether this device is still reliable while it is in motion. If this movement were to cause the sensor frame to bend, even an infinitesimal amount, the beams could become 'cross-eyed', shortening the distance between the beams and producing an incorrect speed reading. In addition, we note that many of the reported errors have been with pickup trucks (including this one), or other large vehicles such as buses or RVs. Because these vehicles have higher ground clearance than most cars, an undershoot error is possible, as was described on the skeptical juror blog. That would subtract the distance between the front of the truck and the tire from the distance between sensors, substantially overestimating the speed.

An interesting thing about this type of error is that it would tend to "favor" certain types of vehicles, since they have different profiles and ground clearances, and also certain drivers, who because of their personal driving habits tend to be a bit more to one side of the road than the other. In fact if you look at Mr Ladieu's photos above, you will see that his vehicle is far to the right side of the lane, preparing to make a turn. If the sensor beams are targeted at the CENTER of that lane, and undershoot error would actually be HIGHLY LIKELY in this instance. Of course, most people who get camera tickets do not have CarChips, and would not be able to double check the recorded speed in the way Mr Ladieu did, or even think to do so.

Optotraffic has claimed nobody has ever shown them proof of an error. I'd say we've just done exactly that. We have also provided a plausible mechanism for the error, and we have disproved any claims by Optotraffic that the image timestamps cannot be relied on to estimate vehicle speed.

The question is, why have Maryland lawmakers allowed Maryland to become the "beta test site" for unproven technology by having inadequate standards for testing and no oversight? And when will Maryland officials take this matter seriously and put a stop to legalized fraud?

Capital Beltway to Get Speed Cameras

2011-06-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

The Capital Beltway (I-495) will be getting speed cameras between University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue. A new work zone is being set up there now and cameras will appear "within weeks" according to a story on WTOP. SHA speed cameras are typically VITRONIC Poliscan cameras, provided by their contractor ACS, housed in a Jeep Liberty. The cameras will ticket people going at least 12mph over the speed limit.... unless of course the cameras are wrong, in which case we're all pretty much boned.

Under Maryland law governing workzone speed cameras, workzone cameras can issue tickets 24/7 "regardless of whether workers are present", and over 70% of SHA workzone camera tickets have been issued when no work was taking place. The SHA website shows that between November 2009 and May 31, 2011 the state's 6 freeway cameras have issued over 566,000 citations worth over $22million.

Optotraffic and Forest Heights Just Can't Get It Right

2011-06-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

Another "Satisifed Optotraffic Customer", this time a 67 year old retired school teacher wrote to the Gazette that she had received erroneous speed camera tickets from Forest Heights.

When will Maryland officials start taking this matter seriously and put a stop to legalized fraud?

When to Fight a Speed Camera Ticket

2011-06-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

ABCNews 7 did a story on ticket challenges, noting that many some speed camera tickets go unchallenged. They relate the story of the recipient of one ticket issued by DC:

"Tony Rodriguez got a speed camera ticket he should have challenged. For starters, the ticket information is incorrect.
The plate picture starts with H-9. But it was recorded as H-8. The ticket states the vehicle is a Chevy. But it’s a Mercury. And the car in the picture is a District cab. But Rodriguez’ taxi was a Diamond cab, which have diamond-shaped lights on the roof. That’s not what’s in the picture.
He also said he sold the cab years ago.
“I opened up the mail, I looked at it and started laughing,” he said." Rodriguez missed the date to challenge his ticket, however MPD did finally void the ticket.... after ABCNews 7 contacted them about it.

Unfortunately the press cannot chase down every camera error n every jurisdiction. StopBigBrotherMD frequently hears from the recipients of erroneous speed camera tickets, and we've previously reported on cases of incorrect identification of vehicles issued by Baltimore and Brentwood. Sadly MANY of those tickets are never challenged. We've received reports from drivers with credible proof of errors in tickets issued by Forest Heights, Riverdale Park, and College Park where the drivers ultimately paid the ticket, either deciding it was not cost effective to do so or in some cases stating they feared reprisals. In fact many of the drivers who have gone to the trouble of challenging tickets issued by PG County municipalities and other areas have been successful, due to a variety of problems with those town's camera programs.

However the worst case continues to be the town of Forest Heights, where not only have there been a substantial number of drivers who have reported erroneous speed readings, but many who WANTED to challenge tickets have been unable to do so. One driver with credible proof of an error has been waiting since September 2010 for a hearing date, and has been receiving late notices threatening to suspend his registration and imposing additional fines even though he has requested a hearing several times. That town's contractor, Optotraffic, is responsible for scheduling hearings with the district court, and in some cases drivers have been waiting over a year for hearing dates. Additionally, the town of Forest Heights has either denied or stalled in responding to requests under the Maryland Public Information Act, or in a few instances agreeing to release public records only if relevant data was first removed from the documents. This has been done to request both by ticket recipients and by this website, denying the public information about ticket errors, denying defendants evidence they are entitled to have for their defense, and oh by the way also flouting the state's open records laws. Forest Height and Optraffic will NEVER admit to an error, because they both have ENORMOUS financial stakes, and the only solutions to this would be refunding millions of dollars worth of tickets. Allowing full access to public records would run the risk of laying bare the truth of their program's numerous technical and procedural errors.

Sadly, the state of Maryland appears to be content to let things like what is happening with Forest Heights and Optotraffic slide. Not surprising because the state expects to receive receiving a cut of the ticket revenue from Forest Heights and several other Maryland towns whose revenue exceeds a certain percentage of their budget. If Forest Heights had to refund a substantial number of tickets, the state of Maryland would get nothing. Maryland officials should please feel free to prove us wrong by conducting a serious, transparent, and genuinely independent investigation.

Frederick City Speed Cameras Now Online

2011-05-28T05:14:00.000-07:00

The City of Frederick has initiated their speed camera program, according to a story in the Frederick Post. The first cameras have been deployed near the intersection of Butterfy Lane and McCain Drive.

The cameras are to be located in "school zones", however the city recently designated new school zones, can designate new school zones at any time, and the areas eligible for such zones speed cameras in fact covers most of the city... a fact confirmed in a videotaped council session. The council approved 18 or 19 cameras total. The cameras are mobile, meaning they can be moved to other locations at any time (so the total number of sites might ultimately exceed the number of cameras).

The city will have a 30 day "warning period" as required by state law, ending in June (shortlly after schools close for summer vacation), at which time the cameras will begin issuing tickets. Additional cameras may go online in other location and begin issuing tickets immediately (the requirement for warning periods exists only for the first camera placed in any jurisdiction). Selected locations include two on Hayward Road, on On Opossumtown Pike and two at the 1400 block of North East Street. The council authorized a contract with ACS State and Local Solutions who provides the cameras and related services in exchange for a portion of the revenue from each ticket.

A photo of the first camera in the Frederick Post appears to be a laser based VITRONIC Poliscan camera, the same type used by the SHA, Chevy Chase Village, and Bowie.

Morningside Hires Brekford Corp To Run Speed Camera Program

2011-05-24T02:50:00.000-07:00

Brekford corp announced that it has signed a contract with the town of Morningside to run the town's speed camera program. The town of approximately 1295 is located in PG county adjacent to Andrews Airforce Base.

Morningside made news recently when a member of the town council was investigated by state police over allegations she inappropriately deleted tickets issued by the town's existing red light camera program for herself and others and later resigned from office.

Local governments usually deny that generating revenue is the primary motivate for their programs. However a Brekford investment profile was much more candid about the company's sales pitch:
"The Company has been able to build upon its ten years of established relationships to be the One-Stop solution in the ‘hot’ technological focus of Automated Traffic Enforcement and Automatic Traffic Safety Solutions. As municipalities search for additional revenue streams, Brekford’s Automated Traffic Enforcement and Automatic Traffic Safety Solutions presents an attractive opportunity amongst its multiple products.
Brekford’s new division focused on Automated Traffic Enforcement is attractive to municipalities searching for additional revenue."
[...]
"Brekford’s automated photo enforcement program was implemented during December 2010. A fresh stream of revenues has been created from this newly introduced program.
Brekford has been awarded automatic traffic enforcement contracts by several municipalities during the past several months and the implementation of these contracts is anticipated to bring added revenues and profitability to the Company beginning this quarter."
[...]
"In return for a percentage of revenue collected, Brekford delivers a full Turn Key System to government entities which delivers a beginning to end traffic enforcement program.
The installation of the cameras which enforce traffic is just step one in Brekford’s revenue stream. With enforcement solutions for BOTH speeding and redlight compliance Brekford delivers the back-end software and personnel that identify the vehicle and its driver through DMV information, they prepare and mail the ticket and collect the fine. Brekford’s fee represents a percentage of the amount collected. At month’s end Brekford submits to the governmental entity their percentage of the amount collected through the Brekford automated process. To support the growth Brekford has experienced in this area a new back office support for automated traffic programs opened a new back office processing and data center."
[...]
"Brekford has a solid business which has been able to capitalize on the fastest growing law enforcement technology. Shareholder value is enhanced not only with Brekford’s delivery of the technology but by the ongoing revenue stream generated from running the ‘back office’ support for traffic citations. This is what you look for in a fast growth company. Rarely do you find a solid established Company that has the solid foundation to capitalize on an industry coming into its own. Here is the chance to participate in the Traffic Solution Enforcement Industry."

Almost makes you want to run out and buy stock doesn't it?

The town website had no information about the new program at the time of this posting. In any case, we believe it's safe to assume Morningside's new speed camera program will be conducted with the same spirit of integrity, openness, and respect for the rights of citizens we've come to expect from other such programs.

Ticket Challenges Successful More Often, But Some Left Waiting

2011-05-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

In 2009, before speed cameras moved statewide Montgomery County claimed to have had a 99.7% conviction rate for speed camera hearings and that only ten defendants had ever been found not guilty. Since then however, the odds appear to be slightly more favorable for defendants as more cases are being dismissed for various reasons, with defendants in some jurisdictions having more success than others.

A number of defendants who received tickets from College Park stating that they were speeding in a school zone had their citations thrown out on the grounds that the location was not a designated school zone. The location was in fact an "Institute of Higher Education" zone, a new designation created by a 2010 law which applies exclusively to College Park. In two separate hearings, every defendant receiving such a citation who plead "Not Guilty" had their citations dismissed, with the judge referring to it as an "improper filing document". In the same hearings defendants who plead "Guilty With Explanation" were sentenced to pay fines plus court costs (as normally defendants who plead Not Guilty have their cases heard last). College Park and their contractor, Optotraffic, have apparently changed the tickets since then, so this most likely will only apply to tickets from the first few months of College Park's program.

In Montgomery County, one attorney, James Liskow, successfully appealed a speed camera ticket in circuit court, and won by arguing that the speed camera statute as written required citations to certify that a list of requirements in transportation article 21-809(b) and that this was not done. Because this was a circuit court, in theory this could have a binding affect on other courts, if a defendant can successfully argue this (However we will caution that presenting this argument well may be somewhat difficult for someone who is not experienced in law). It is likely that the county will either make some administrative change, appeal the decision, or seek a change to the law to circumvent this problem before long.

In other locations such as Forest Heights, defendants were able to use time-distance calculations to argue that they were not in fact speeding. However defendants who receive tickets from Montgomery County, Baltimore, and the State of Maryland may be out of luck when it comes to actually proving errors from photos: tickets from those programs now only display timestamps accurate to within 1 second, the timestamps on the two images either being identical or differing by 1 second, which is nowhere near enough precision to prove even a very large error. Such timestamps show two 00's after the 'seconds'... fractions of seconds are shown but are always zero. This implies that the cameras and tickets provided by their contractor, ACS, are capable of recording and/or displaying more precise timestamps, but that a decision was made not to do so. We have received reports that defendants have successfully argued that such timestamps were invalid in Baltimore City, however in Montgomery County judges ruled against one defendant who attempted to argue against this.

We have also received numerous reports of long waits for court hearings, particularly in Prince George's County. One defendant fighting a ticket from Riverdale Park, who claims he was traveling far slower than the 60mph speed on his citation and that the images prove this, has been waiting since January for a hearing date. Some defendants from Forest Heights stated to StopBigBrotherMD that they have been waiting close to a year for hearing dates. In some cases after they requested hearings defendants have received penalty notices or statements saying their registrations would be suspended if they did not pay by a certain date. We've not heard from defendants whose registrations were actually suspended in this situation, however there was a reported instance where Baltimore mistakenly suspended the registrations of 8000 drivers awaiting hearings for red light camera tickets, where the waiting list had apparently reached 15 months in some cases.

StopBigBrotherMD gets much of its information from people who are challenging tickets. If you are fighting a ticket in an upcoming hearing, particularly if it is because you believe the ticket is in error, please contact us.

Optotraffic Inadvertently Provides Evidence Validating Speed Verification From Photos

2011-05-10T04:05:00.000-07:00

In our last posting we reported that Forest Heights had responded to criticisms that their cameras were inaccurate by claiming to have conducted a thorough "independent verification", and published the results of that report in the form of a press release lifted almost word for word from the website of another town. In addition to being plagiarized and not addressing any of the specific errors reported in Forest Heights, it contained several technical errors. Go read that report, and the report on The Skeptical Juror, then come back.

It turns out that Forest Heights did stage a demonstration of its speed cameras on April 30th, which Optotraffic used to produce a public relations video for their product (which you can see here). In that video, they inadvertently provided sample evidence which validates the technique which some drivers have been using to challenge tickets.

The video, like Forest Height's press release, did not address the specific details of the errors which had been reported, Optotraffic and Forest Heights officials speaking in the video only claimed that photos were not used to determine speed:"Some of the concern was that the photos measure the speed and that's not the way we measure the speed."..."The photos are only to show that the vehicle was there at the time and date of the violation, to get owner information, and to see that the vehicle was in motion". This is despite statements in their own technical document stating:“While the primary evidence for issuing a speeding citation is the calibrated Lane Sensor, the two photos provide the secondary evidence of speeding that is presented to the citation recipient.” and “Since a stationary object is present along with the vehicle, a photographic method also determines speed, guaranteeing fairness”. Those documents didn't say photos were just used for identifying the vehicle, or that the vehicle was moving. Then, after people actually started using citation photos the way Optotraffic had said they could be used, Optotraffic changed their story.

The video showed this photo the following citation images of a police cruiser going 60mph, which we will take their word for it that it really is going 60mph.

Now, I don't think many of us really doubted that it was possible for Optotraffic's cameras to record a correct speed in most cases when technicians are standing by nursing the machines and watching for any conditions that might produce an error. But let's compare these photos, which we can create a composite of :

Test Photo, composite image

To some of the photos which have been questioned which were allegedly traveling close to the same speed.

Challenged Citation #1, composite

Challenged Citation #1, image 1

Challenged Citation #2, image 2

Challenged Citation #2, composite

Two things *should* jump out at you. First, the police cruiser is much farther up the image than the first photo for both of the above cases. In fact, in the two examples above, the vehicle is not fully in frame in the first photo. Optotraffic has stated previously that the distance from the speed sensors to the first photo is supposed to be 50 feet. So why were the cars in the challenged citations not at the same point as the police cruiser supposedly traveling the same speed?

The second thing that should jump out is that the police cruiser traveled measurably farther than either of the vehicles shown in these two challenged citations. The police cruiser appears to have traveled two full car lengths. The other two vehicles in the challenged photos, not so much. Those vehicles are almost end to end in the composite images.

Another thing you can observe, is that there are distinct differences between the new image and the challenged one. First, the "Camera ID" is different. 0409-002 for the challenged photos which were taken in July and September of 2010, compared to a camera id of "2910-001 for the citations in the video taken April 30th 2011. Even though this is the same location, the hardware has apparently been swapped out. So in fact the test was not actually performed on the same equipment which most of the alleged errors were recorded on.

In addition the timestamps are also very different. For the old, challenged photos, the timestamps were accurate to 3 decimal places "Time: 11:48:28:796 AM". And the second photo shows a "Delta Time: Time b/t photos: 0.363 sec". It specifically tells us exactly, to 3 decimal places, what the delta was. For the new photos from the video this is NOT the case. Timestamps are only shown to 1 decimal place, and no time delta between photos is present. Optotraffic has apparently modified the devices to show less precision in timestamps and not to present an explicit "time between frames". So the real time in the test photos could be 0.3 or 0.36. One could draw the conclusion that they wanted to provide less information to defendants, so that they cannot do what defendants were doing with their earlier photos. If timestamps are only known within 1 decimal place, it is no longer possible to provide an exact time-distance calculation because we only know times accurate to within 25 or 30 percent, errors can only be proven if the amount of error is enormous. Optotraffic now claims that citation images cannot be used to determine speed, and one might be left to think that they are attempting to make that the truth. But naah, they couldn't have made that change on purpose, right?

Well, Another thing you will notice in the challenged photos, are two little white tickmarks, circled, which just happen to be exactly 25 feet apart. Those tickmarks can provide a second more precise measurement of how far the vehicle traveled (other than the length of the vehicle itself). The first is about 50 feet after the sensors, the second around 75. Well look at the circled spots on the photos from the video. You can see still "kind of" see the tickmarks, but in fact they have been painted over and are now mostly obscured (and would not be visible at all in the lower resolution images on a printed paper citation). And in fact it has been observed on the ground that the tickmarks marks have recently been obliterated. You can still see however that the police cruiser traversed a distance which is a fair amount longer than the distance between tickmarks.... the back tire has almost reached the first tickmark in the first image, and the cruiser has completely passed the second tickmark in the second image. On the older, challenged image even the front tire of the vehicle has not reached the first tickmark by the time of the first photo, and has only just reached the first tickmark in the second photo. This would be expected, if these vehicles were in fact traveling SLOWER than the 60mph police cruiser in the time interval between the speed measurement and the photos.

The Optotraffic video incorrectly suggests that "one person" was making these complaints, as others have made the same assertion in Forest Heights, and accuracy complaints have also been publicly made in Brentwood, Cheverly, and College Park as well. Mr Will Foreman, one of the defendants from Forest Heights, created this response to the Optotraffic video, which you can see here.

The Optotraffic video claims the cameras have improved safety in school zones. However it omits the fact that the school zones on both the Livingston Road and Indian Head Highway were created in 2010 specifically for the purpose of deploying speed cameras, and had not been signed as such previously, and in neither instance is the school for that zone actually located on the road in question. Also of note is that the video does not specifically state the area which was included in their numbers.

Optotraffic also recently released a written statement. As part of that explanation they included the following:"Still photos cannot be used, and are not used, to measure speed because of built in delays in the camera mechanisms and functions including shutters. In actual practice, the time stamp and still photo of where the car is located do NOT match. Here’s why.

The time stamp on the photo is generated by the computer at the actual precise MOMENT when the computer tells the camera to shoot. However, regarding the capturing of the actual image by the camera, there is frequently a DELAY" " [emphasis theirs]"between the time the computer delivers the command and the image of the vehicle is actually captured."
We can easily shoot this down as well:
1) The photos above could only be explained by a DELAY on the first photo but not the second if the time between frames was shortened. However a DELAY on both the first and second photo would have no affect on that interval duration, and a DELAY on only the second would actually lengthen the interval. The first photo would need to be delayed but the second one . However this would means the vehicle in the first frame should be farther up the road than the expected 50 foot distance (the first tickmark), when in fact they are closer, and the vehicles are not even fully in frame. This implies that it was Optotraffic's actual intent to take the first photo a full 'car length" earlier than this -- when the vehicle would not yet have been in frame at all.

2) The discrepancy between distance traveled and the required distance in the above is huge, in the above example photos of the pickup truck the interval would need to be off by about 50%.

3) We are expected to believe that this is capable of flawlessly determining speeds with scientific precision, but that it cannot do the same with a relatively simple thing like image timestamps.

4) This explanation was not offered in any of the earlier explanations we have seen, neither in Forest Heights' earlier explanation, nor Cheverly's, nor correspondence we obtained between Optotraffic and Cheverly, nor correspondence we have received between Optotraffic and citizens of other towns who have complained. Their earlier explanations were based on vehicles braking after the speed measurement, and their explanation changed only after that was debunked.

Try again Optotraffic.

Forest Heights Answers Charges of Camera Inaccuracy… with Plagiarism

2011-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

The town of Forest Heights has posted their official responses to charges that their cameras are inaccurate, claims which returned to the public attention after defendants successfully defeated many tickets in court using time-distance calculations. The town's posting claimed that they had seriously and independently investigated the matter. However in fact the posting was in fact copied almost word for work copied from a similar announcement made months early by another town which had faced similar complaints -- even citing the exact same examples from the other town, and copying the same incorrect technical details about how this type of camera works.

A May 3rd posting was made to the Forest Heights’ website stated
“SPEED CAMERA PROGRAM VERIFICATION ANALYSIS
Recently some citizens have raised concerns regarding the accuracy of Forest Heights Speed Camera Program that was instituted on May 1, 2010. The Mayor, Council, and Police Chief take these concerns seriously, as it is critical that citizens have confidence that the Speed Camera Program is operating correctly. Over the last week town officials have reviewed public concerns and instituted an independent verification process. Below is an overview of how well the Town’s speed camera equipment operates. “
This statement is almost word for word identical to a similar posting which the town of Cheverly made in the summer of 2010 in response to complaints from residents of THAT town about inaccurate speed readings by Optotraffic cameras. From the Cheverly website:
“ Speed Camera Program Verification Analysis
A few residents have raised concerns regarding the accuracy of Cheverly’s Speed Camera Program that was instituted on June 17, 2010. The Town Council, Town Administrator and Police Chief take these concerns seriously, as it is critical that residents have confidence the Speed Camera Program is operating correctly. Over the last 10 days town officials have reviewed resident concerns and instituted an independent verification process. Below is an overview of how the speed camera equipment operates and the elements of the Town’s review. “

We’ve created a document which compares the two towns' postings. The only things we have changed were the font size and spacing for comparison purposes, the text of the posts is unchanged. (We have also archived copies of the original web site postings from both Forest Heights and Cheverly to files, and have hard copies, in case either town remove or change their posting).

Perhaps the most interesting bit of plagiarism is Forest Heights’s description of the complaints:
“•TICKET PHOTOS DO NOT SHOW SPEED:
One citizen argued that his own tickets images were evidence that proved the equipment was operating incorrectly. According to his measurements the photos indicated his car had only travelled 24 feet between the first and second photo. He erroneously claimed that the elapsed time between the photos was .461 seconds indicating that the car was travelling at approximately 36MPH based on his calculation of velocity as a function of distance over time. “
Compared to Cheverly’s:
“Ticket Photos: One resident submitted their ticket as evidence that the equipment was operating incorrectly. According to their measurements the photos indicated their car had only travelled 24 feet between the first and second photo. The elapsed time between the photos was .461 seconds indicating that the car was travelling at approximately 36MPH based on the calculation of velocity as a function of distance over time.”
Yes that's right, they cited the exact same example using almost the same words. It so happens that none of the tickets from Forest Heights which we have examined had a time interval of 0.461 seconds. All of them were either 0.363 seconds or 0.4s. It so happens that the speed limit at the Cheverly camera sites is 10mph lower than at the Forest Heights rt 210 site. .363s is the time it takes to travel 25 feet at 47mph (the intended distance between photos for a vehicle traveling 12mph over a 35mph speed limit) and .462s is the time it takes to travel 25 feet at 37mph (12mph over a 25mph speed limit… the speed limit on Cheverly Avenue).

One could read this and come to the conclusion that when Forest Heights “reviewed public concerns” it did not actually address any of the examples which have been documented at their own camera sites!

The explanation Forest Heights posted is word for word identical to the one posted last summer by Cheverly: “Response: The photos generated by the camera and printed on the citation are never used to determine the speed of the vehicle. As stated above, the photos are taken after the vehicle passes the device in order to capture the license plate of the vehicle, and to prove the vehicle was actually moving if it is needed in court. The speed of the vehicle is calculated by a “laser” not a photo as the vehicle approaches the unit, 50 feet prior to passing the unit.
•The Town’s officer in charge of the program has re-reviewed many of the tickets issued and has noted that many of the vehicles have applied their brakes by the time they have entered the picture zone. This is one reason the pictures cannot be used to determine the speed of the vehicles.”
Readers, I wish I could express to you how much fun picking this apart is for us. First, they allegedly “re-reviewed’ examples, yet they didn’t bother to present an example out of the numerous ones which have been documented which was unique to Forest Heights’s cameras? And strangely enough, their analysis of those photos was WORD FOR WORD IDENTICAL to the conclusions which Cheverly made?

But let’s look at some of the photos. Hmm no brake lights here:

Or Here:

In addition in our previous analysis of those photos, we looked up the deceleration rates for vehicles of this type and did the math, in at least some of those cases with the largest apparent errors it would not have been possible for a vehicle to have decelerated that much in 50 feet and a fraction of a second. And, if you look at our second example above, the vehicle was not even fully in frame when the first picture was taken... apparently it had not traversed the full 50 foot expected distance in the time interval before the first image was taken. So n fact there is an additional time interval and distance involved, the time before the first photo was taken, and the vehicle did not travel the full expected distance during either interval, and the fact that the time and distance available for deceleration is less before the first photo, supports the position that it was not traveling the recorded speed.   Now we are not suggesting that deceleration could not possibly account for some of the images, but it most certainly does not explain this one.

In both documents, the explanation tries to claim that photos exist only to capture the plate number, and to determine the vehicle is moving at all, and that they cannot be used for speed verification. OK, apparently the laws of physics and math do not apply to speed camera photos.   In any case, Optotraffic’s own document about their camera states the following: “While the primary evidence for issuing a speeding citation is the calibrated Lane Sensor, the two photos provide the secondary evidence of speeding that is presented to the citation recipient.” and “Since a stationary object is present along with the vehicle, a photographic method also determines speed, guaranteeing fairness”. Apparently Optotraffic's version of “fairness” means saying camera images can be used to help find someone guilty, but not to exonerate them.

Aside from this, not all of the challenges to the accuracy of Optotraffic's cameras are based on timestamped images, as at least one driver has presented electronically recorded data in his defense of an Optrotraffic ticket as opposed to time-distance calculations.

Both documents provide a description of how the device “works”.
“The speed camera unit used by the Town of Forest Heights, supplied by Optotraffic, utilizes Lidar technology for speed detection coupled with a camera for capturing vehicle information. Lidar is a speed detection technology that utilizes a laser beam to determine the distance to the target vehicle by calculating the time it takes for the beam to reflect off of the vehicle and return to the unit. As a vehicle approaches the unit the distance changes, the change in distance and time are the variables used to determine the target vehicle's speed. In the case of Forest Heights’ Lidar, the equipment is recalibrated daily to ensure the equipment that makes this distance/time calculation is accurate.
Lidar calculates the speed of an approaching vehicle beginning at a point 50 feet prior to the unit, where laser beams strike an approaching target vehicle at two defined locations.”

The interesting thing is that this description is TECHNICALLY INACCURATE, according to Optotraffic’s own documents and information from the patent record. Optotraffic’s units are a proprietary design, and do not measure the speed of approaching traffic the way police LIDAR does.   The measurements are taken downwards onto the road, and actually are measuring the times when the vehicle crosses two laser beams which are a fixed distance apart. Those laser sensors are pointing “perpendicular to the line of traffic”, according to Optotraffic’s technical documents… when the car is directly below the sensors on the unit. It is interesting that neither town bothered to get this detail correct. This oversight in the towns’ explanations gives the impression that the distance between the point when speed measurements are made and photos are taken is farther than it really is…. measurements are NOT made 50 feet “prior to the unit”, they are made *at* the unit.

The explanation continues:
“When the unit calculates the speed of a violator, and determines the speed is in excess of 12 mph above the posted speed, two different camera photographs are then made of the target vehicle after it passes the unit. These photographs are not used to calculate the speed of the vehicle, but are used for two essential purposes. The first is to capture the rear registration plate number of the vehicle (since not all States require a front plate) and the second purpose is to prove the vehicle was in motion at the time of the incident. Occasionally it is suggested by the violator that the vehicle is parked or standing. A citation is subsequently issued to the vehicle owner, as required by law, only after it is verified that there is direct visual evidence of the vehicle owner’s registration plate displayed on the vehicle.”

Both documents make an identical explanation to an incident in Brentwood, where a large number of citations were refunded due to an administrative issue. However they fail to address a completely separate issue with that town’s cameras reported by the Washington Examiner, which allegedly involved buses traveling at impossible speeds.

Both documents use identical text to describe how the machines are “calibrated”.
“CALIBRATION:
The Optotraffic equipment runs a self- calibration test every morning. An Optotraffic Technician and a Forest Heights Police Officer meet daily at the unit to review the results. Therefore, as standard practice, the equipment is verified every day.”
Ok, note the words “self calibration test”. Let’s be perfectly clear, there is NO ACTUAL SPEED MEASUREMENT TAKEN IN THESE TESTS. The machine is running a basic diagnostic, essentially that the components are turned on and it can contact the GPS satellites. The concerns about Forest Heights/Optotraffic’s camera are NOT that the devices are improperly calibrated, is it essentially that the system may have a fundamental flaw which would produce sporadic errors or errors under certain circumstances. A “self calibration test” would never detect such a problem.

They did at least have slightly different numbers for “Overall Program Results”, with Forest Heights claiming that the 72,808 citations its cameras have issued so far constitute only a tiny fraction of the cars running on Highway 210 and that this shows “the equipment is not generating an abnormal number of tickets.” Forest Height has a population of about 2600 residents, which would be 28 tickets per resident of the town. We would further submit that this amounts to about $2.9million in revenue or about $1120 per resident of Forest Height. While we realize many of the tickets are not going to town residents, the editor of this article, speaking as someone who hasn’t gotten any speeding tickets in the last 5 years, takes issue with the idea that this isn’t an “abnormal number of tickets”. (Also, credit to a story in ""The Skeptical Juror" blog
for pointing out that the town was also off by their calculation of the percentage of cars receiving tickets, by a factor of 100, and that their assertions regarding the average speed on the road was actually mathematically impossible)

From the Forest Heights report:
“INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION:
In order to provide a completely independent verification of the Optotraffic unit’s calibration, Chief Webb has instituted a verification process where he has had officers drive cruisers through the equipment at set speeds. The speed of the vehicle is verified by both the car’s odometer and a hand held radar/laser gun. This process will be repeated at a regular basis. We have the results of the Chief’s first test and it verified that the hand held radar/laser speed gun is in sync with the laser being utilized by the photo enforcement program. The Town’s hand held radar/laser speed guns are calibrated annually in order to be valid in any court appearance, and were used to show the town’s speed cameras are accurate “
From Cheverly:
“Independent Verification: In order to provide a completely independent verification of the Optotraffic unit’s calibration, Chief Robshaw has instituted a verification process where he will drive cruisers through the equipment at set speeds. The speed of the vehicle will be verified by both the car’s odometer and a hand held radar/laser gun.   This process will be repeated at regular basis.   We have the results of the Chief’s first test and it verified that the hand held radar/laser speed gun is in sync with the laser being utilized by the photo enforcement program. The Town’s hand held radar/laser speed guns are certified as well on a regular basis in order to be valid in any court appearance.    ”
Well at least they changed the police chief’s name! Assuming that any such verification actually took place at all, we are curious what dictionary Forest Heights was reading when they decided that their doing the test when OVER HALF OF THE TOWN”S BUDGET IS COMING FROM SPEED CAMERA REVENUE . And assuming any such test did take place, one might question whether a single test under controlled conditions would actually check for the sources of sporadic errors which have been hypothesized.   In addition StopBigBrotherMD.org, and several others, have requested access to records pertaining to camera errors under the Maryland Public Information Act and those requests were denied (in a more recent response to another request, the town stated that they would redact essential technical data from a partially denied request for camera logs and certificates, and refused to allow inspection of timecards for camera operators who signed the logs.)   If the town wants an “independent investigation” how about actually allowing someone who doesn’t have a multi-million dollar stake in the outcome to see your records?

The residents of the Town of Cheverly did not buy that town's explanation of Optotraffic's camera errors. We suspect people will not buy Forest Heights' story either. But perhaps the town's "independent investigation" would have been more credible if they hadn't merely copied their neighbor's homework.

(If you thought our analysis of this posting was amusing, read the story in "The Skeptical Juror" which points out a number of errors and inconsistencies in Forest Heights' posting which we missed")

Sources of Optotraffic Camera Errors Examined

2011-05-04T03:38:00.000-07:00

The website "The Skeptical Juror" has posted a detailed examination of Optotraffic's cameras, publishing information from the patents for the devices along with several theories into why these cameras could possibly have been producing errors such as those which have been reported in Forest Heights, Brentwood, College Park, Cheverly, and other towns in the area.

Of course, the mechanisms presented are only theories. An they will continue to only be theories, until such time as there is a thorough investigation by a genuinely independent organization. Towns such as Forest Heights, which budgeted to receive more speed camera fines in FY2011 than their entire FY10 budget, an amount more than $1000 in fines per resident of the town, cannot be trusted to conduct such an investigation. StopBigBrotherMD.org is calling on the State Highway Administration(who issues permits to these speed cameras which operate on state highways), and to Governor O'Malley (who signed statewide speed cameras into law), and the Maryland Attorney General (who provides legal advice, and legal cover, to local governments which run speed camera programs), and to state lawmakers(who voted for statewide speed cameras), to commission such an investigation, preferably one which includes a qualified outside organization such as the IACP.

Or perhaps it is simply OK with state officials that one out of every-so-many innocent drivers will get tickets.

Howard County Approves Speed Camera Program

2011-05-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

On May 2nd the Howard County Council voted to approve speed cameras in the county. Republican council member Gregory Fox was the sole vote against the program, and submitted several amendments to the bill intended to protect the rights of motorists and prevent the program from being used as a cash cow. The council did limit the number of cameras to 8, however that limit could be lifted at any time in the future, as a similar restriction was in Baltimore County earlier this year.

Howard County had been one of the first areas in Maryland to get red light cameras over a decade ago, and Howard County Senator Robey(D) was one of the key players in getting statewide speed caemras approved by the state legislature in 2009. However speed cameras were controversial in Howard County and, unlike many other jurisdictions in the state, County Executive Ulman waited until the police had conducted speed studies at local schools... and after the 2010 elections... to introduce legislation for a county-run program.

In a videotaped April 26th session, Police Chief Mahon discussed his planned implementation of the program for 1.5 hours with the council. Council Member Mary Kay Sigaty suggested at one point that the county should consider altering the speed limits in school zones, which currently range between 25mph and 45mph, to be 25mph in all locations. (time index 0:53:00-0:54:00).
"CM Sigaty: Do we want to think about having a uniform speed limit for school zones and if we did how would we make that happen?
CM Terrasa: Is your concern that there are some that are too high in school zones?
CM Sigaty: UMM HMM
CM Fox:So you're basically saying you'd like to see 25mph from 6am-8pm all year round in school zones?
CM Sigaty: I'm actually contemplating it as an idea."

The cameras, under state law, are restricted to operating in "school zones". In the April 26th session the council members discussed the ambiguity about what actually consituted a school zone, with some council members expressing concerns that existing school zones were not expansive enough. In a previous interview with Patch.com, police Chief Mahon stated "We’re trying to be as upfront as we could possibly be. We’re going to be in existing school zones. That’s where we’re going to be.” However in his April 26th testimony the chief did not object to the idea of expanding school zones, stating that it was up to the Department of Public Works to define school zones.

A discussion was held regarding the type of contract arrangement. Council member Fox questioned the type of contract arrangement which the county might seek wtih their vendor. Fox pointed out that there is a restriction under state law against contingent fee contracts (time index 0:04:00-8:00),and that many jurisdictions in the state were circumventing that restriction and paying their contractors who build, maintain, and process violations from cameras and in some cases have much control over where cameras are placed, are in fact being paid per ticket. Chief Mahon stated that he would not object to a restriction against "a fee per citation". However when Council member Terasa questioned whether there was any relationship between the fee and the number of citations, the Chief responded stated that they were considering paying contactors per "batch of citations"... which council member Fox correctly pointed out was in fact still a contingent fee contract. (We note that the restriction in state law is not against "per ticket" payments, but payments to contractors which are "contingent on the number of citations issued or paid").

Stop Big Brother Maryland presented testimony at an April 20th hearing on the Howard County legislation, the gist of which was that in other parts of the state requirements under the law were not being complied with, and that ultimately promises being made to the to the public had not been kept. Fortunately that won't happen in Howard County.

Driver Uses CarChip Data to Challenge Optotraffic Camera

2011-04-25T02:21:00.000-07:00

When Rich LaDieu received a speed camera ticket from College Park he Knew he hadn't been speeding, his car told him so. LaDieu had a device called a CarChip plugged into the OBDII interface under his dash. "It records everything the computer sees in the engine, transmission, emissions, sensors, and most important your current speed every five seconds."

The citation (#cp10316438) cited LaDieu for driving 48mph in a 35mph zone on Painted Branch parkway. Ladieu went to his car chip and pulled data for the date and time shown on the citation. The data contained both speeds at specific intervals(see speed interval data), showing that at the specific time on the citation he was not traveling at the speed shown. It also showed the maximum speed for the 3.9 mile trip: 35mph.

LaDieu received is hearing on April 20, 2011 at 1:15pm in the district Court in Hyattsville, courtroom #6. When he was called to present his case he pointed to the fact that the data from the chip showed both the times at specific intervals, showing the specific time from the citation, including periods with all zeros when the car was stopped at traffic lights, and also the maximum speed for the trip. The Judge handed LaDieu's data to college Park's representative, a Prince George County police officer, who could not explain the data.

The judge became flustered at this point, looking through papers and closely examined LaDieu's citation. But rather than rule on the accuracy of the camera, he then declared that the city had used an "improper filing document". It turns out that most of College Park's cameras are not located in school zones, but rather in "IHE Zones" (Institute of Higher Education) which are not school zones and have no "school zone" signs, but the citation declared the location as a school zone. The judge dismissed the ticket, and then dismissed the citations for ALL the remaining defendants, citing the same reason.

College park has already issued $2.4million worth of speed camera tickets since October, which works out to about 60,000 tickets, or 2.5 tickets ($100) per resident of the town. The city expects their cut of that amount after expenses to be $600,000, equal to about 4.76% of the town's $12.6million annual budget, in just the first 7 months of the program. The remainder goes to Optotraffic/Sigma Space corporation and to pay the PG County officer's who review College Park speed camera tickets (College Park does not maintain its own police force). Presumably most of the ticket recipients did not have chips in their cars recording their speed.

College Park uses the same type of camera as those which are being used in Forest Heights where tickets have been recently been thrown out in court by drivers using time-distance calculations to challenge tickets. StopBigBrotherMD.org has heard from drivers who have received citations from College Park which they believed were in error, but who did not wish to challenge tickets because they felt it would cost them more in lost time that just paying the ticket. Another driver receiving a ticket from the same type of camera in Riverdale Park, even though time-distance calculations showed he was not speeding, decided not to challenge the ticket because it wasn't worth the cost, and didn't want to talk to the press because of concerns about risking reprisals against his business: "They could make my life hell if I p***ed them off" he wrote to us in an email. Meanwhile other drivers in the area who requested hearings have reported long delays getting court hearings. Optotraffic's cameras are based on a proprietary design which does not function like traditional police lidar or radar, and is not listed on the IACP's Conforming Products List of speed enforcement devices.

Fortunately some drivers have now begun standing up for themselves, and judges in Prince George's County are appear to be losing confidence in these cameras. The question is, will the state intervene and begin an investigation into the numerous claims of errors, or will they continue standing idly by and risk innocent drivers who cannot practically defend themselves getting ticketed?

Forest Heights Sued County To Get Speed Camera Site, Tried Lowering Speed Limit

2011-04-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

The town of Forest Heights apparently needed to sue Prince George's County for permission to deploy speed cameras on county roads within the town. According to the court record (case number CAL1023988 which can be seen at http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us) shows that the case was filed in July 2010 and was settled on 1/11/2011.

The town and the county ultimately signed a "Memorandum Of Understanding" with the county to resolve the dispute. Legislation had been passed by the 2010 General Assembly which essentially REQUIRED Prince George's County to permit the use of speed cameras on county roads (read bill), meaning that the County had no choice but to grant permission for the speed camera.

In this instance however the County might have had a fair complaint over the Town's use of speed cameras, as Forest Heights had previously passed legislation which lowered the speed limit on Livingston Road by 5mph and created a new school zone on the road. Local governments typically must obtain permission from county governments before changing speed limits on county roads. An ordinance passed this year by Forest Heights, affirming the Memorandum of Understanding and undo-ing the change in the speed limit by the town, documents the situation:
"WHEREAS, Resolution 43-09 further stated for the school zone established on “…Livingston Road eastbound and westbound 50 feet east of Comanche Drive to State Highway 210 (Indian Head Highway), speed set at 25 miles per hour…” despite the fact that the posted speed limit is currently 30 miles per hour; and
WHEREAS, on November 24, 2010, the County’s Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Public Safety and Director of Homeland Security delivered a letter to the Mayor, conditionally approving the Town’s request to use a speed monitoring system on Livingston Road; and
WHEREAS, the condition stated in said approval letter required the Town and the County to enter into an agreement whereby the Town may deploy its speed cameras on Livingston Road subject to certain reasonable limitations to allow the County to efficiently manage and maintain the roadway; and
WHEREAS, the Town Council approved a “Memorandum of Understanding Speed Monitoring Systems Agreement” with the County on January 3, 2011; and
WHEREAS, the Town Council finds that it is in the best interest of the Town and the travelling public to retain the current 30 mph posted speed limit on Livingston Road.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town Council approves and authorizes the use and deployment of speed cameras on Livingston Road pursuant to the memorandum of understanding entitled “Memorandum of Understanding Speed Monitoring Systems Agreement” approved by the Council on January 3, 2011; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Resolution 43-09 shall be amended to retain the current 30 miles per hour speed limit as it currently exists on Livingston Road; "

There are no schools located on Livingston Road in Forest Heights. The new school zone was apparently first marked in 2011 at almost the same time the new cameras on that road went online.

Forest Heights has written $2.8million worth of speed camera revenue into their FY11 budget, more than half of the town's budget for the year and more than their entire FY10 budget. This equates to more than $1000 in ticket revenue per resident of the town, or about 25 tickets per residents, although the majority of tickets are likely going to out of town residents. The small town has a history of interesting political drama, with the past three mayors all having been suspended or removed from office over various misconduct charges.

Forest Heights Camera Tickets Fail to Stand Up in Court

2011-04-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times is reporting that several Forest Heights speed camera tickets were dismissed in Prince George's County "speed camera day" after defendants used time-distance calculation to cast doubt on the accuracy of the camera readings.

One defendant, Will Foreman, owner of Eastover Auto, used the method to estimate vehicles speeds and show they were not consistent with the speeds shown on the citations. Foreman's business maintains a small fleet of vehicles, which regularly travel in Forest Heights, and as the registered owner tickets are issued to him. Some other defendants were also successful using the same method, however some defendants who relied on "gut feeling" about their speeds were still found guilty. Optotraffic continued to claim their cameras are accurate :“No one has come to us with a proven error,” company spokesman Mickey Shepherd said Tuesday. (note that Forest Heights denied a Maryland Public Information Act request for records pertaining to camera errors from StopBigBrotherMD, and also denied similar requests from several ticket recipients who required the information for their legal defense.)

Read the full article in the Washington Times hereAdditional Coverage:
WUSA9,
CNN

Mr Foreman has also created a HOWTO VIDEO on Youtube showing how drivers who believe they have gotten tickets in error can use this technique to demonstrate the error using citation images:

We encourage anyone who discovers such errors to challenge them in court, and also to report the errors to state officials, the media, or to StopBigBrotherMD.org. If you receive a ticket in error you are NOT "being a good citizen" by just paying the fine. Remaining silent only encourages negligence on the part of officials running these camera programs.

Related Stories:

No Spring Break for School Zone Speed Cameras

2011-04-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

Most Public School students are enjoying spring break, but in the interest of saving ourselves the time of responding to numerous emails two weeks from now, we'd like to remind everyone that school zone speed cameras are still up and running and issuing tickets. In Maryland, school zone cameras are currently forbidden from issuing tickets on Saturday and Sunday, however no exception is made for other days schools are not in session, including holidays, summer vacation, or spring break.

Meanwhile, most speed cameras in Montgomery County are not located in designated school zones, nor are many of the "IHE Zone" cameras located in College Park, and as such those cameras are all exempt from the Monday-Friday restriction, issuing tickets 24/7. Likewise the SHA's freeway workzone cameras, located on 695, 95, and 295 can also issue tickets 24/7 "regardless of whether workers are present". The location of a new speed camera site on I-70 at South Street (Frederick) was recently posted to the SHA website.

Don't feed the monster.

New Legislation Covers Scamera Programs' Butt on Signage Issue

2011-04-08T04:28:00.000-07:00

A Bill which would alter the requirements for signage for speed cameras has been quietly making it's way through the state legislature and is nearing final passage. The bill is intended to "fix" a provision of the law which nearly every speed camera program in the state has technically been in violation of.

The old wording of state law regarding signage was as follows:
"(vii)   Before activating an unmanned stationary speed monitoring system, the local jurisdiction shall:
1.   Publish notice of the location of the speed monitoring system on its website and in a newspaper of general circulation in the jurisdiction; and
2.   Ensure that each sign that designates a school zone indicates that speed monitoring systems are in use in school zones; [...]"
Under House Bill 1137, the wording of the law would change to:
"(b) (1) (vii) Before activating an unmanned stationary speed monitoring system, the local jurisdiction shall:
1. Publish notice of the location of the speed monitoring system on its website and in a newspaper of general circulation in the jurisdiction; AND
2. Ensure, THAT, IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO each sign that designates a school zone A CONSPICUOUS SIGN IS PLACED THAT:
A. IS in accordance with the manual and specifications for a uniform system of traffic control devices adopted by the State Highway Administration under §25-104 of this article;
B. INDICATES that a speed monitoring system is in use; AND
C. IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REGULATIONS ADOPTED UNDER SUBSECTION (K) OF THIS SECTION.
K. THE STATE HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION SHALL ADOPT REGULATIONS GOVERNING SIGNS PLACED IN ACCORDANCE WITH SUBSECTION (B)(1)(VII) OF THIS SECTION. "
This seemingly insignificant change would not seem to make matters substantially better or worse, and it frankly does not matter to us whether a 'photo enforced' sign appears on the same pole as a 'school zone' sign or next to it. What it DOES do, however, is point out something we mentioned previously: the signage for almost every "school zone" speed camera in the state is in violation of the current wording of state law. In almost every instance, 'photo enforced' signs deployed in school zones(which in many cases were newly created) are not typically installed on the school zone signs, but rather are deployed elsewhere (if the required signs are in fact present at all).

It certainly would have been physically possible for these speed camera programs to comply with the wording of the original law by deploying "photo enforced" signs under each school zone sign. And of course many if not most of the school zones were in fact newly created solely for the purpose of deploying cameras, so they could have placed signs anywhere that was appropriate. But somewhere along the way nearly every speed camera program in the state decided they did not need to comply with the wording of the above law, apparently with absolute confidence they'd never need to worry about it in court if they did not.

It must be very nice simply being able to ignore, or change, any provision of the law you disagree with. Apparently the same agencies which hang cameras on every street corner to waiting for drivers to make mistakes so they can be fined are able to do exactly that.

There is no "enforcement clause" in state law which even requires the court to find the defendants not guilty if the tickets were issued in violation of the law, and no penalty for local governments even if they have violated provisions of the law in a systematic way. District courts have almost universally ignored any arguments by defendants pertaining to signage in speed camera zones, including many reports we have received of locations where there were either no "school zone" signs or "photo enforced".

Given that state lawmakers chose to write the law in such a way that most of the restrictions on speed cameras are almost if not entirely unenforcible, it is little surprise that nearly every restriction on the use of speed cameras is being flouted by one or more speed camera programs in the state. The view by camera programs that restrictions in the law are something to be broken, circumvented, or ignored seems to apply not only to technical issues of signage, but also to matters which could affect to the accuracy of cameras, or whether cameras are operated properly, or your right to due process, or create conflicts of interest in the system. So who is responsible for enforcing those restrictions? The answer seems to be *nobody*. Not Maryland courts(which apparently now is OK with a system which finds drivers guilty until proven innocent), not the SHA (who's own scamera program violates provisions of the law), not the Attorney General, nobody. Well nobody except us, and (possibly) you.

Howard County Council Mulling Speed Camera Authorization

2011-04-05T04:26:00.000-07:00

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman submitted his proposed legislation to authorize the use of speed cameras in Howard County at the April 4rth legislative session. The measure is scheduled for a public hearing on April 20th at 7:30pm and the council is expected to vote on the measure in May. This legislation has been anticipated since Ulman announced his intention to introduce speed cameras in March.

State Senator James Robey (D) from Howard County was one of the instrumental players in getting statewide speed cameras authorized in 2009 and has been supporting the Howard County proposal. ACS State and Local Solutions, the contractor for the largest speed camera contracts in the state (including Montgomery County, Baltimore City, and the State of Maryland run programs), has also been supporting the addition of speed cameras to Howard County, creating an "Astroturf" web site which they revealed their affiliation with the site only after it was exposed by local media.

The proposed legislation contains several restrictions consistent with state law, including restrictions on how revenue is to be spent and how the cameras are to be operated or used, which are ostensibly intended to prevent the devices from being used as cash cows and to protect your rights. However every speed camera program in the state has violated some provision of the law, and nearly every promised restriction on the use of speed cameras has been broken or circumvented by some speed camera program in the state. Examples include ignoring and circumventing restrictions on how revenue is to be spent, creation of vast new school zones solely for speed camera deployments, the use of contingent fee contracts, refusals to present camera operators at court hearings, using cameras which are not independently certified in Baltimore County, drivers threatened for requesting court hearings instead of being provided court dates, and the failure to regularly test machines for accuracy. In addition, there have been examples of lowering of speed limits at some camera sites, and there have been numerous documented cases of errors. The reality is that there is no "enforcement clause" in state law for any of the supposed restrictions, even if flouting those restrictions mean innocent people may be getting tickets. Thus the various local speed camera programs in the state face no penalty for violating the law, very rarely even having citations thrown out in court. The state has so far refused to intervene in reported cases of abuse, possibly because the state's own program has also run afoul of some provisions of the law. But don't worry, in Howard County things will be different. Sure why not, there's a first time for everything.

County residents can appear at the April 20th hearing, or they can contact the council. Click THIS LINK to open an email window, or go to the county website for contact information.

Baltimore County Unable to Answer Questions About Camera Testing

2011-03-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

We previously reported that the speed cameras used in Baltimore County do not meet a requirement under state law that they be certified by an "independent Calibration Laboratory", but were instead only certified by the manufacturer, who has an obvious vested interest in declaring the cameras to be flawless. We sent a letter of inquiry to Baltimore County Police, who were either unwilling or unable to answer most of those questions.

Our Inquiry letter, sent on March 12 (several days prior to our previous report on the subject), included 10 questions pertaining to the Mesa Engineering built G1-ATR cameras used by the county. On March 21 the county sent a response to that letter which failed to answer most of the questions.
In response to our question:
"1) What is the legal basis for considering a speed monitoring system's manufacturer to be an "independent calibration laboratory"? Does Baltimore County have any legal opinion or other document supporting this? And was this considered when selecting a vendor and/or certification lab for Baltimore County's speed camera program?"
The county, rather than simply answering the question, responded by citing a provision of the Maryland Public Information act permitting requests for documents containing legal advice to be: "SG 10-611(g) defines a Public Record for the purposes of the act. It does not require the custodian or a government official to provide a response to questions or provide an explanation. SG 10-618(b) allows the custodian to deny inspection of any Intra- Inter Agency memorandum that would not be available by law to a private party in litigation. Legal Opinions are covered by this section."
We noticed that the county did NOT say that they have no such documents, such as a letter of advice from the county attorney or attorney general. Of course if they did have such an opinion, and it supported the position that considering the "manufacturer" to be an "independent" calibration lab (even though they have a financial interest in being able to sell the device) why would they not simply have presented it, or at least answered the question in some way, in order to end the controversy?

For our second question,
"2) If it is Baltimore County's position that it is acceptable for the manufacturer to be considered an "independent calibration laboratory", then what is the objective proof, provided by an entity without a financial incentive to declare the device reliable, that a speed monitoring system is accurate, reliable, and appropriate for law enforcement purposes under all real world conditions? Can you explain how this satisfies the legislative intent of the above portion of state law?"
to which they used similar legalistic language to say they were refusing to answer the question: "SG 10-611(g) defines a Public Record for the purposes of the act. It does not require the custodian or a government official to provide a response to questions or provide an explanation. "

We asked several other basic questions regarding the accuracy and testing of the devices.
"3) What are Mesa Engineering's credentials for manufacturing and testing speed monitoring systems? Can you provide documents showing this?
4) The certificates list an "Internal Calibration Test" which states that "The transmitter frequency of this speed Measuring Device has been tested and found to be within the prescribed limits of 34.5 GHz - 34.7GHz". It does not seem to say anything about actual speed measurements performed on real vehicles. Can you provide the actual test procedures for this annual calibration test? What is the basis for asserting that the testing performed is sufficient to show that the devices are accurate and reliable when the device is operating unattended under all possible real world conditions?
5) Is this device on the IACP's list of conforming law enforcement products? Can you provide documentation showing whether this device has been evaluated by an organization such as the IACP for unattended use? Was this part of the selection criteria for this device?"
[...]
"8) Is this device FCC certified? Can you provide documents showing this?
9) How was Mesa Engineering compensated for the device and the certification? How much are/were they paid (by the county or by ACS)?"
For each of those questions, the county responded by stating : "There are no documents on file at BCoPD for this request". OK, so they have no documents showing either a) the credentials for the company who built and certified the device b) whether there is any basis for concluding that the testing Mesa did perform on the devices is sufficient that the devices are accurate and reliable, c) whether the most authoritative organization for law enforcement products has ever examined or approved the device d) whether the device was approved by the FCC for use in the US, e) what financial interest Mesa has in finding the devices to be accurate & reliable. Yet the evidence produced by these devices is simply being presumed to always be correct and to be a valid basis for issuing tickets and finding people guilty in court.

The county did respond to three questions, sort of:
"6) How does this device distinguish between multiple vehicles in adjacent lanes or close to each other? Was target identification part of the testing for this device?

7) How long after the speed measurement is taken are photos taken by this device, and what is the time between frames? Are these times fixed or variable? If it is variable then is it possible for citation reviewers and ticket recipients to see the actual time intervals, and if so to what precision?
[...]
10) Can you please provide a complete technical specification, operating manual, and citation review procedures for the G1-ATR?"
by providing a copy of a speed camera citation (which might have shown the time interval if they had been readable) and a one page document which appears to be part of a tutorial for approving citations, that apparently shows that citations MUST be rejected if there are multiple vehicles present. (ie the answer to question 6 is that the device CANNOT distinguish between multiple vehicles, and any citation which contains multiple vehicles issued by this type of camera SHOULD be thrown out.) No "technical specification" or "operating manual" was provided.

The same type of Mesa Engineering G1-ATR camera is one of two types of cameras used by Baltimore City's program, which is independent from Baltimore County's program but uses the same Contractor (ACS State and Local Solutions, a Xerox corporation). Baltimore City's program is several times larger than Baltimore County's program , however we have not yet obtained copies of Baltimore City's speed camera annual calibration certificates (but the fact that the same contractor provided the cameras makes it likely the same situation applies with their G1-ATRs). Data previously released by Baltimore County shows that the county had issued over 43,000 citations as of November 30 from 15 camera sites, all of which are G1-ATR cameras. Baltimore City's much larger program issued 379,237 citations in its first year, but it is unknown how many of those were issued by G1-ATR cameras and how many of those were issued by the more commonly used "Gatso" cameras (which apparently have received some independent testing), which Baltimore City also uses.

The ironic thing is that the requirements of state law are in fact extremely weak, not specifying a specific standard they must be tested against, only that an independent lab must do the testing. Yet Baltimore county and its contractor cannot meet even this weak standard. We suggest that any citizens who have an issue with Baltimore County's failure to comply with state law, or with being subjected to enforcement by cameras with cut-rate accuracy testing, should raise the issue with the Baltimore County Council, and with their representatives in the state legislature.

Are You Fighting a Scamera Ticket? Help Us Help You!

2011-03-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

We need to hear from people who are fighting or have recently fought speed camera tickets in court. Many ticket recipients have been denied their right to due process at District Court hearings, and we need your help to challenge this.

If you have recently fought a ticket in Maryland (successfully or unsuccessfully) we would like to get a courtroom report from you telling us what happened on your "speed camera day". If you have an upcoming hearing, particularly for a ticket issued by Montgomery County, The State of Maryland (SafeZones), Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Forest Heights, Riverdale Park, College Park, Brentwood, Laurel, or any municipality in Prince George's County, then we may have information which could help you prepare for your case, and you can possibly help us as well.

We are particularly interested in hearing from anyone fighting a ticket who:

requested the camera operator to appear
is challenging a citation on the basis of the annual calibration logs
has proof of a camera error
was unable to receive a court hearing for an unusually long time
won their case

is an attorney

Please CONTACT US and help us help you!

Hyattsville Council Approves Speed Camera Program

2011-03-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Hyattsville will be the next Prince George's County city to start a speed camera program, after the city council voted to approve speed cameras and to turn most of the city onto a school zone on March 7.

New Hyattsville School Zones Covering Almost Entire City

Police Chief Doug Holland noted that most of the city’s streets would be in school zones under the new ordinance, according to an article in the Sentinel. A presentation by the city on the speed camera proposal shows the vast geographic area covered by the school zones, which encompass all but a few small corners of the city. The planned school zones (according to the diagram) include every major road in the city, including Queens Chapel Road and US 1, neither of which has any schools directly on them within the city limits.

One Councilwoman, Nicole Hinds Mofor of Ward 5, voted against the ordinance and said she thought the city should find ways to reduce speeding without installing cameras and hiring an officer, according to an article in the sentinel. Two council members were not present: Council President Marc Tartaro, Ward 1, and Councilman David Hiles, Ward 2, were not present for the vote. The other seven members of the council who voted for the cameras (and whose contact information you can find HERE) are Douglas Dudrow, Paula Perry, Ruth Ann Fraizer, William Tierney, Timothy Hunt, Matthew McKnight, and Carlos Lizanne.

Control over the camera program, and the revenue generated by them, was part of the debate over Hyattsville's cameras. Patch.com reported that "The cities rights to manage the cameras may also be at stake, according to Chief Holland, who warned that the county could conceivably set cameras up on county roads if the city failed to act." According to documents obtained by StopBigBrotherMD.org other cities such as Bowie and College Park initially had their requests to use speed cameras on Prince George's County roads denied by the county with the stated reason being that the county wanted to deploy cameras there themselves. That would have meant that revenue would go to the county rather than the city. A state law passed in 2010 allows cities in PG County to deploy cameras on county roads even if the county fails to grant permission, and forbids the county from imposing an "exaction or fee" on city managed speed cameras. (This change was specific to PG county, almost as if state lawmakers specifically did not trust that particular county government).

Any cameras placed on state highways would need to first be approved by the SHA, although the SHA has freely granted such approvals elsewhere in other towns such as Brentwood, College Park, and Forest Heights. The city will not need permits to deploy cameras on local roads. Hyattsville must still select a vendor (such as Optotraffic or ACS) who would then conduct a study to select camera sites. The newly created school zones, most of which were never previously designated or marked as such (a practice now so commonplace in Prince George's county towns that it pretty much goes without saying they would do it) would then need to be marked and cameras deployed, with the first tickets likely to go out around October according to the proposed timeline.

The city's presentation states that "Contractor fee may not be based on number of citations". However currently every single city and town in Prince George's county which is running a speed camera program is paying the contractors a fee based on the number of citations, despite a provision of state law saying "If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid" and despite the fact that those contractors are typically responsible for the day to day maintenence for the cameras. Similar violations and circumvention of various parts of state law exist in every single speed camera program in the state. The state government has thus far not intervened in any way, probably because the state of Maryland's own program is also in violation of some provisions of state law.

ACS Created Astroturf Site To Promote Howard County Scameras

2011-03-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

It was previously exposed by Patch.com that a marketing firm hired by speed camera contractor ACS State and Local Solutions created a phony "grass Roots" campaign (a practice commonly called "Astroturfing") to promote the expansion of Baltimore County's speed camera program. That effort ultimately proved successful when the county voted to expand the program and renew ACS's profitable contract without a competitive bid. It turns out that ACS has been conducting a similar artificial-turf effort in Howard County for some time.

The Inside Charm City blog discovered a FaceBook page in February,shortly after the Baltimore County site was exposed, which was similar to the one created in Baltimore County maintained by the CEO of KO Public Affairs. The story in Inside Charm City stated that the "Slow Down For Howard County Schools" FaceBook page had "no name, no email address, no website, or no other contact information listed."

As of today the "Slow Down For Howard County Schools" FaceBook page (now that it is public knowledge) does in fact disclose that it is being "supported by ACS State and Local Solutions". The same disclosure is NOW made on the Baltimore County site as well. The first posting on the Howard County site was dated September 14, 2010, so it appears that ACS was using this site to promote their agenda in Howard County for some time before the disclosure was made. The site lists over 1200 'likes', but the names of the 'likes' are concealed. The fact that an official of KO Public Affairs was listed in the 'Likes' of the Baltimore County site was one of the things which revealed ACS's involvement, and that feature has been turned off on that site as well (it would also potentially reveal whether 'likes' were in fact coming from 'like farms', a tactic used to artificially inflate the apparent popularity of sites).

The creation of Astroturf sites by speed camera companies has become a widespread tactic, and some photo enforcement companies even hire people to comment on speed camera stories online to create the impression of public support.

While it is noble that ACS now admits to running these Astroturf sites, one wonders how many other "grass roots" campaigns they are supporting in the state to improve their bottom line? StopBigBrotherMD previously reported on ACS's extensive lobbying activities, even buying steak dinners for state lawmakers (first exposed by the Washington Post). We also previously reported on the massive PR campaign ACS was conducting in Montgomery County, which included planting favorable stories in the media. ACS presumably hired KO Public Affairs because of their many connections both in the state government and in major media outlets. For example, Howard Libit, the KO Public Affairs official who ran the Baltimore County Astroturfing campaign, is also a former editor of the Baltimore Sun, which often publishes stories strongly supporting photo enforcement. The Sun did not disclose its former relationship with Libit when they published their own story on the Astroturf campaign.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has introduced a plan to add speed cameras to that county. A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for April 20th. ACS's current efforts include not only expanding the use of speed cameras to other parts of Maryland but also gaining authorization for new types of photo enforcement.

StopBigBrotherMD.org is maintained entirely by volunteer efforts and receives no support or funding from any corporate interest.

ICC Tolling System Forshadows Tracking of Drivers, Average Speed Cameras

2011-03-18T03:43:00.000-07:00

WBAL did an interesting story on the new Inter County Connector (ICC). The ICC is a cashless toll road, the first such road in the state. Drivers on the road must either have an EZPASS (for which Maryland Charges a monthly fee), or else the system uses automated license plate recognition(ALPR) to record the passing vehicle's plate at their entry and exit points and mail the vehicle owners a bill in the mail for the toll plus a $3 service charge.

The article noted that the bills were recording times of of entry/exit down to the second and asked "Couldn't they use those cameras to see how long it takes each vehicle to travel between the electronic tolling structures on the ICC and gauge each vehicle's speed and then send speeding out tickets in the mail accordingly?" The answer to that, at least in terms of technical capability, is "you bet they could!" This is called an "average speed camera" and they are used in some parts of the UK already. Basically if you exceed the speed limit *at any point* during the journey, an average speed camera would ticket you if your average speed across the span is above a certain threshold (or, of course, if the time measurement at one of the sites was incorrect, but let's ignore that since everyone knows machines are never wrong). The widespread use of photo enforcement and automated tolling in Europe has even lead to a practice called "number plate cloning", where criminals trying to avoid fines and tolls create copies of another car's plate and stick the real plate's owner with the penalties.

ALPR systems like the one used for the ICC can also be used to flag specific vehicles, for example cars with expired registrations or unpaid parking tickets. The ICC toll system could in theory also become the first piece of a regional "Road Value Pricing" plan, also called a "congestion tax", which the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is studying right now. It's worth pointing out that MWGOG is studying it in the context of "how do we convince the public to accept tolling on most major roads" not whether they want it (they've already decided on that!)