Originally Posted By: jawbone
Originally Posted By: 300gr
The money collected is split amongst state,city and owner of the cameras. Cities usually lease which is much cheaper by allowing the camera owner to collect a small percentage of the PAID fines.
They are legal by the state of Alabama where they are installed. Bottom line is if you got a ticket then you did in fact run the light. Sounds like a lot of people are not sorry they ran a light and could have killed somebody. They are just sorry they got caught.


1. The state gets no revenue from the cameras
2. The cities that got the legislature to allow cameras in their cities get a smaller percentage of the money collected than the camera company.
3. They don't lease the cameras. They allow the company to place them for a small percentage of the monies collected. The company still owns and operates the camera.
4. When you receive one of these tickets do you pay the fine to the city or the company? That is all you need to know about them.

Since you asked, I was the head of the Traffic Division and as such was the statutory Traffic Engineer. I know all about the operations of red lights and can see way to many issues to make the cameras fool proof. Anytime a private company profits from the enforcement of laws, the potential for abuse is there. Ethics dictate that we should avoid the appearance of impropriety before we have to deal with corruption later.

If the system is so perfect, explain how a whole funeral procession being waved through the light by a uniformed deputy all got tickets? I know some of them got it straightened out, on their time, but I wonder how many paid? This happened in Selma BTW and my MIL is one of the ones in the procession.

The cities could get all the revenue if they bought the cameras outright. But due to expense it's cheaper to give a small percentage to the vendor. I'm sure all towns are different. I can only speak from experience. The only ticket I got was mailed from the city not the vendor. It had the reviewing officer's name and photo on the ticket. It was paid to the city NOT the vendor. All potential tickets in my area are monitored by the vendor and if they deemed it as potential then a police officer reviews it and has final say if it was a ticketable offence. As far as a funeral procession goes the camera does not discriminate. Any vehicle that crosses the stop bar after red will have a photo and video taken. The reviewing officer's should have thrown it out and if contested it would have been thrown out.the only reason a city would take in less than the vendor is due to the fines being distributed. The camera vendor akes much less than the other divisions of the pie. They also have to maintain,install and monitor the cameras. Would you pay 80000 out of your pocket for free? It saves the municipalities up front incurred cost plus maintenance plus monitoring plus the software for the monitoring. But since you're a "traffic engineer" you should know this. It there are that many tickets generated then there is a red light running problem. I bet under your law enforcement hat you have no problem with video surveillance being used to identify robbers, assailants or any other crime or do you?

Last edited by 300gr; 09/17/17 04:33 AM.
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