Speed camera rules in LA still need tightening

An action that increasingly has become mistaken the Shreveport City Council, with Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux’s blessing, seems set to expand, knocking on to Caddo Parish’s foray into it – begging further legislative intervention.

A few years ago, the city installed traffic control cameras around school zones where speed limits would change. The rationale given was safety, but that always is the last refuge of scoundrels when dealing with these instruments around speed limit changes and lighted intersections. Rather than setting up a whole camera infrastructure, sworn law enforcement officers can hold monitors and save a government thousands or even millions of dollars in forgone equipment, maintenance, and operating fees.

Instead, despite their bleating otherwise, it’s all about money. That’s why Shreveport has put up with plenty of controversy about defective operations and phantom offenses to continue the initiative – some two to three million bucks a year in revenue over expenses through last year. So much so now Caddo Parish will join in as the city looks to place more cameras on roads the contractor Blue Line Solutions reaping business from the city to operate the cameras claims have a high propensity for speeding on them.

However, the cost of business is going up. Last year’s legislative regular session’s Act 103 cramped the style of governments’ operations of these (as well as with handheld cameras), affording many more rights to those accused of speeding. It creates a much more expensive adjudicatory process that jurisdictions must follow to gather revenue, as well as serves to inflate contract costs to ensure the cameras work correctly and at correct times placed correctly and with adequate warning in place. Both Shreveport and Caddo might find their profit margins squeezed more tightly than anticipated as a result.

As welcome as that relief may be from predatory practices skirting constitutional rights, more should be done in statute to ensure safety is the sole concern of camera use. Best would be prohibiting governments from keeping any money past contract costs; one possible destination for that could help out cash-strapped public defense offices.

But if unwilling to go that far, legislation should tighten the process further. It should mandate (1) taking pictures both of license plates and faces (2) that must be clearly recognizable after review by a police officer verified by a city or district judge (3) from a camera proven calibrated accurately taking only vehicle and people photos only during posted times (4) subject to criminal, not civil, proceedings in order to get a conviction.

Of course, cameras do have a positive impact on speeding and running red lights in their reduction and, if all procedures are followed correctly, they would catch only violators. Still, given the ambiguity of laws and judgment necessary for their adjudication plus asymmetrical powers relations with the citizenry, it is too tempting for governments to use these gray areas as revenue-raising methods. This fact invites Louisiana legislators to do more to erect procedural and usage safeguards, and not just stand pat after last year’s reforms, as well as should make Shreveport and Caddo lawmaker majorities reconsider their lust for money over safeguarding citizens’ autonomy.