Red Light Camera News Sioux Falls, SD City Council considers dropping ordinance
City Council considers dropping ordinance
11:16 PM, Dec. 22, 2011 |
Written by
Jonathan Ellis
Sioux Falls officials are ready to give up on efforts to resurrect red light cameras.
The City Council will be asked next month to eliminate an ordinance that established the red light cameras. This follows a court decision last year that found the city’s ordinance conflicted with state law.
The cameras have not been used since that June 2010 decision in which Judge Kathy Caldwell ruled that the city’s practice of issuing civil fines to the owners of cars conflicted with state law, which stipulates that running a red light is a criminal offense.
City officials say they won’t try to change state law.
“To make the changes we need for what Judge Caldwell saw as problems, it might even require a state constitutional change, and not just a change to state statute,” said City Attorney Dave Pfeifle.
Mayor Mike Huether said he would rather have the cameras, because he thinks they made the intersection safer at 10th Street and Minnesota Avenue.
“I still think it was and is a good idea,” Huether said. “But the legal fight, the policy fight, it’s just too steep of a hurdle.”
The cameras were controversial, both here and in other places that have used them. Nationally, they have been credited for reducing certain types of accidents, such as T-bonings. But they’ve also been blamed for increasing other types of accidents, such as rear endings.
The debate to bring them to Sioux Falls started in 2002 when former Mayor Dave Munson proposed establishing cameras at various intersections. In May 2002, a consultant analyzed 10 intersections in the city and recorded 1,409 instances of drivers running red lights over a 90-hour period.
A divided City Council approved funding for red light cameras later that year. The first, and only, cameras went online in May 2004 at 10th Street and Minnesota Avenue. A year before, Argus Leader employee Edie Adams had been killed in the intersection after being struck by a car.
Fines piled up — 5,458 in 2004, a partial year, and 7,717 in 2005. The company that managed the system sent owners of vehicles an $86 ticket. Unpaid tickets were turned over to a collections agency.
But there was criticism from the beginning. Rental car agencies, car dealerships and others received tickets, even though they weren’t responsible for running the lights or making an illegal turn at the intersection.
In 2006, Sioux Falls resident I.L. Wiedermann filed a lawsuit, contending the system was unfair after he was ticketed. Wiedermann argued that an employee was driving a vehicle registered in Wiedermann’s name, and that he should not be responsible for paying the fine. Wiedermann’s case eventually made it to Caldwell.
Wiedermann has lobbied lawmakers, unsuccessfully, for a statewide ban on cameras. Although Sioux Falls is the only entity in the state to try them, Wiedermann doesn’t want them popping up elsewhere.
“I’ll be back out there again so they don’t have one anywhere in the state,” he said.
During a six-year run, accidents in the intersection fell by a third, Police Chief Doug Barthel said. “They definitely served their purpose.” (Ban the Cams note: HOW MANY WERE RLR accidents??? Come on be truthful. Or are you just counitng the accidents you "want" count like what happen in Philidelphia, PA. http://www.phphosts.org/blog/2011/10/another-report-shows-redlight-cameras-increasing-accidents/ and http://www.banthecams.org/Studies-Show/red-light-cameras-effect-on-accidents-is-debatable.html)
And while the cameras generated more than 34,000 tickets, they were never intended to raise money, Barthel said. As the number of tickets began to fall, the city actually was losing money, with most of the revenue going to the company that operated the system.
Although the cameras have been off since last year, Barthel said he thinks they’re still on the minds of many who drive in the intersection. “I think there still is a residual effect.”
(Ban the Cams comment: "residual", hmm. Tell ya what WHY DON'T YOU SHARE WITH EVERYONE WHAT THOSE RLV BREAKDOWNS WERE??? The "residual" is fear of getting scammed for every techincal foul you guys love to cite for!)
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