Another great investigate article from Jon Hilkevitch of the Tribune looks at the actual revenue collected as a result of the photo enforcement vans. He finds that of the 800 cases in Cook County this year (these are $375 tickets with $300 court costs), 500 were dismissed, and in another 200 fines were reduced sharply. Dupage county had similar results with only 95 of the 650 tickets resulting in the full costs. The results were also consistent in Cook County in 2006 and 2007.
In Cook county, the tickets brought in $80,000 in fines and court costs for 814 cases, which comes to about $98 a ticket (and $267 for undismissed tickets).
Some judges feel the fines are too steep and reduce fines. Another reason is sometimes the photo of the driver is blurry and therefore its unclear who is the actual driver (especially if the judge has to rely on a fuzzy printout instead of a high resolution photo).
There is also a nice accompanying graphic on how the photo enforcement vans work.
The Chicago Herald & Review ran an article on the use of photo enforcement cameras at construction sites in Illinois. In recent years, Illinois has added photo enforcement vans to nab speeders in construction zones. There is talk about expanding this beyond construction zones as a way to slow down drivers.
Here are some background facts from the articles:
In 2003, 44 people, including five construction workers, died in work zone accidents. The number of state work zone fatalities has dipped was 21 in 2007. Two construction workers died in 2007; one died in both 2005 and 2006.
This summer marks the third year vans will be in construction zones. Three will be touring various state work zones between Rock Island, Du Quoin, Springfield, Champaign and Collinsville; one will monitor state highway construction zones and one more is reserved for metropolitan Chicago.
They have automatically issued 7,441 speeding tickets, said Scott Compton, Illinois State Police spokesman. Images of the driver’s face and the front and rear license plates on the vehicle will be recorded. If the driver is anyone other than the owner of the vehicle, the owner will not be responsible for the ticket. When the ticket is mailed, an image of the driver appears with the citation.
The tickets are $375 ticket to anyone over the speed limit. If drivers are cited for a second time, the fine bumps up to $1,000 with a potential 90-day license suspension. Since 2005, the Illinois Department of Transportation has generated more than $7.4 million from work zone speeding violations, said Illinois DOT spokeswoman Paris Ervin. [I don't understand the numbers - 7,441 tickets at $365 doesn't add up anywhere close to $7.4 million. I assume that the vans only account for about a third of the revenue, the rest from regular speeding tickets by officers].
The continuing saga of the Department of Homeland Security’s “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico border, also known as the DHS Secure Border Initiative (SBInet), for past history take a look at: 1 and 2. The project is relying on smart cameras, sensors, and radar as a virtual fence. I always thought this project could really show how useful smart camera systems could be. Alas, the project is not going well (GAO testimony):
The Government Accountability Office reviewed the SBInet program from March to September of this year and testified about its findings in a hearing in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday.
“Are we making progress?” said Randolph Hite, director of IT architecture and systems issues for the GAO. “The answer is, we don’t know.” “I’ve never seen anything that answers that question of will the benefits exceed the cost,” Hite said.
The CBP has awarded Boeing, the main contractor for the SBInet program, $933.3 million in projects so far. The DHS has requested $75 million from Congress for operations and maintenance of what’s described as “tactical” infrastructure in place for 2009.
When the GAO visited in June the site of Project 28, a 28-mile strip of land at which a prototype for SBInet is under use by the border patrol, the system was hardly functioning, said Richard Stana, director of homeland security and justice for the GAO. “It took us 45 minutes just to get the system up and running,” he said. Additionally, radars were thrown off, camera range was limited, and the ability to classify items under surveillance was limited, Stana said. He said the prototype “did not meet expectations,” but that it was hard to hold the contractors accountable because any expectations in place were “loosely worded.”
Stana said that while Project 28 was intended as a model for security along the rest of the border, the project has essentially been scrapped, and the CBP will use different technologies. “The cameras, the radars, everything will change,” he said after the hearing.
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