Smart Cameras Blog

Here is a followup post for the above article

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.

rshah Chicago