Thursday, January 21, 2010
"Arizona speed cameras may be flash in pan as $90m fines are ignored"
I figure that the elected officials saw the $money$ and bought into this without considering ALL of the possibilities...
Chris Ayres reports at TimesOnLine.com:
"Although about 700,000 tickets have been issued since Arizona’s 76-camera plan was rolled out last year, a mere $37 million of the $127 million in fines and surcharges has been collected. That is because Arizonans have realised that they can simply ignore tickets sent to them in the post, and the authorities cannot prove that they have received them. Unless the tickets are served in person — something Arizona cannot afford to do — they become void after three months.
Motorists have shown their opposition to the machines in other ways, too — such as placing large cardboard boxes over them, decorating them with sticky notes, attacking them with pickaxes and, in one case, setting off the cameras while standing in front wearing a monkey mask.
The company hired to install Arizona’s cameras, Redflex, is under financial pressure, because it invested $16 million upfront in the equipment. But it says it is persevering. 'Redflex is in this for the long haul,' it said."
