The Chris Moeller Archives

Boycotts work

There lies a horrendous speed trap inside the Des Moines metro area. A very broad section of University Avenue in the northwest suburb of Windsor Heights-- with a medium to light amount of traffic at all times-- has had auto speeds held to 25 miles an hour for as long as I’ve lived here, and with several cameras installed in mobile units since 2012. New cameras are periodically being added, and during the collective timeframe of 2017 and 2018, the Windsor Heights cameras issued 73,219 violations for drivers that were at least 11 mph over the limit. That comes out to better than 100 issuances a day, and four each hour. Yes, one approximately every 15 minutes.

Fines range from $65 to up to $130 for violations inside a construction zone. The city of Windsor Heights collected approximately $1.5 million in revenue just from tickets in 2018, according to the Des Moines Register. For each individual fine of $65-plus, the city pays out $26 to the speed camera vendor company called American Traffic Solutions, an Orwellian-named third-party camera and ticketing company that boasts on its website how many violations it polices each year-- more than a million, and that it “serves” more than 30 million people.

The company provides a product to city governments that does not afford those accused of breaking the law the opportunity to face a certifiable witness in court, and the company’s employees act as “scabs” of a sort also because the cameras fill in for working police officers, who, unlike cameras, expect fair living wages and competitive benefits, and are available to assist with public concerns on parallel and perpendicular streets. In 2017, a judge ordered money returned to drivers who had appealed their camera violations on Interstate 235 through Des Moines between 2013 and 2016. Judge Lawrence McLellan ruled that due process rights were denied when the City of Des Moines required drivers to go through unauthorized hearings in order to make their appeals. Sometimes the salivation for revenue gets ahead of the rights of the people. But we know this.

Well, some of us have been busying ourselves with a boycott of Windsor Heights businesses for some time. I thought my silent financial protest might be the only one out there, but Windsor Heights business leaders have now gone to the city council and demanded that the cameras be removed because they are feeling the pinch. Councilman Zac Bales-Henry, the only member of the board to vote against new camera installations in 2017 was asked about the $1.5 million city revenue last year and said, “To know that that much revenue is coming in is a little sickening.” Michael Libbie of the city’s Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the stretch of University through his town is built like a highway, between four and five lanes wide, and inviting drivers to speeds of 40 to 45 mph-- not the posted 25, echoing what many of us have been muttering to ourselves for years in our kitchens and living rooms as we open our mail, and in our beds late at night.

The National Motorists Association opposes speed cameras. They argue that photo radar is still radar, and can generate false readings. They contend that camera enforcement is inseparable from a revenue mission because it emphasizes volume. That is, it is not profitable to use photo radar on low volume/residential roads. Locations are always characterized by traffic volume. Furthermore, cameras can only make money in situations where speed limits are kept artificially low. It’s not politically acceptable to waste taxpayer money so the only option is to choose camera locations that have unreasonably low limits, then make sure the limits stay low. There is no proof that ticket cameras improve safety, despite claims often repeated by city officials that stem from the statistics being sold by companies that are also selling enforcement products. Finally, there is always a terrific delay between the alleged violation and notification, which makes it virtually impossible for someone to defend themselves, or even recall specifics of the moment in question.

The council is being forced to listen. Some members claim the cameras have worked because the number of tickets being issued has been reduced since the beginning of 2017, but the fact that people may be slowing down speaks not at all to the ethics or fairness of a speed trap, only to the general public knowledge that one exists. Each individual suburb-- each tiny fiefdom-- of a metropolitan area shouldn’t be permitted to set unusual restrictions upon certain types of roads that we are all accustomed to driving on. Safety stats are what matters, not total tickets issued, and definitely not numbers on revenues collected-- even though any fool can see that revenue is the goal.

Money talks for the city-- and for the area businesses as well. Money walks then as well-- perhaps to neighboring Urbandale, if actions are not taken. A DM Register poll last year found that 54 percent of Iowa adults are opposed to any automated traffic enforcement cameras at all, with only 40 percent in support. Certainly more than 54 percent would back the idea that a community with this much enforcement is engaged in a mission for something other than public safety.

posted by CM @ 7:12 AM