By Adam Andrzejewski, CEO/Founder, OpenTheBooks
Our partners at OpenTheBooks.com have the updated 2022 speed and red light camera tickets issued by the city. Getting a ticket from an automated camera can be a significant source of frustration for city residents.
Draft questions:
1. So, last year, just how many tickets were issued?
ANSWER: We estimate the city issued nearly 1 million speed and red-light camera tickets last year.
You are 2X more likely to get a speed ticket than a red-light ticket. Last year, there were 521,000 speed tickets issued and 222,000 red-light tickets. The city didn’t disclose the number of speed tickets issued by the two cameras on Interstate 83 – but the $4 million in revenues collected – just in the first six months of operation – indicate the possibility of hundreds of thousands more in tickets issued.
2. These nearly 300 cameras generated nearly $22 million in revenues for the city. Break-down the money:
ANSWER: According to city disclosures -- The average paid speed ticket was $38. The average red-light ticket paid was $51.
The city collected $11.4 million from the speed cameras and $6.1 million from the red-light cameras. It took 290 cameras to issue 750,000 tickets. However, the two cameras on the interstate racked up another $4 million in revenues. The city didn’t disclose the number of tickets issued on the interstate.
Incredibly, the two cameras on the interstate will out-perform 145 of the city’s red-light cameras on revenue.
3. Not everyone pays their ticket. What percentage of the tickets went unpaid last year and was that consistent with prior years?
ANSWER: Only about half the tickets issued are ever paid. Last year only about 55% of the tickets issued were paid. So, the law-abiding citizens that pay their bills are paying for the entire program. The other half of people get away without paying.
For example, only 294,215 speed tickets were paid out of 520,736 issued. So, over a quarter million tickets remain unpaid… 226,000 people effectively got away. There were over 100,000 people who didn’t pay a red-light ticket.
Analysis from prior years too…
4. What intersection generated the most speed and red-light tickets?
ANSWER: The top seven intersections for speed cameras: each had over 10K tickets!
Top five intersections for red-light cameras: 4/5 had over 4,000 tickets each…
5. Remind our viewers the discrepancy you found when giving oversight to the city on speed and red-light tickets last year.
ANSWER: Wildly disparate numbers between the city’s department of revenue and the transportation departments. They reported numbers that were $10 million apart on revenues and then split the difference in the middle. It was crazy and the agencies looked like basic bookkeeping functions were in chaos.
6. If you don’t pay your ticket, what happens? What are the city policies? And where do these revenues go – what do they pay for?
ANSWER: I’ll have this for tomorrow!
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