A bill in the Colorado House Wednesday would bank traffic cameras, like this one at East Sixth Avenue and East Speer Boulevard in Denver. (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file photo)
A collection of Colorado mayors and police chiefs, led by a coalition funded by the traffic camera industry, is trying to put a red light in front of a bill to ban those pesky traffic cameras used for issuing citations.
House Bill 1098 has its first hearing Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. in the House Transportation and Energy Committee. A last year.
Nine cities and a total of 12 communities use the cameras, collectively raking in more than $14 million last year. The margins are high. Denver, for example, collected more than $6.5 million in fines and spent just $2.6 million to operate the program, according to a legislative analysis of the bill.
The Traffic Safety Coalition said the larger point is public safety and cited statistics and media reports that indicated the cameras are helping.
“Law enforcement officials understand the dangers affecting their communities, particularly the dangers we face on our roadways,” according to a letter to the committee released Tuesday night and signed by officials from Northglenn, Cherry Hills Village, Lone Tree. Sheridan, Greenwood Village, Pueblo and Fort Collins. :Local police departments know the needs of their communities and understand the need for the added enforcement on our roadways. We believe they should have every available technology at their disposal to enforce the crucial traffic safety laws that keep us safe and hold red light runners accountable.
“The data is indisputable that Colorado’s red light camera programs have successfully changed driver behavior and reduced red light running, crashes and injuries on our state’s roads.”
During testimony last year, however, Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher said there was no data showing Denver’s cameras had had any tangible impact on road safety.
It’s also a manpower thing, according to the letter from the mayors and police chiefs:
“Even more, many Colorado police departments face resource challenges,” they wrote. “Red light cameras have served as force multipliers, allowing them to address other public safety needs without having to sacrifice the enforcement of our most basic traffic safety laws. Local police officers have utilized safety cameras to make roads safer for all of us, and they have worked. If municipalities had not had the right to determine what is best for their roads, who knows how many more accidents would have occurred? Unfortunately, for many families, it is already too late.”
U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Golden, is t, saying the cameras have become more a revenue enhancement than a safety enhancement.
The Colorado bill has politically strong sponsors from each party in each chamber this year, including Senate President Bill Cadman and Senate Democratic leader Morgan Carroll. Former House Speaker Mark Ferrandino was the sponsor of last year’s legislation, however.
The summary of states
The bill repeals the authorization for the state, a county, a city and county, or a municipality to use automated vehicle identification systems to identify violators of traffic regulations and issue citations based on photographic evidence, and creates a prohibition on such activity.
The bill repeals the authorization for the department of public safety to use an automated vehicle identification system to detect speeding violations within a highway maintenance, repair, or construction zone.
