Hay: Arnold's Red-Light Cameras Violate State Law

Matt Hay, founder of an anti-red-light-camera website and former Arnold councilman, said the city overstated the safety impact of its red-light system, and the system violates Missouri law.

Members of the Constitution Party in Arnold invited Hay to speak at the group’s March 16 meeting at the Jefferson Public Library’s Arnold Branch. Hay served as a councilman from 2007 to 2009 and manages wrongonred.com.

March 8, at a separate City Hall forum, city officials and American Traffic Solutions (ATS) spokesmen said the cameras have made intersections safer and provided Arnold Police Department data showing a decline in severe accidents at intersections with the camera systems.

ATS is the Arizona-based company that installed and manages the camera systems in Arnold.

At the party meeting, Hay said severe accidents are rare at those intersections and statistical changes were insignificant. The number of wrecks, a larger set of figures, increased, he said.

Hay and the City of Arnold used different data sets for analysis. The city used data collected by its police department. Hay used data from a Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) study that evaluated information at 55 Missouri intersections with red-light cameras. A MoDOT press release said the study measured three types of car wreck data--total crashes, severe crashes and right-angle severe crashes.

The city’s data showed a decline—to 4.8, from 2006 to 2010, from 12.3 in 2002-2004—in the yearly average of injury wrecks inside Arnold intersections with the camera systems, according to a St. Louis Suburban Journals article. MoDOT data showed an increase to nine wrecks in 2009 from six incidents in 2006.

The state agency reported that severe crashes decreased by 45 percent, while total accidents increased 14 percent.

Arnold Police Chief Robert Shockey said the numbers for Arnold were wrong because MoDOT counted wrecks 133 feet from the intersections. Arnold police counted wrecks within 50 feet of the intersection.

Hay said he obtained the MoDOT study and it showed that the decrease represented a net change of three accidents.

It is difficult to know whether the cameras had an impact statewide, Hay said.

Lillian Knibb, a 20-year resident of Arnold , agreed with Hay and said the cameras were more about raising revenues than improving safety.

“I was just totally appalled by this. It is just all about the almighty dollar,” Knibb said.

The city’s net from paid fines rose to $368,176, last year, from $184,786 in 2006, according to a St. Louis Suburban Journals article.

The constitutionality of red-light cameras is unclear, Hay said.

At the March 8 forum, City Attorney Bob Sweeney cited a U.S. Court of Appeals judge who struck down complaints against the systems in a 2009 decision. Sweeney also stated that the Arnold tickets issued are civil instead of criminal violations.  

In criminal cases, the state must prove that the person accused committed the crime. Civil cases have a different burden of proof.

Arnold’s red-light cameras cannot conclusively prove a driver’s identity during the violation, Hay said. The systems take photos of the rear license plate instead of the car’s front-end and the driver.

“The City of Arnold says the burden is not on us to prove you were the actor that caused that object to run the red light,” Hay said. “You have to prove you weren’t.”

Hay said another legal issue is whether the City of Arnold must report red-light violators to the Missouri Department of Revenue.

According to Hay, state law requires a two-point assessment on drivers convicted of a moving violation. Arnold’s ordinance does not require the two-point penalty.

The city’s ordinance contradicts state law, Hay said. “The only way to change this is to elect local representatives who will take these cameras down.”