BY THE NUMBERS* $113,016.50: Total owed** $47,597.50: Original fines owed* $65,419: Late fees owed* 985: Unpaid tickets* 359: Undeliverable* 626: Delivered* $256,998.25: Total paid*** 4,905: Number paidSource: City of Cleveland* Includes partial payments and late fees** Includes partial payments, overpayments and late fees
The amount of money in unpaid traffic light camera tickets owed to Cleveland is about 10 times the amount the city made from the cameras when they were operational.
A little more than $113,000 from 985 unpaid tickets is owed to the city, records indicate. The city took in between $12,000 and $13,000 during the program's 18-month life, city Finance Director Mike Keith said.
"Our plan is to evaluate what is the best route to go on collecting (the unpaid tickets), and whether we collect those in-house or whether we do turn them over to some sort of (collections agency)," Keith said.
He said there hasn't been a meeting to discuss the unpaid tickets, and there isn't one scheduled.
"It is one of the things we do need to work on," Keith said.
Traffipax, a Maryland-based traffic camera company, began operating the cameras at five of Cleveland's intersections in late 2008 and ceased its upkeep of the devices on April 1 because of revenue shortfalls.
The company collected a little less than $257,000 from the cameras, records indicate. But that's less than the $275,000 the company billed Cleveland to operate the cameras, so Traffipax offered to run the cameras for free in their last two months of operation, Keith said.
Traffipax continued processing tickets until June 15, then handed all unpaid tickets over to Cleveland, records show.
Messages left with Traffipax were not returned.
Now that Traffipax is completely out of the picture, any revenue from the unpaid tickets will go directly to the city, Keith said.
All tickets were originally written for $50, he said, but late penalties raised the cost to $154.75 for 626 unpaid tickets that reached their intended addresses.
Legally, the city would be able to collect on the delivered tickets without being contested since the alleged offenders didn't show up for their scheduled court dates, said Marty Kooperman, a Nashville-based trial attorney.
One of the people Cleveland may ask to pay up is Glenwood, Minn., resident Brandy Warnock. Records show that Warnock's vehicle passed through a red light on Paul Huff Parkway on March 27, 2009.
Warnock said the driver was her ex-husband's brother, a Cleveland resident who borrowed Warnock's vehicle.
"I told [Traffipax] it's impossible for me to have gotten that ticket because I haven't been to Tennessee in 14 years," she said.
So Warnock decided not to pay the $50 ticket.
"I just hope if I ever visit Tennessee they don't have a warrant out for me," she said.
The city also has 359 tickets that came back as "undeliverable," meaning the address that correlated with the vehicle's license plate number wasn't correct. These tickets are still valued at $50, records show.
"There would have to be some work done to collect those," Keith said, adding that the cost of collection may be too high to justify.
Camera debate
Across the nation, the debate over traffic light cameras seems to show no signs of stopping.
Critics say the cameras infringe on motorists in a "Big Brother" manner, skip due process of law and are installed mostly to generate revenue.
Proponents claim they improve safety at intersections and allow patrol officers to concentrate on more pressing crimes.
In Dalton, Ga., the City Council voted unanimously in 2008 to deactivate cameras at five of the city's intersections.
"I've never seen proof that cameras make intersections safer," Mayor David Pennington said before the vote.
For Tennessee, Kooperman said that, in accordance with a 2008 appellate court ruling, traffic light cameras and the process in which they're handed out is legal, even if the vehicle owner wasn't driving the vehicle.
In spite of the ruling, Kooperman said, there are still a lot gray areas concerning traffic camera laws, which is why a small percentage of those receiving tickets take their cases to trial.
Red Bank and Chattanooga, which started using cameras in 2006 and 2007 respectively, are each tied up in $10 million lawsuits over the devices. The plaintiffs argue that the cities began using the cameras before the 2008 appellate court ruling.
The ruling notes that, before 2008, Tennessee Code said any traffic citation from a camera would only be for "a nonmoving traffic violation." In July 2008, Tennessee law was amended to say all violations caught on camera are considered "nonmoving traffic violation(s)."
A hearing for the suits against Red Bank and Chattanooga is scheduled for Sept. 20 in Hamilton County Chancery Court.
Overall, though, people taking their traffic-camera tickets to trial is rare because they don't count as points on traffic records and contesting them can get quite pricey, Kooperman said.
"You're not going to get an attorney to come in for [the cost of a traffic ticket]," he said. "People will say, 'But it's a matter of principle.' I often tell people, 'Principle's fine, but principle can also be expensive.'"