Knoxville Police Try To Collect On Unpaid Tix Pt. 2
“You will see a numerous violations at the same intersection, so you know that they are traveling the same route every day.” Lasercraft, the red light system receives a portion of the fines collected to operate the program. Lasercraft gets compensated with eighty percent of the fees up to $4,500 per month and the city gets a hold on the twenty percent that remained. Above $4,5000, monthly collections are evenly split between the city and Lasercraft. The city’s share goes to the city’s general fund, not the Police Department.
While the camera system was operated by RedFlex Traffic Systems, Inc in 2008, the city’s split of collections was $1,179,352 and RedFlex’s take was $2,007, 831.After the city switched to Lasercraft in 2009, the city collected $1,143,072 and Lasercraft got $1,874,989.30 The fact that the collection rate is going down shows us that there are less citations being issued on account of the fact that more drivers are stopping at the red lights where the cameras are located.
The police department believes that the red-light camera program has been an enormous success because it has reduced crashes at the intersections with the cameras. In the year of 2009, the entire percentage of crashes at these intersections went down by ten percent over 2009\8 and remarkably, side impact and front impact collisions were down by thirty percent, which is a consistent result for every year of the program. The police officer states that “It has made our roads safer. I believe that public safety has genuinely benefited. We chose the most troublesome intersections based on crash information.”
Additionally, the city of Oak Ridge utilizes red-light and speed enforcement cameras, and utilizes RedFlex. And much like Knoxville, citations are going down in Oak Ridge too. According to RedFlex, the whole amount due for Oak Ridge violations in March was $69,900. The total amount due from June 2009 to March 2010 was an impressive $866,163.25. This amount includes any fees that might have been assessed, including late fees, rejected payment fees, administrative hearing fees, and on line convenience fees.
A bill that is now making its way through the state House that would ban operation of red light cameras but continue to allow municipalities hire collection companies to pursue the unpaid fines. But, lawmakers say that failure to pay the fine would not be reported to credit rating agencies to hurt credit ratings. Under the bill currently, there would be no extra fees for late payment.
Mallory Megan is employed by a debt collection company. She also writes stories on business and finance, consumer spending and collection agencies.
Posted on April 24, 2010
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