Just wait until over states start using the speed cameras as well as the red lighters. Anyone who has doubts about the growth that RDF are goign to experience must not remember how quick these things took off here.
Scottsdale adds latest photo speed enforcer Holly Johnson The Arizona Republic Aug. 24, 2004 12:00 AM
Related link Speeders beware: New photo radar cameras go up
SCOTTSDALE - Crews activated the city's seventh digital photo enforcement system Monday morning on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in north Scottsdale, bolstering police efforts to slow traffic and crack down on speeding.
It is the city's first bidirectional, fixed, speed-only detection system.
The cameras are perched midblock on the busy thoroughfare at the equivalent of 77th Street between Scottsdale and Hayden roads. Other photo radar systems, such as those at Scottsdale and Cactus roads or Hayden and Indian School roads, are mounted at intersections.
The technology uses two types of sensors to determine a vehicle's speed, said Bruce Higgins, CEO of Redflex Traffic Systems.
When a vehicle passes over the electrical strips, a computer calculates its speed and the camera shoots a picture of the vehicle's plates.
If the vehicle is traveling 11 mph or more over the 45 mph speed limit, a citation is issued.
Ten days later, tickets arrive in the mail. Minimum fines for speeding are $157, and citations for running red lights begin at $184.
One of the big complaints opponents of photo enforcement have is not having a personal contact with an officer, Scottsdale police contract administrator Bruce Kalin said.
"It's not immediate and therefore not as effective, they think," Kalin said. "But when you look at the statistical information from every city that uses it, that's not borne out by facts."
Digital enforcement has been consistently proven to reduce speed, collisions and injuries in the Valley and across the country, Kalin said.
Photo enforcement was first implemented in Scottsdale in 1997, after police studies revealed traffic collisions had increased 71 percent between 1991 and 1995.
Police created a multipronged initiative that included the installation of photo radar cameras to address those concerns.
"We just saw a phenomenal increase in traffic collisions, exponentially higher than the population," Kalin said.
"And officer citations were having virtually no effect on that."
By December 1998, the average number of collisions in Scottsdale dropped 3.3 percent. And after upgrades to systems and the implementation of enforcement vans, 77 percent of drivers supported the change.
This year, digital enforcement stations issued 9,091 citations and speed vans nabbed 15,015 drivers between Jan. 1 and July 31.
Moving violation citations issued by Scottsdale police officers, however, topped out at 12,728 for the same period, an average of 13 citations per officer per month.
Police will add two enforcement sites in coming months, Kalin said
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