Speed cameras on Arizona highways disabled permanently

PHOENIX - Arizona ended its groundbreaking speed enforcement program Thursday with the expiration of a company's two-year contract that put dozens of cameras along Phoenix-area freeways and other highways across the state.

Panned by critics as intended more as a way to generate revenue than improve safety, the contract that the Department of Public Safety awarded Scottsdale-base Redflex Traffic Systems expired at 11:59 p.m. MST Thursday.

The 76 fixed and mobile cameras triggered by radar or other senators were to go dark then, but Redflex said notices for speed violations before the program's end will continue to be processed for months after that.

Redflex, a unit of Australia-based Redflex Holdings Ltd., said it anticipates that traffic speeds will spike once the cameras are turned off, as happened on a freeway in suburban Scottsdale at the end of a 2006 pilot program. Arizona State University researchers concluded that speeds and crashes were reduced during the pilot program.

"This should be a wake-up call to everyone in the community to be even more careful and watch for a large increase in aggressive, dangerous driving," said Redflex spokeswoman Shoba Vaitheeswaran.

The DPS said its officers will continue to enforce speed limits. Officers can issue citations to violators for speeds less than the camera program's threshold of 11 mph over the limit, the agency noted. "Any unsafe and unlawful speeds can be cited."

Gov. Jan Brewer disclosed in January she intended to let the contract expire, and the DPS made that official in May when it issued Redflex a non-renewal notice.

The state program's end doesn't affect those run by various local governments.

An initiative campaign to put a prohibition of both state and local camera programs on the November ballot fell short of collecting enough voter signatures.

The anti-camera group, Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar, is excited the state's program is ending, Chairman Shawn Dow said, but the group is still gunning for 14 Arizona municipalities that use the technology.

"We've still got 90 percent of them to knock out," he said.

Dow said the group is trying to get measures added to city ballots to ban the cameras.

The cameras were about money, not safety, Dow said.

Former Gov. Jan Napolitano had cited traffic safety considerations when she directed the DPS to launch the program, but critics said her later inclusion of a $90 million revenue estimate in a budget proposal revealed that money was the real motivation.

Brewer said she considered the cameras intrusive and that the program was intended as a revenue-producer.

Arizona Automobile Association spokeswoman Linda Gorman said speed cameras can be helpful if used in conjunction with officers and if ticket revenue goes back into traffic safety programs. But the program was flawed from the start because it was designed to fill budget holes, she said.

"Recognizing that photo enforcement can be a tool, it shouldn't be used primarily to replace that operation of police officers pulling you over," she said.

A spokesman for a national safety group said a right-or-wrong public perception that revenue was a motivation clearly was a factor for the program's sunset.

"It can't be for revenue and if the public thinks it's for revenue, the cameras aren't going to survive," said Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Washington-based Governors Highway Safety Association. "We don't want it to have a chilling effect on other states."

American Traffic Solutions Inc., another camera-system company based in Scottsdale, has said the inability of the initiative drive supporters to collect enough signatures "is a strong indicator" that the public supports use of the technology.

Adkins said he's unaware of any other state preparing to launch a statewide program but limited programs for school and construction zones appear to be gaining popularity.

Redflex said it will remove the fixed cameras by Labor Day and they and the mobile units will be redeployed to other areas of the country, Vaitheeswaran said.

The DPS said the program resulted in the mailing of 1.1 million citations or notices of violations, including 432,367 notices of violations that were paid.

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