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Hartmann: Beware the Return of Red Light Cameras to St. Louis | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

September 22, 2023

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click to enlarge The cameras are (likely) coming.

This column was originally published on the St. Louis Insider Substack.Imagine you started a business with this simple formula for success: The more people break the law, the more money you make.

Should we entrust you with the task of enhancing public safety? Arguably not.

But get ready to say hello again to the “automated traffic enforcement” industry.

City officials led by Mayor Tishaura O. Jones held a press conference Monday to announce plans to bring back red-light and speed cameras. These have been rebranded as “automated traffic enforcement” devices, owing in no small part to the angry snarls elicited reflexively by any mention of “red-light cameras.”

St. Louis officials have the best of intentions here. They’re responding to widespread public disgust over some recent high-profile tragedies caused by wild and dangerous driving. There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence of the problem: Any of us who drive frequently in the city have seen it with our own eyes.

Third Ward Alderman Shane Cohn has gamely authored a draft resolution that attempts to address past concerns over the greed, civil liberties and racial disparities that plagued prior efforts. He told me he was a “reluctant” sponsor who had “vehemently opposed” cameras in the past but was hopeful that the city could craft a better way forward.

But none of that fixes the fatal design flaws of what passes for “best practices” nationally today. In the standard industry model, companies receive a cut of the revenues that are generated by the red-light and speeding violations they detect.

The more violators the cameras catch, the more profit for the companies. Any reduction achieved in traffic violations constitutes a hit to the bottom line.

Corollary to that: The industry’s undignified history of investing in lobbyists to oppose new safety legislation intended to reduce traffic violations (with the unintended consequence of trimming industry bottom lines). Present “best practices” in outsourcing traffic management overlook the detail that better safety is bad for business.

Yellow-light management is Exhibit A. Many studies have documented that lengthening the time of yellow lights — but not overdoing it — can substantially reduce the number of red-light running violations and intersection accidents. Here’s a nice read on the topic.

Take a wild guess at what industry has frequently found itself accused of doing just the opposite, which would be shortening those yellow-light intervals and just increasing the number of violations racked up by its cameras. Why yes, it’s some of the city’s future partners in crime prevention.

Jones stated this week that traffic cameras have been “proven” to be effective in other cities. That may be. They’ve also been proven to be disastrous in other cities. This is by no means a matter of settled law or politics.

Unless and until the city can remove the perverse incentives for vendors to profit in direct proportion to the amount of revenue generated by traffic tickets, the model is a non-starter. Now, if the city’s RFP provided for a flat-fee arrangement under which companies would be paid — with no performance incentives — based upon the number of traffic devices they install and operate, they might make sense.

But something tells me there wouldn’t be any takers for that arrangement. I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Also, I’m not buying that city officials — present or future — can be counted upon to refrain from finding higher and better uses for future ticket windfalls. Cohn’s draft legislation addresses that subject reasonably, but that’s hardly predictive of real-world events.

Now, I know some will argue, “We’ve got to do something to fix the city; even a lousy idea is better than doing nothing.” That’s a common refrain and, in some contexts, reasonable.

This isn’t one of those cases. The solution isn’t even a solution: To the extent a spike in wild driving afflicts the city — a national problem by no means limited to St. Louis — the culprits would hardly be deterred by tickets and fines.

Conservative local attorney Bevis Schock, with whom I customarily disagree a lot, made a great point to me this week: “We are living in a time of desperate degradation of human civility on the road. The people who are causing the accidents by running the red lights don’t care because they’re defined by their lack of civility.”

And on a more practical note related to the mechanics of punishing offenders: “The guy that’s causing the problem doesn’t care because he probably stole the car.”

Perhaps that’s a bit overstated but it gets to the heart of the matter. Even if police can clear the legal hurdles of identifying through facial recognition the person who was driving the car — and accounting for Cohn’s proposal that driver education be offered as an alternative to paying large fines — there’s no way to make the system just.

Red-light violations and speeding bring with them points on one’s driver’s license. That’s among the requirements of the 2015 Missouri Supreme Court decision that at least temporarily gave the traffic camera industry quite a haircut.

People with the means to hire a lawyer will do so to have the tickets plead out so they’re reduced to non-point violations. People on the opposite end of the economic spectrum will likely ignore the tickets altogether.

As usual, the folks in the middle will take the brunt. If they cannot afford to hire lawyers, they’ll likely pay the $100 fine (or whatever amount), inequitably affecting their modest budgets. And of course, the entire system will disproportionately land upon people of color because that’s what the criminal justice system does.

So, sorry I’m not ready to jump on this particular bandwagon. I always hate being soft on crime.

But maybe this time it’s because I’m not getting a cut of the action.Ray Hartmann is the founder of the Riverfront Times. This column was originally published on his Substack St. Louis Insider and is reprinted with his permission. See RayHartmann.Substack.com to subscribe.

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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