Brekford To Refund Camera Fines Over Hagerstown Calibrations

More bad news for speed camera contractor Brekford Corp, who will have to refund $54,000 worth of speed camera citations after it was discovered that the calibration of speed cameras they deployed in Hagerstown did not meet state requirements for calibration.

A provision of state law requires all speed cameras to be "certified" according to a manufacturer specification ever year by an "independent calibration laboratory".  We previously reported in March how annual calibration certificates which were obtained from the city of Hagerstown had in fact been issued by the manufacturer of the device, not an independent lab.  

Now, WJLA reports that a motorist challenging a speed camera citation issued on Northern Avenue in Hagerstown uncovered the fact that "Brekford, the contractor which runs the Hagerstown speed control system, had not independently calibrated the camera as is required every year."    The city has since revealed two other cameras with the same issue, and agreed to refund 808 of the citations.

The citations the city has agreed to refund constitute only a small percentage of the tickets issued by Hagerstwon without independent certifications.  Hagerstown speed cameras had issued approximately $1 million worth of tickets as of February 2013.  The same issue with Hagerstown's cameras was also noted in calibration certificates the Maryland Drivers Alliance obtained from the City of Laurel.

Brekford corp was recently the topic of bad news when a new set of errors were discovered in Brekford speed cameras deployed in Baltimore City, temporarily shutting down the city's speed camera program.  Brekford also was the contractor for Fairmount Heights, whose speed cameras were recently shut down after it was discovered that town failed to obtain required permits from the county before deploying them.  Brekford is also engaged in a lawsuit with speed camera supplier Sensys America over a contract dispute.

Brekford Corp is also the speed camera contractor for Salisbury, Greenbelt, Capitol Heights, Morningside, and Landover Hills.

The Maryland Drivers Alliance STRONGLY encourages everyone who contests a speed camera citations to file a Maryland Public Information Act request with the jurisdiction issuing the citation requesting the daily and annual calibration logs. You should do so more than 30 days in advance of your court hearing in order to give you time to examine the logs BEFORE your court hearing.  We have created a sample MPIA request letter which you can update and use.  We will be happy to help you analyze any records you receive.

Additional Coverage:

Washington Post: Contractor’s lax inspection of speed cameras leads to $27,000 in refunds in Hagerstown, Md.

WTOP: Speed camera firm refunding $27K in Hagerstown

Circuit Court Dismisses Speed Camera Ticket, Xerox Blocks Access to Evidence

A Montgomery County Circuit court judge found the defendant who appealed a Montgomery County speed camera ticket Not Guilty.

Mr Timothy Leahy, an attorney who works for the law firm Byrd and Byrd LLC, argued that a requirement of state law:
(3) A speed monitoring system operator shall fill out and sign a daily set-up log for a speed monitoring system that: 
(i) States that the speed monitoring system operator successfully performed the manufacturer-specified self-test of the speed monitoring system prior to producing a recorded image; 
Was not met, because the logs for the camera which issued this ticket did not contain a statement that "the speed monitoring system operator successfully performed the manufacturer-specified self-test".  As such the operator had not performed the legally required duty of affirming the proper operation of the equipment.

Mr Leahy had also attempted to Subpoena several other additional records pertaining to the speed camera from Xerox State and Local Solutions(XSLS), including records showing the "time between pictures".  Speed camera Xerox Corporation objected to the request for this information which could have been used to verify the recorded speed of the device, stating "XSLS further objecs to this request on the grounds that it seeks discovery of trade secrets and other proprietary information, of of which are matters privileged from disclosure.  XSLS is in possession of certain documents provided under contract with Vitronic.  These documents were provided pursuant to a Confidentiality Agreement and represents Vitronic's proprietary information.  XSLS has not received authorization to provide this information, so it will not be produced pursuant to this Subpoena".

Xerox objected to the the request for other records pertaining to as well, including:

•  Documents showing how the calibration of the camera took place and how the self test results are to be read
•  Daily logs (documents which are REQUIRED TO BE DISCLOSED AT ANY COURT HEARING under Maryland law)
•  Manufacturer calibration records
•  Repair records for the camera
•  Officer certifications and training records for the camera
•  Camera manuals/guidelines

Xerox argued, among other things, that these documents, which pertain precisely to how the devices function and are operated, were "neither relevant nor reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence."  We note that daily logs, annual calibration logs, and speed camera operator training certificates are all specifically required to be disclosed under state law.

Xerox additionally argued that they should not be required to produce ANY records in response to a subpoena on several grounds, even though they are the ones who provide all of the equipment for Montgomery County's cameras and are substantially responsible for the handling of evidence in speed camera court cases.  You can read Xerox's complete response to the Subpoena here.

"Xerox refused, by filing an opposition to my subpoena for information, to produce the documents to show how long the time was between the photos of my car – so I could accurately calculate my speed from the distance traveled." wrote Mr Leahy.  "Remember the Baltimore system was shut down because Xerox had cameras that had images/videos that showed the cameras were wrong."

Xerox was previously the operator of speed cameras used by Baltimore City which were admitted to have systematically produced erroneous violations.  In Baltimore's case accurately timestamped images were available which made it possible for a pattern of errors to be determined by the Baltimore Sun and also by supporters of this website... forcing the city and Xerox to admit the errors.  However in Montgomery County tickets issued by VITRONIC speed cameras have the timestamps rounded off to the nearest second, and the real time interval between images is unavailable to defendants (and to the press)... making it impossible to perform the type of analysis after the fact which revealed systematic errors in Baltimore City.  We note that the annual calibration certificates for the VITRONIC speed camera which issued the citation in Leahy's case were issued by the same company (MRA Digital) which "certified" the faulty cameras used in Baltimore City.

See VITRONIC logs and calibration certs

This year the Maryland state legislature considered several bills which would have made providing this information on speed camera tickets mandatory   Montgomery County sent county employees at taxpayer expense to argue against this requirement, and State senator Madaleno (D, Montgomery County) wrote an amendment to the legislation which removed the requirement from the bill in the Senate, and the leadership of the House Environmental Matters blocked similar legislation in the House   Ultimately the legislature adorned this year without passing any speed camera legislation.

"I’m not surprised Xerox doesn't want another jurisdiction to have to face the inaccuracy problems that caused Baltimore to fire Xerox" wrote Leahy.

Baltimore Woman Gets Three Camera Tickets from DC Without Ever Driving There

According to a report on WJLA news, an 87 year old woman from Baltimore has received three speed camera tickets from DC in a 4 month period of time, without ever having actually driven in the District.  The citations depict three different vehicles, none of which belong to the woman, Miriam Singer.

“It’s not my car,” explained Miriam Singer. “It’s obvious that it isn't from the photograph.”

DC voided the citations after being contacted by ABC News 7 stating "This appears to have been human error". 

All DC citations are supposedly reviewed by humans before being issued.

DC's automated enforcement programs brought in approximately $95million in revenue last year.

Opinion: Lawmakers Not Off The Hook On Speed Camera Reform

Early this year there was much talk of reforming the State’s broken and corrupt speed camera law, prompted by proof that the City of Baltimore and Xerox Corp had been systematically issuing erroneous speed camera citations to innocent drivers, and by a scathing audit of the SHA which revealed deep flaws in the Maryland Safezones speed camera program.  Yet despite all this talk, and some very sound well thought out proposals such as a bill written by Senator Brochin and another bill by Delegate Jon Cardin, in the end the Maryland legislature utterly failed to address the problems.

How did this happen?  Some blame Senator Pipkin, for threatening to filibuster the last remnants of a speed camera bill on the final day of the session because the house had eliminated additional calibration requirements he had fought to be included in the Senate Bill, rather than accepting the “compromise”.  Certainly that's a very convenient approach for those who opposed reform, and who are now celebrating the fact that they got exactly what they wanted, but don't want to look overly joyous to the public over it.  But the reality is that REAL reform was already dead before that.  The leadership of the House and Senate had already collectively acted to remove the most vital provisions which would have actually made a difference in how speed camera programs are done. Supporters of motorist rights can hardly blame a long time advocate of drivers rights like Pipkin, a senator who has sponsored speed camera repeal legislation, for not wishing to accept a “reform” measure which did not adequately ensure that the integrity of the system would be substantially better or that promises which have been made to the public would actually begin to be kept.  

Senators Brochin and Carding both had sponsored bills which included the two key provisions of ending the “Bounty System” (ie paying contractors based on the number of tickets issued) and requiring that speed camera citations provide enough information to verify the speed of the vehicle after the fact (something which radar experts, college professors, members of the press, and motorist rights supporters have all called for).   These were simple, straight forward provisions which would have allowed the cameras to continue operating if there was in fact a legitimate safety function for them, but would remove two of the biggest complaints people have about the cameras: namely that contractors have a profit motive to issue more tickets (in violation of the intent of an existing provision of the law according even to Governor O’Malley) and
Yet local governments and the SHA swarmed to block these two provisions.  They were worried that ending the bounty system would cut into the revenue potential of these programs.  And they were TERRIFIED that if they were required to produce evidence of speed, then in fact people might actually discover errors of the same sort which Baltimore did.

Make no mistake about it: the SHA, local governments, and speed camera contractors have all been DELIBERATELY WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE from speed camera ticket defendants by denying them information about the real time intervals between citation images, and they are DESPERATE to keep it that way.  In so doing they are denying every speed camera ticket defendant their legal right to a fair defense, and they are concealing possible evidence of systematic errors of the same sort which occurred with Xerox's speed cameras in Baltimore City.  That same contractor, Xerox, holds the contracts for Montgomery County, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Chevy Chase, Takoma Park, Bowie, Howard County, Frederick City, Baltimore County and the SHA.  In those jurisdictions they believe motorists should simply trust them and their equipment without supporting evidence despite the fact that where that evidence WAS present their cameras were dead wrong.

So who does have the blame for the failure to pass speed camera reform?  The reality is that the leadership of the state legislature, and particularly the Environmental Matters Committee, never  intended to pass any meaningful reform this year.  An amendment introduced by Senator Madelino (D Montgomery  County) had already killed one of the vital provision in Brochin's bill which would have required proof of speed in the senate.  And the Environmental Matters Committee had blocked all bills but the one written by the Vice Chair, including Delegate Cardin’s bill.  The leadership of the Maryland legislature had already decided not to pass real reform long before the session came to a close, it was merely a matter of putting on enough of a show that the average person would not realize what they were doing.

Did the legislature wait until the last day of the session to push this year's gas tax increase through, or other highly controversial measures which passed this year?  Of course not, they WANTED those to pass.   Did the threat of a filibuster stop those bills?  Of course not, republicans do not even have enough votes in the Maryland Senate to sustain a filibuster on any bill which the senate leadership actually wants to pass.  But for Malone’s “reform” bill, they waited until nearly the end of the session, and dropped a newly minted bill on the floor, knowing full well there would not be time for the public to thoroughly evaluate its contents: this was a “take it or leave it” proposition.

Now, we are not saying there were no good provision’s in Malone’s bill.  There were some good things there.  All things considered the driving public might have been *marginally* better off in the short term had it passed.  But the current system in Maryland is not "marginally bad", it is terrible.  Malone's bill did not do ANYTHING to address the actual reason why reform was being considered in the first place: the fact that speed cameras in Maryland have been proven to be inaccurate.  And the bill would NOT have resulted in all local governments actually keeping the promise that contractors would not be paid based on the number of tickets issued: The House Committee had not only “grandfathered in “ existing bounty system contracts, but also included a brand new “loophole” which would have legalized any sort of payment based on ticket volume so long as it was not explicitly “per ticket” (such as paying for batches of tickets, or issuing bonuses for meeting certain quotas).

The legislation produced by the Environmental Matters committee was NOT intended to change the system for the better.   It was designed primarily based on input from local governments -- many acting through their front group the "Maryland Association of Counties" (MaCO)-- and speed camera vendors (who spent boatloads of cash on lobbyists) who felt that the only problem they needed to solve was  “How can we do a better job of public relations?” to prevent organized resistance to the state's broken law from rising above a dull roar.  So all this bill was intended to be was either a bunch of provisions designed to LOOK like change, but which really would not change anything fundamental, or something that would not be accepted by lawmakers who are critical of the current system and which would fail to get through the senate in time.  And while the writers of the bill took many pointers from those who profit from cameras, they certainly did not take into consideration the concerns raised by the DRIVERS who came to testify on speed camera reform legislation.

Had Malone’s bill passed, two years from now MOST speed camera contracts in the state would still be paying based on ticket volume.  Local governments could still issue tickets from inaccurate equipment which does not meet national standards for testing without any way of verifying their accuracy after the fact.  Nothing would have changed on this issue except there would have been yet another broken promise to the public.

So who has the blame for this?  Ultimately the blame must lie on the legislators who voted to put the cameras there in the first place.  State Lawmakers who voted for speed cameras in the first place have a MORAL OBLIGATION to ensure that the promises which have been made to the public are kept, that people will not be falsely accused, and that those who are accused have a legitimate chance to exonerate themselves.   They did not do that.  Now it is up to the public to ensure that those lawmakers are not let off the hook.  The driving public needs to unite into a citizen-based motorist organization which will work to hold state lawmakers accountable.  And they need to do this NOW, not wait until the start of the next session, because those who profit from Maryland’s corrupt speed camera law most certainly are not resting on their laurels after their victory at blocking reform and repeal legislation this year.

Fairmount Heights Failed To Obtain Speed Camera Permits

WJLA reports that Prince George's County is telling the small town of Fairmount Heights that they need to shut down their speed cameras after it was discovered that the city failed to obtain proper permits for the cameras on a county road before deploying them.  Motorists have complained that the town failed to post required notices and signage or to obtain permits showing the cameras were withing a legally designated school zone.

Motorists have complained that the city failed to provide public notice before two cameras were placed at 5400 Addison rd and 61rst Ave at Sheriff road, and that there are no "photo enforced" signs disclosing the presence of the cameras, and that these are required by state law.  It's unclear whether the two locations are within 1/2 mile of a school (the maximum distance a school zone can be designated from a school), but no public schools are located on Sheriff road or Addison road in the immediate vicinity of the cameras.

Attorney Donney Knepper stated to WJLA that he believed this provides a basis to contest tickets already issued:  "The citizens of the county were not put on proper notice, and that should render any ticket that was issued from one of those machines null and void. And anybody who received such a ticket should challenge it in court, and that violation and fine should be vacated."

However ultimately it would be up to a judge will need to determine whether the existing tickets are enforceable.

A representative of AAA ( an insurance company which has lobbied the Maryland legislature in favor of speed cameras in 2009 and 2013, but which often speaks publicly about speed cameras for PR purposes ) called the cameras a "rogue program" and stated "It's nothing more than municipal greed".

Fairmount Heights signed a five year contract with Brekford Corp to provide speed camera services in 2011

Baltimore To Throw Out 6000 Tickets, City Says They Have "No Evidence"

The Baltimore Sun reports that Baltimore City will be voiding 6000 speed and red light camera citations which were pending court hearings because their former speed camera contractor, Xerox Corporation, has stopped showing up for court hearings.  The city claims they have no evidence with which to prosecute the cases.

According to the Sun's report a district court judge dismissed all citations presented at a recent court hearing after the city stated they had no evidence to prosecute the cases, eliciting smiles from the defendants.

Baltimore ended their contract with Xerox Corporation late last year after signing a new contract with Brekford Corp.  The change occurred at a time when the city and Xerox had come under intense fire after revelations that some of their speed cameras had been systematically issuing erroneous tickets.

Baltimore's program was recently shut down after a discovery that one of its new cameras provided by Brekford had also issued erroneous tickets, after being programmed to enforce a 25mph speed limit on a stretch of road posted at 30mph.  The city has not announced a date when the program would resume.

The Sun has also reported that Baltimore City is withholding $2million in payments to Xerox Corp:

Because of a "number of disagreements," City Solicitor George Nilson said, "the city held back on making those payments" at least temporarily. "Prudent business people don't automatically or necessarily send out final payments when there are pending issues needing to be resolved," he said

Repeal Amendment Blocked in House

As Maryland State lawmakers were busy de-clawing proposed speed camera reform legislation, bills which would have repealed Maryland's speed camera law had been submitted to both the House and Senate were blocked by the Judicial Proceedings and Environmental Matters committees and were not permitted to come to a vote on the floor.  Not to be deterred so easily, Delegate Michael Smigiel ((R, Kent, Queen Anne's, Cecil, and Caroline Counties) brought the issue to a vote in the House by proposing an amendment to the house version of a "speed camera reform bill".  Delegate Smigiel's amendment would have changed the bill to repeal the state law which authorizes speed cameras.

Of course, the House voted the amendment down.   

The House reform bill replaced another reform bill which had passed the Senate with only a few days left in the annual session and added provisions which would have "grandfathered in" existing bounty system contracts.  Despite much bluster brought about by discoveries of extensive problems in the speed camera programs of Baltimore City and the SHA, the legislature ended without passing any legislation pertaining to speed cameras whatsoever.

The House vote on the unsuccessful speed camera repeal amendment was as follows:

House Delegates Voting AGAINST Speed Camera Repeal Amendment

	Speaker Busch	DeBoy	Holmes	Miller, A.	Stein
	Anderson	Dumais	Howard	Mitchell	Stukes
	Arora	Feldman	Hubbard	Mizeur	Summers
	Barkley	Frick	Hucker	Morhaim	Swain
	Barnes	Frush	Ivey	Murphy	Tarrant
	Barve	Gaines	Jameson	Nathan-Pulliam	Turner, F.
	Beidle	Gilchrist	Kaiser	Niemann	Turner, V.
	Bobo	Glenn	Kelly, A.	Pena-Melnyk	Valderrama
	Branch	Griffith	Kramer	Pendergrass	Valentino-Smith
	Braveboy	Gutierrez	Lafferty	Proctor	Vallario
	Cane	Guzzone	Lee	Reznik	Vaughn
	Carr	Hammen	Love	Robinson, B.	Waldstreicher
	Clippinger	Harper	Luedtke	Robinson, S.	Washington, A.
	Conaway	Haynes	Malone	Rosenberg	Washington, M.
	Conway	Healey	McHale	Rudolph	Wilson
	Cullison	Hixson	McIntosh	Simmons	Zucker

House Delegates Voting FOR Speed Camera Repeal Amendment

	Afzali	Fisher	James	Miller, W.	Schuh
	Aumann	Frank	Kach	Minnick	Schulz
	Bates	George	Kelly, K.	Myers	Smigiel
	Beitzel	Glass	Kipke	Norman	Sophocleus
	Boteler	Haddaway-Riccio	Krebs	O'Donnell	Stifler
	Cluster	Hershey	McComas	Oaks	Stocksdale
	Costa	Hogan	McConkey	Olszewski	Szeliga
	Dwyer	Hough	McDermott	Otto	Vitale
	Eckardt	Impallaria	McDonough	Parrott	Walker
	Elliott	Jacobs	McMillan	Ready	Wood

Not Voting/Absent:

	Bohanan	Cardin	Jones	Serafini	Weir
	Burns	Carter

Bromwell

Clagett

Donoghue

Baltimore Camera Program Shut Down After New Errors

The City of Baltimore has temporarily shut down its speed and red light camera programs after erroneous citations were reported by one of its newly installed speed cameras.

The Baltimore Sun has reported that a recently installed camera located on the 3900 block of The Alameda had incorrectly cited drivers for speeding in a 25 mph zone when in fact the posted speed limit in that location is 30mph. After city officials received inquiries from The Sun, they stated that the city would be temporarily halting all speed and red-light camera tickets "due to complications that arose during the transition to our new vendor."

One motorist had received two such erroneous citations four days apart, clearly showing the camera had been incorrectly configured for some time.  The Sun reports that 590 of the erroneous citations had been wrongly issued by this camera before anyone noticed.

SEE VIDEO OF TICKET RECIPIENT DISCUSSING NEW CAMERA ERRORS

Baltimore City had just signed a new contract with speed camera contractor Brekford Corp, which pays the company a fee for each citation issued (a type of arrangement which Governor O'Malley stated last year violates the intent of state law).  Baltimore also just agreed to pay Brekford over $2.2 million to replace faulty speed cameras previously run by speed camera Xerox Corp, after those cameras were found to have been systematically issuing erroneous citations due to inaccurate speed readings, which even included giving tickets to motionless vehicles.

The new errors were discovered only days after the General Assembly failed to pass legislation reforming the state's speed camera law.  A reform bill which had already been substantially weakened was unable to come to a vote in the Senate on the final day of the session after being completely rewritten by a House committee days earlier.  Among the watered down bill's provisions was a "ban" on per ticket contracts, which included a clause that would have grandfathered in existing "bounty system" contracts including Baltimore's contract with Brekford Corp, and provided a new loophole which would have allowed other types of contracts paying by ticket volume to continue.  Provisions intended to help ensure the accuracy and verifiability of equipment had already been stripped from the bill after local governments intensely lobbied at taxpayer expense to have these provisions removed.

This is not the first time Baltimore City speed cameras were found to be configured to the wrong speed limit.  Three similar incidents were discovered by WBFF news in 2010 and in 2012, resulting in thousands of erroneous tickets.

Additional Coverage:
WBAL
CBS Baltimore
Fox Baltimore

Session Ends Without Passing Camera Reform

Lawmakers argued until late into the night over the wording of speed camera reform bills, but the session ended without coming to a final a vote.

Bills sponsored by Senator Brochin and Malone were discussed in both Houses.  Brochin's original bill had been severely curtailed in the Senate, removing a requirement that citation images allow for the verification of recorded speeds.  The house committee had essentially replaced Brochin's language with new wording which would also have grandfathered in all existing "bounty system" contracts.  The bills did also contained some positive new provisions, including requiring the assignment of an "ombudsman" by speed camera programs to handle complaints, as well as some additional rules regarding signage and warning periods for cameras, and a clarification that "school zone" speed cameras were to be placed only around K-12 schools (as opposed to colleges or adult education centers).

A committee had been assigned including Senators Brochin and Malone to hammer out the differences between the two houses, agreeing to only grandfather in contracts in place as of April 9, 2013 (rather than October when the bill would have gone into effect) and clarifying that extensions could not be added.   Both the House and Senate had already rejected language which would have addressed the issue of accuracy by requiring secondary evidence or speed (which had been part of Brochin's bill had before being amended by the Senate), or requiring hardware to be testing to a nationally accepted standard.  As such the bill did not truly address the accuracy issues which prompted the calls for reform legislation in the first place.  The bill's proponents claimed it would have committed to ending the "bounty system", however it did so in a way that would have left dozens of existing contingent fee contracts in place which might have gone on for years to come.

Current law contains a provision stating:

"If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid."

The language of the legislation as it was approved by the House would have amended this to :

"If a contractor IN ANY MANNER operates a speed monitoring system OR ADMINISTERS OR PROCESSES CITATIONS GENERATED BY A SPEED MONITORING SYSTEM on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent ON A PER–TICKET BASIS on the number of citations issued or paid." (emphasis added)

This change would have closed a loophole exploited by many local governments which was allowed contractors to be paid per ticket so long as the word "operate" was not used to describe what the contractor did (though language to grandfather in existing arrangements was also included in the bill.  However the addition of the words "on a per-ticket basis" apparently would likely have been treated as an "and".  The Maryland Drivers Alliance had noted that this might have legalized other types of contingent fee arrangements which were based on the number of tickets but not strictly stated as "per ticket", such as payments for each batch of 100 tickets or a percentage of monthly fines collected (both of which are essentially still paying on ticket volume but not specifically a fixed amount per ticket).  The "on a per-ticket basis" clause was not in the current law or the original language of Brochin's bill, and its unknown whether that was the intent of the authors of the house bill language.  Both Delegate Malone and Senator Brochin replied that this was being looked at, but it is unclear whether anything in the compromise amendment considered in the final hours would have addressed this potential new loophole.

Ultimately a filibuster led by senator Pipkin, who believed the bill was too weak and who had supported repeal legislation, prevented the bill from reaching the senate floor.
 
Meanwhile, Governor O'Malley is preparing to sign a highly controversial gas tax increase into law which he and the leadership of the general assembly had no trouble getting through the legislature with ten days to spare.

 
See additional coverage:On the Baltimore Sun
TheNewsPaper.com (includes an accounting of recent campaign contributions by photo enforcement companies) 

SHA, Rockville Cameras Certified by Company Which Approved Faulty Baltimore Cameras

We previously reported how speed cameras which systematically issued erroneous citations in Baltimore City had passed all of it's calibration tests.  It turns out, the same company which "certified" the faulty hardware, which falsely accused trucks of traveling at twice their actual speed and  even issued citations to motionless cars, also certifies equipment used by the SHA, Baltimore County, and the City of Rockville, and other jurisdictions in the state.

Below is one of the certificates for a Mesa Engineering G1-ATR, issued by MRA Digital. 

This camera was formerly located at 1300 West Cold Spring Lane East Bound, which Baltimore City and Xerox Corp has admitted was responsible for issuing hundreds of erroneous citations, with more than one out of every 20 citations turning out to be due to an error.  We also obtained the daily setup logs for the camera, showing that the device passed all of its daily self tests as well.  The certificate was issued by MRA Digital, and was signed by Heinz Stubblefeld.

Below is another certificate for a different speed camera of the same make and model:

As you can see it is issued by the same company and the same individual.  However this camera was not located in the City of Baltimore, but rather in the City of Rockville.  This same type of camera is currently being used in Rockville in at least five locations (2100 Bock Baltimore Rd s/b, 2200 Block Wootton Pkwy n/b, 2200 Block Wootton Pkwy s/b, 500 Block W. Montgomery Ave e/b, and the 400 Block W. Montgomery Ave w/b).

Baltimore County also uses this model of camera, the Mesa Engineering G1-ATR, provided to them by the same contractor.

Below is a certificate from one of the SHA's cameras, which are now posted to the SHA website. 

While the camera is of a different make and model, the device was apparently certified by the same company and the certificate is signed off by the same person who approved the faulty cameras from Baltimore City.

These two certificates also bear another similarity: neither device was actually tested for its ability to measure SPEED.  The "specification" for the Baltimore and Rockville cameras merely tested the frequency of the device.  The specification for the SHA device is to test its "alignment", "low voltage monitoring", internal timing, and its ability to measure *distance* within about 1 foot.  But neither one involved an actual speed measurement on an actual moving vehicle.  In addition, neither type of device was certified to meet the NHTSA standards for radar or LIDAR.  And neither type of device is on the IACP(International Association of Chiefs of Police) list of conforming law enforcement products.

As a side note.... what do you suppose those little scientific-looking graphs at the tops of the certificates indicate?

This is part of the test results right?  Nope.  It's a stock image taken from Wikimedia commons with no actual meaning whatsoever.  Basically these documents are something that would rightly be used to "certify" a Matel toy, not for proving the accuracy of a device under real world conditions to the level of reliability needed when taking thousands of measurements against passing vehicles every day.

The SHA has stated in a "fact sheet" distributed to state legislators that "The best way to ensure the systems are in working order and to ensure public confidence in their accuracy is to demonstrate that the cameras are always calibrated. If the cameras are calibrated appropriately, they will generate accurate citations. MDOT can state that every camera deployed in the SafeZones program has remained calibrated and has been verified to be accurate."

However this statement is obviously FALSE.  The faulty cameras in Baltimore City passed all their tests and still produced errors.  The SHA's cameras were procured and maintained by the same contractor (ACS/Xerox Corp) and certified by the same calibration lab (MRA Digital).  The fact that the SHA has certificates for their devices does not prove they are accurate, it merely proves their paperwork is in order.

The SHA's assertion is that their equipment is incapable of error, and so a means to verify speed is not necessary.  At one point Baltimore would have made this exact same claim.  The Baltimore Sun did an intensive investigation into the accuracy of Baltimore City's cameras, using the time stamped images and videos to prove a pattern of errors, and eventually the city and Xerox Corp were forced to admit the systematic errors.

Such an investigation would be impossible with the SHA's cameras, and many other speed cameras in the state, since image time stamps from those citations are rounded off to the second and do not give any indication of the real time interval between frames.  The SHA hardware was also faulted in an audit of the SafeZones program, which found that it did not meet all standards which had been established for testing, certification, and procurement.

The state legislature is in the process of passing a "reform" bill which ignores all the calls to require secondary evidence of speed, and which does absolutely nothing to tighten the standards to which speed cameras are tested.  The errors in Baltimore City were the reason reform legislation was being considered in the first place.  Yet the legislature will now tell the public they have reformed the system without actually having done anything to correct this very issue.

By failing to require speed cameras to provide secondary evidence OF SPEED, the Maryland legislature is participating in a cover up of future speed camera errors.  By also failing to require devices be certified to a nationally accepted standard set by the NHTSA, they are taking the position that it is OK for speed cameras to be inaccurate so long as it is deliberately made impossible to prove it.

SHA "Fact Sheet" Rebuttal

The SHA has been circulating a "fact sheet" among lawmakers in the General Assembly (which you can read here) as their argument as to why the state's speed camera law should not be amended to require "secondary evidence of speed" from speed camera images.  This document was so pathetic it is utterly amazing that anyone was persuaded by it.  However many lawmakers have bought into this deception.  The Maryland Drivers Alliance now offers our point-by-point rebuttal of the SHA Fact Sheet.

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SHA Statement #1: The SafeZones program is the work zone automated speed enforcement program administered jointly by the State Highway Administration (SHA), the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA), and Maryland State Police (MSP)

OUR RESPONSE:  The program is also "jointly" run with the help of speed camera contractor Xerox Corporation, the same speed camera contractor which systematically issued the erroneous citations in Baltimore City.


SHA Statement #2: The SafeZones program uses scanning LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology.  The LIDAR system does not simply use two photographs and the distance and time between those two photographs to calculate speed. The photographs provided through SafeZones are used to demonstrate that a vehicle was, in fact, at the location in question and that it was moving.

OUR RESPONSE:  It is not against the law for a vehicle to be "at the location and moving".  Nobody has ever suggested the use of images to REPLACE the recorded speed made by radar or LIDAR, only to provide a mechanism to VERIFY it.


SHA Statement #3: The calculation of speed is averaged based on the thousands of measurements through the work zone; therefore the LIDAR system cannot effectively rely on only two images and the time lapse between them to accurately calculate the speed of a vehicle. In fact, the LIDAR system is more accurate than using the two time‐stamped images to calculate speed.

OUR RESPONSE:  This statement would lead one to believe that the LIDAR measurements are taken over a long distance or long period of time comparable to the distance "through the work zone", which is not the case. The LIDAR measurements are taken over a very short distance, at most a few tens of feet if not much less.  If the photos are taken immediately after the speed reading the vehicle's speed would not change that substantially in such a distance.  If on the other hand the time difference between the recorded speed and the photos being taken is substantial, then that would raise a whole new issue of whether the correct vehicle had been photographed, since a different vehicle might have moved into frame and been cited for the speed of another car.  That would be all the more reason why verification is necessary.

The fact that LIDAR by its nature takes multiple distance measurements does not mean it is infallible.  Any speed measurement device has the potential to produce errors.  Baltimore City and Xerox corp made numerous claims about how accurate their equipment was as well, yet it turns out that the devices used in Baltimore were wrong.

A recent audit of the SHA in November of 2012 revealed that the SHA's equipment did not meet standards for certification and testing which had been established, and that a requirement that hardware be approved by the IACP was dropped.  As such there is every reason to believe the SHA's equipment is capable of producing errors, and that errors would go undetected because the SHA has consciously chosen not provide a means to verify recorded speeds.

SHA Statement #4: For higher‐speed, multi‐lane work zones, using time‐stamped images to calculate speed is not possible without performing complex calculations to correct for photographic distortions. Not only does the placement and angle of the camera distort the precise location of a vehicle in an image, but the changing dynamics of a work zone may cause the distance travelled to be difficult to precisely determine (i.e. a lane shift in a work zone makes calculating the distance travelled between two photos difficult). Given the quick succession of the photographs and the speeds of vehicles, if the precise location is off by even a few inches, the calculated speed changes.

OUR RESPONSE:   It is not necessary to produce an exact speed calculation from every citation, nor is anybody proposing that the images be the ONLY means of determining speed.  It is only necessary that it be POSSIBLE to calculate speed accurate enough to VERIFY the radar/LIDAR speed reading and confirm that the vehicle was in fact traveling 12 mph over the limit.  If the two measurements substantially disagree, the driver is rightly entitled to the benefit of the doubt because the presumption of innocence is a core principal of our justice system.

There are several ways to improve the accuracy of estimates, such as physically painting lines on the road or digitally imposing a ruler or template image onto the citation images. This would make determining the distance traveled more accurate.  An alternative form of "secondary evidence of speed" might include video clips, similar to the ones which first revealed the systematic speed camera errors in Baltimore City.

NHTSA standards for across the road radar state that "If the ATR device is to be considered for unattended operation, the manufacturer shall provide a secondary method for verifying that the evidential recorded image properly identifies the target vehicle and reflects this vehicle’s true speed, as described in §5.18.2. This may be accomplished by means of a second, appropriately delayed image showing the target vehicle crossing a specified reference line."  The NHTSA would not have stated this if calculating speed from citation images was unfeasible.

The fact that the equipment is used on multi-lane highways raises a whole new scenario where the wrong vehicle could be cited based on the speed of vehicles in an adjacent lane.  This is all the more reason why secondary evidence should be required.


SHA Statement #5: The best way to ensure the systems are in working order and to ensure public confidence in their accuracy is to demonstrate that the cameras are always calibrated. If the cameras are calibrated appropriately, they will generate accurate citations. MDOT can state that every camera deployed in the SafeZones program has remained calibrated and has been verified to be accurate.

OUR RESPONSE:  The SHA's equipment is provided by the same contractor who provided the erroneous cameras to Baltimore City. And the same company which performed the annual calibration checks on Baltimore City's cameras (MRA Digital) and gave those faulty cameras a passing grade, also performs the calibration checks on the SHA's cameras.  The fact that Baltimore's cameras passed all their tests and still issued erroneous tickets proves that calibration to a manufacturer spec does not ensure accuracy.

In fact the SHA has not even always met all requirements for testing, as the state audit has shown that they allowed the manufacturer of the devices to certify their own equipment for the first nine months. 

The SHA's cameras are used on roads with tens of thousands of vehicles passing them each day.  Even if the rate of 'false triggers' is less than one in 10,000 (1% of 1%), with that type of volume errors are still quite likely to occur.  Yet such a 'glitch' might never present itself during a calibration test or even a field test with several hundred runs.

Additionally, there is no telling what form of speed measurement system the SHA or a local government might choose to employ in the future, and what sort of unidentified defects such systems could have.  For example speed camera contractor Optotraffic uses a proprietary technology which only that company fully understands, and which has never been thoroughly vetted by a nationally accredited organization like the NHTSA or IACP.  A hard requirement for a standard of speed verification should be established NOW to ensure that any type of system used by either the SHA or a local government in the future can be audited for reliability after the fact, regardless of the type of technology it uses.

The real reason the SHA does not want a requirement for secondary evidence of speed is because they fear errors will be discovered in their own system.  By denying this, they are creating a presumption of guilt, and they are telling the public that in Maryland "money from the innocent is the same as money from the guilty".  THAT is what is undercutting public confidence in the SHA's program.

Availability (and admissibility in court) of secondary evidence of speed in the form of time stamped photos (to 1/100th second or better), or by means of a recorded video clip, needs to be incorporated into the law.

House Committee Grandfathers In Bounty System Contracts, Rejects Speed Verification

With just five days left in this year's legislative session, the House Environmental Matters Committee has approved a speed camera "reform" bill which grandfathers in existing per-ticket contingent fee speed camera contracts for more than a year.  The Environmental Matters committee has blocked other speed camera reform bills which would have required that citations include a means of verifying recorded speeds after the fact, and also voted down a measure which would have repealed speed cameras.

Maryland Legislature Votes To Raise Gas Tax

A transportation bill which increases the gas tax has passed in the Maryland State Senate and will now go to Governor O'Malley for his signature.

The bill will add a 1% sales tax on top of the existing 23.5 cent per gallon gas tax in July.  The bill sets the tax to increase automatically in future years to either 3% in 2016 or to 5% if the federal government does not impose an internet sales tax.  The existing "flat" tax will also now automatically increase with inflation.  The total increase is estimated to reach between 12.1 cents and 20.2 cents per gallon by July 1, 2016.  A family which uses 10 gallons of gas per week will end up paying about an additional $100/year if the full increase goes into effect, representing up to an 86% increase over the current state gas tax.

The bill also includes a $3.50 increase in vehicle registration fees.

Supporters of the bill claim that it is necessary to fund badly needed transportation projects.  The bill was opposed by many lawmakers from rural areas who believed drivers in their areas would be subsidizing transit projects in urban portions of the state which are regularly used by less than 10% of the population.  Some trucking companies complained that the tax would increase the cost of shipping goods. 

Senators Voting FOR the Gas Tax Increase	Senators Voting AGAINST the Gas Tax Increase
Joanne C. Benson (D, Prince George’s County)	John C. Astle (D, Anne Arundel County)
Joan Carter Conway (D, Baltimore)	David R. Brinkley (R, Frederick County)
Ulysses Currie (D, Prince George’s County)	James Brochin (D, Baltimore County County)
Bill Ferguson (D, Baltimore)	Richard F. Colburn (R, Dorchester County)
Jennie M. Forehand (D, Montgomery County)	James E. DeGrange Sr. (D, Anne Arundel County)
Brian E. Frosh (D, Montgomery County County)	Roy P. Dyson (D, St. Mary’s County)
Robert J. Garagiola (D, Montgomery County)	George C. Edwards (R, Garrett County)
Lisa A. Gladden (D, Baltimore County)	Joseph M. Getty (R, Carroll County)
Verna L. Jones-Rodwell (D, Baltimore County)	Barry Glassman (R, Harford County)
Edward J. Kasemeyer (D, Baltimore County)	Nancy Jacobs (R, Harford County)
Nancy J. King (D, Montgomery County)	J. B. Jennings (R, Baltimore County)
Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D, Montgomery County)	Delores G. Kelley (D, Baltimore County)
Roger Manno (D, Montgomery County)	Allan H. Kittleman (R, Howard County)
Nathaniel J. McFadden (D, Baltimore County)	Katherine A. Klausmeier (D, Baltimore County)
Thomas M. Middleton (D, Charles County)	James N. Mathias Jr. (D, Wicomico County)
Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D, Calvert County)	E. J. Pipkin (R, Cecil County)
Karen S. Montgomery (D, Montgomery County)	Edward R. Reilly (R, Anne Arundel County)
C. Anthony Muse (D, Prince George’s County)	Christopher B. Shank (R, Washington County)
Douglas J. J. Peters (D, Prince George’s County)	Bryan W. Simonaire (R, Anne Arundel County)
Paul G. Pinsky (D, Prince George’s County)	Norman R. Stone Jr. (D, Baltimore County)
Catherine E. Pugh (D, Baltimore County)
Victor R. Ramirez (D, Prince George’s County)
Jamie B. Raskin (D, Montgomery County)
James N. Robey (D, Howard County)
James C. Rosapepe (D, Prindce George’s County)
Ronald N. Young (D, Frederick County)
Robert A. Zirkin (D, Baltimore County County)

Also see how members of the House of Delegates voted.

Additional Coverage:
Baltimore Sun
WJLA
Washington Post

PA Examines Speed Cameras, Looks to Maryland As Example

Buried deep inside a transportation bill in next door Pennsylvania is a plan to deploy speed cameras in freeway work zones in central PA, according to a report on CBSPhilly.

Senate Neuters Speed Camera Reform Bill Provision

A key provision in a speed camera reform bill was eliminated after State Senator Richard Madaleno (D, Montgomery County) submitted an amendment removing a requirement that citation images show evidence of speed.  Senator Madaleno's amendment denies motorists access to evidence which in most cases is the only thing which can exonerate a falsely accused motorists who receives an erroneous speed camera ticket.

Senate Bill 207, sponsored by Senator James Brochin (D, Montgomery County) originally contained two key provisions: 1) clarifying an existing to provision of the law (which is currently being widely broken) to ban speed camera contractors from being paid based on the number of citations issued, and 2) to require citation images to "ALLOW FOR THE CALCULATION OF THE SPEED OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE " (ie, secondary evidence of speed).

Senator Madelino's amendment changed the language of SB207 from stating that speed camera images must "PROVIDE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION TO ALLOW FOR THE CALCULATION OF THE SPEED OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE " to instead say "PROVIDE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION TO SHOW THE PROGRESSION OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE".  By changing the language of the bill from "speed" to "progression", they have changed the meaning such that the bill would no longer require secondary evidence of speed. As amended, citation images would merely need to show that the vehicle is present and moving, something which is not in and of itself a violation of the law, and which provides absolutely no protection to motorists who are accused based on an incorrect speed reading. 

Brochin's bill was prompted by revelations that speed cameras in Baltimore City had systematically issued erroneous speeding citations, with 1 out of every 20 citations from some cameras proven to be in error.  This included large trucks accused of traveling twice their actual speed  The errors were discovered only due to the fact that Baltimore City's speed cameras had millisecond precision timestamps as well as videos which made the erroneous speed readings provable after the fact.  However many speed cameras in the state do not provide accurate timestamps on images, sometimes rounded down to the second when the time interval between images is actually a fraction of a second which is information that is denied to ticket recipients, so proving speed after the fact would be impossible.

The fact is speed measurement errors can occur with any system.  The Washington Post once reported that a speed camera falsely cited a Silver Spring couple for a 100mph rampage when in fact they had not been speeding.  Such errors are far more common than speed camera supporters will admit, and have happened around the world.  In the UK, a van driver was recently fired over a 103mph speeding ticket which authorities would eventually admit was due to an error.  In Fort Dodge Iowa, speed camera contractor RedSpeed admitted that they were seeing erroneous speed readings for large vehicles in an area the town's police chief described as 'the Bermuda Triangle'.

Xerox corp has admitted that "very flat, metallic, back panel of these types of truck can act as a RF mirror and cause radar signal reflection that can bounce between the receding vehicle(truck) and the approaching vehicle (car in the opposite direction) and results in high doppler changes, hence higher speed readings".  And in a report to Baltimore City conceding the existence of systematic errors, Xerox Corp stated that "Radar effects are caused by reflection, refraction, and absorption" and that "The radar effect is a know property of radar".  As such any radar device has the potential to produce false speed readings, and the speed camera vendors know this.  The same type of speed camera which produced erroneous speed readings in Baltimore City are also used in Baltimore County and the City of Rockville.  Baltimore's then contractor Xerox Corp (who has since been replaced in Baltimore City) is also the contractor in Montgomery County, Frederick, and the State of Maryland's speed camera program.  As such there is no reason to believe equipment used by other speed camera programs in the state is any more foolproof that the equipment used by Baltimore City.

Senator Madaleno: Sponsor of the "Scamera Coverup Amendment"

The TRUE REASON some lawmakers oppose the requirement for secondary evidence of speed is because they FEAR that the Public and the Press will find systematic errors in other speed camera programs, just as has already happened in Baltimore City.

Madeleno's amendment has the effect of denying motorists the right to a fair defense and of ensuring that in many cases they will be presumed guilty.  In most cases, secondary evidence of speed from citation images is the only thing which can give a falsely accused motorist a fair shot in court. And unless it is REQUIRED, such evidence will not be provided and errors will simply be denied by the agencies which profit from cameras.