Legislature Fails to Pass Meaningful Speed Camera Reform

After revelations of industrial scale false accusations against motorists by Baltimore City's failed speed camera program, problems with calibration of equipment in Greenbelt, Hagerstown, and Salisbury, and complaints about alleged speed camera errors in locations such places as Montgomery County, Morningside, and Wicomico County, there was much talk about how the legislature would "reform" the state's speed camera law.  In the end the state legislature did pass a bill alleged to reform the state's speed camera law, which is now on it's way to the Governor, and this is the least they could do. We mean that quite literally... they couldn't have passed a weaker and less meaningful reform bill if they had tried.

The bill,. House Bill 929, was was written largely based input from local governments such as Montgomery County.  The bill's chief sponsor, Environmental Matters Committee Vice Chair Delegate Malone, openly stated at the beginning of the bill's February 18th hearing that no other speed camera bill but his own that he wanted people testifying to simply say "me too".  In the Motor vehicle's subcommittee meeting that follows, Malone further stated that he didn't think people with complaints about speed camera programs should take those concerns to the legislature, specifically citing that one motorist who had come with a complaint about Morningside's speed camera programs should have simply taken it up with the mayor of the town.  It should be no surprise that the foundation of this bill is that local speed camera programs will all continue to police themselves with no meaningful oversight, and that "business as usual' must continue without interruption.

DC Mayor Gray Proposes More Speed Camera Fines To Balance Budget

Outgoing DC Mayor Vincent Gray has proposed a budget which increases collections from camera fines by $50million, according to a report on NBCWashington.

Gray said his budget is balanced in part by that steep rise in speed camera fines from more speed cameras on different streets at different times. The mayor's budget director said Motorists too often avoid permanent cameras, said the mayor’s budget director, Eric Goulet.
“What you've found as residents, when the mayor goes out and when I’ve been at budget town halls, particularly, complain about people slowing down for the fixed traffic cameras and then speeding up as soon as those are and then speeding through neighborhoods,” Goulet said.
At-large Council member David Catania, an independent candidate for mayor, suggested the city ought to better warn motorists.
“I think we need to do a public service announcement, to some extent, or a push that lets people know this because nothing makes people angrier than this gotcha mentality of this government that balances its budgets by these kinds of mechanisms,” Catania said.

The proposed budget increases "automated enforcement" revenues from $105 million in FY 2014 to a goal of $155 million in FY15, a 47% increase.  The FY14 budgeted amount was a $30 million increase from FY13.

Mayor Gray recently lost DC's democratic primary to Muriel Bowser, after prosecutors alleged that Gray  knew about an illegal fundraising operation that helped him capture the 2010 election.

Rockville Cameras Ticket For Right Turn After Full Stop

We have previously reported how red light cameras in the city of Rockville saw vastly increased revenues after they began ticketing motorists for making slow moving right turns in right turn lanes on red.  WTOP has reported in an instance where a motorists received such a citation when making a full stop, albeit slightly past the line, indicating they are now using cameras to enforce the strict letter of the law.

In the incident in question the video showed the vehicle came to a full stop, but after the stop line.  The video did not show the vehicle actually proceeding through the turn.  In the particular case in question no pedestrians were present, the car was not blocking a cross walk, and snow piled up along the side of the road could have made it difficult for any motorist to see into a crosswalk from behind the line.

Right turn on red is legal in Maryland but requires motorists to first make a full stop "behind a clearly marked stop line" before proceeding.  However Rockville is apparently now supporting a strict interpretation of this, ticketing for such technical violations even when the motorist did make a full stop.

Rockville police defended the decision to issue this ticket:  "The law requires a complete cessation of movement. If the vehicle is completely passed the stop bar, yes, the driver will get a ticket. But we will not ticket if part of the vehicle is behind the stop bar" says Rockville City Maj. Michael England.

The motorist disagreed that the ticket was about safety: "I don't run red lights. I'm a safe driver. I didn't really pay much attention to the white stripe because I was interested in safely turning and not running into the traffic that is crossing, or hit any pedestrians," he says. "I understand the text of the law. But I think the spirit of the law is about safe driving and if you view the video, I think there's no question I was driving in a safe fashion."

Data published by the NHTSA found that accidents involving a right turns on red (under all types of conditions combined) accounted for an extremely small percentage of accidents (0.05% in one study) and also among signalized intersection crashes (0.4%).

In 2012, prior to implementing stricter right turn on red policies, earned approximately $630,000 in red light camera revenues off of an estimated 8,280 citations, according to the FY13 budget.  The city's FY15 budget estimates that the city is bringing in $1,800,000... 2.8 times as much... off of an estimated 21,000 citations.

Decisions to implement such policies are made by elected officials.

Rockville Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton, Councilmembers Feinberg, Moore, Onley and Carr

National News: South Dakota Bans Enforcement of Photo Tickets

From TheNewspaper.com:
South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard (R) has signed one of the strongest photo ticketing bans in the nation. Not only will red light cameras be banned in South Dakota, but South Dakota residents will be immune to automated citations issued in most other states.

Lawmakers in Pierre overwhelmingly favored a straightforward ban on the use of red light cameras. Earlier this month, the state Senate voted 26 to 9 on the ban that had cleared the state House in February by a 69 to 1 margin.
"No state, county, municipal, or township authority may contract with any private corporation to provide for the use of any photo monitoring device to detect any red light violation," the new law, House Bill 1100, states.
South Dakota's experiment in photo ticketing ended in 2010 after a circuit court judge struck down the red light camera operation in Sioux Falls as illegal (view decision). The judge ruled that the city violated state law in creating a program that turned the misdemeanor of red light running into a civil penalty without authorization from the legislature.

The governor went further however, proposing to ban enforcement of speed cameras citations issued by the next door state of Iowa on highways traveling between the two states, by blocking photo ticketing companies from converting license plate numbers into the name and address of South Dakota Vehicle Owners.  A second bill, HB1122, was created and approved, which forbids turning information over to NLETS, a system used by photo enforcement companies for processing tickets.  House Bill 1122 states:

"The Department of Public Safety and the Division of Motor Vehicles shall not provide information used to impose or collect a civil fine that results from a violation captured by a red light camera or speed camera through any existing interstate compact that does not specifically allow, or require, information to be shared for that explicit purpose." 

The statutes will take effect on July 1.
Source: http://thenewspaper.com/news/43/4372.asp

While Maryland has seemed to be an exception, the number of communities using red light cameras in the US actually declined by 6% in 2013.  Some photo enforcement companies have begun to see their revenues stagger as a result of this decline, and also because of serious problems with large municipal camera programs in Baltimore and Chicago.

Opinion: Is 'Reform in Name Only' Really 'Better Than Nothing'?

Lawmakers are busy praising their own handiwork on so-called "reform" legislation, which we have criticized as being worthless at protecting the legal rights of motorists and correcting the major problems that have been identified in the implementation of Maryland's speed camera law.

Obviously lawmakers are more impressed by their efforts than we are.  This is not surprising since the primary sponsor of the house bill, Delegate Malone, doesn't even think there are serious, fundamental problems with the state's current law in the first place.  If the sponsors are more concerned with protecting speed camera programs from having to make changes than in actually requiring them to change for the better, how can the bill really be expected to bring change?

Those of us who have criticized the bill as being ineffective and loaded with so many loopholes as to have no meaning whatsoever were simply told "it's better than nothing", that this was "the best they could do".   We beg to differ. Such a statement presumes that this bill truly represents an honest effort to provide something we have asked for.  It does not.  The statement also presumes that nothing better was possible, when in fact better bills were offered, and that no credible amendments that would have made it better at little cost were ignored.  That isn't the case either.

Public Records Reform Legislation Gutted

Last week (March 16-22) was "National Sunshine Week", an event which promotes the importance of open government and freedom of information.  To celebrate the occasion, a Maryland legislative committee gutted a bill which would have provided new oversight and greatly enhanced the Maryland Public Information Act (Maryland's equivalent of the FOIA).

We previously wrote about the bill, which would have created an public information compliance board, which would have provided a practical means of appeals if access to public records was obstructed by a local or state agency.  The bill had strong support from organizations representing the press and civil liberties groups, and no organizations appeared to speak in opposition to the bill at the committee hearing.  The fiscal policy notes for the bill concluded the committee could be established using existing resources (ie, the cost to taxpayers would have been essentially nothing).

True to form, the "Health And Government Operations" committee chose to amend the bill, blowing away it's entire contents and instead resolving to merely conduct a study on the matter and think about the issue.  The amended and now essentially impotent bill then passed the House with ease.

A Model in "How To Kill A Good, Popular Bill Without Having To Go On Record Against It"

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are looking forward to their 15.7% pay raise for the bang-up job they have been doing.

Prince George's Police Warn of False Camera Ticket Scam Attempts

Prince George's County police are warning of a scam where people have received phone calls from someone posing as a police officer, according to a report on MyFoxDC.  The scammer tells the victim they've failed to appear in court for a red light or speed camera ticket. The intended victims were then instructed to go to a local store and pay a fine, or else a warrant could be issued.

The county police have issued a consumer alert and posted the following to the PGPD facebook page: 
"Please know that the PGPD and other law enforcement agencies do not make phone calls requesting citizens bring payments to a business, nor do we arrest for this civil offense. All payments are handled by mail or through a website as listed on the tickets. If you receive a phone call from anyone asking you to pay a red light camera or any other ticket, please call the Prince George’s County Police Department Automated Traffic Enforcement office at (301) 955-0790 during business hours or call 911."

Bills to Regulate License Plate Scanners Sit In Committees

As the legislative session nears a close, bills which would regulate the use of automated license plate scanners are awaiting decisions by committees in both the Senate and House of Delegates.

The bipartisan sponsored bills (SB 699 and HB 289) are designed to limit the use of and storage of information captured by automated license plate readers (ALPR).  ALPR systems can capture the license plate number of every passing vehicle and store it in a searchable database.  The devices are now commonly used by police throughout the state of Maryland.

ALPR systems came under scrutiny last year when the ACLU reported how the use of devices to record the movements of millions of motorists not convicted of any crime.  The ACLU documented how the movements of innocents motorists were being recorded with impunity, and shared with both government and private databases, with few restrictions on how long it could be retained.  In most cases agencies do not report where this recording is taking place.  In Maryland, the ACLU found that in a five month period of time agencies recorded 1 million license plate, only 0.2% resulted in "hits", almost all of which were for expired registrations.  Of the "hits", only 47 (0.0047%) were associated with a serious offense being investigated, and "Furthermore, even these 47 alerts may not have helped the police catch criminals prevent crimes" since the people on the search lists may not have been involved in any present wrongdoing.  The vast majority of collected information was for people not suspected of any offense whatsoever.

Additional concerns were raised when in February it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security was planning to create a national license plate database.  After receiving substantial criticism from the press, the agency declared that it was canceling the proposal, however critics have argued that the supposed "cancellation" of the plan is irrelevant since the existence of privately run national databases is already a reality, and the DHS has for years already been accessing this rapidly growing system.

The Boston Globe cited examples of how license plate data had the potential to be misused.  In 2005 a Canadian city's police database was improperly used to target a local newspaper columnist in an unsuccessful sting attempt after he had written critical of the city's photo enforcement systems.  In 2006 and 2007 the NYPD used ALPR scanners to record worshipers visiting mosques, under a program sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Agency.   Washington Post cited an example from 1998 where a DC police officer plead guilty to collecting license plate numbers outside a gay bar and attempting to extort money from the club's visitors.  The ACLU noted last year that Virginia has placed ALPR systems outside political rallies.

The proposed bills would forbid law enforcement agencies from retaining captured license plate data (GPS system coordinates, dates and times, photographs of vehicles, and license plate numbers of vehicles) for longer than 30 days unless they were involved in a specific law enforcement investigation, and forbids the sharing of this data except with another law enforcement agency when it is associated with a specific offense.
While this as a fairly weak restriction, the current situation is that there are no restrictions whatsoever on how the scanners can be used or how the data may be shared.  But with only a few days left in the session and neither committee having approved a version of the bill, passage of any legislation on ALPR systems this year is becoming unlikely.

UPDATE 4/1/2014: An amended version of this bill has since passed the Senate and is awaiting approval by the House.  The amended version removed many of the provisions of the original bill, including limitations on the time which captured plate data may be retained.

Additional Reading:
Washington Post: A few reasons the public might care about license-plate tracking
Electronic Freedom Foundation: National License Plate Recognition Database: What It Is and Why It’s a Bad Idea
ACLU: Setting the record straight on DHS and license plate tracking
ACLU: Virginia State Police Used License Plate Readers At Political Rallies, Built Huge Database

House Passes Poo Polishing Bill

The General Assembly continues their efforts to show that they are "reforming" Maryland's speed camera law while actually doing nothing, as a speed camera bill sponsored by James Malone and other members of the House Environmental Matters Committee has cleared the House.  True to form, the Environmental Matters Committee has given HB929 bill a new name, "The Speed Camera Reform Bill of 2014", as politicians believe that what you call something changes what it is.  The Maryland Drivers Alliance on the other hand knows that the bill does not do many of the things the sponsors promise and is loaded down with loopholes, ineffectual language, and false promises just waiting to be broken.

Calls for reform were brought about due to revelations that Baltimore City and their contractor had systematically issued erroneous citations to thousands of drivers, even ticketing stationary vehicles.  A recent "secret" audit leaked to the Baltimore Sun indicated error rates as high as 10% and that as many as 70,000 erroneous tickets may have been issued in one year.  In addition, there have been calibration problems in places like Hagerstown, Greenbelt, and Salisbury, as well as claims of other errors in Morningside and Wicomico County.  Statewide, there have been systematic concerns with the implementation of the law, such as the fact that speed camera programs have violated promises that contractors would not be paid based on the number of citations, using a loophole invented by Montgomery County, which even Governor O'Malley has stated violates the intent of state law.

Last year and again this year the legislature was presented with proposals for fixing the law, some of which were fairly credible.  Yet the bill the House of Delegates settled on doesn't fix any of this.  We won't dignify HB929 by calling it "reform".  There is a more appropriate term for what the legislature is doing: Polishing Poop.

If the average person could have seen the many examples of abuse close up like we have, we feel that most would agree with us that Maryland's speed camera law is a failure and should be repealed.  However we are not complaining for complaining sake.  We did support other reform bills which were designed to actually fix the worst problems we have seen.  In 2012 we supported a credible reform bill sponsored by Delegate McComas (R, Harford County).  In 2013 we supported another well written reform bill sponsored by Senator Brochin (D, Baltimore County), before it was mauled by the legislature.  This year we again supported a bill sponsored by Delegate Jon Cardin (D, Baltimore County), which would have addressed many of our most serious concerns.  Any one of those would have been a better place to start.  The leadership of the environmental matters committee stopped all those bills cold.  In fact this year Malone arrogantly stated at the beginning of the speed camera hearing before any testimony was given that only his own bill would be allowed to pass, and that their committee already knew all there was to know about speed cameras.  Nevertheless we did try to be constructive, providing reams of written testimony and proposing several amendments which you can see here, all of which were completely ignored by the committee.

The bill, while passed in the House, must still pass the senate and be signed by the governor before it becomes law, and could still be amended to make more meaningful changes... if the legislature is so inclined.
Unfortunately the authors of this bill believe that there is nothing fundamental wrong with the way the current system works, and think the only thing they need to do is "change the public's perception" of speed camera programs.  How could they possibly be credible agents for change.That is why this bill is nothing but smoke and mirrors.  Not only is this bill written without regard for what the critics of the programs have called for, it almost appears to have been written to spite those who have been calling for real reform for years.

----------------OUR ANALYSIS OF THE BILL'S PROVISIONS----------------
* Malone claims the bill will "end the bounty system" but all they have done is replace one loophole with two.  They will allow any system "based on the number of tickets".  O'Malley's statement regarding the CURRENT law was: "The law says you're not supposed to charge by volume. I don't think we should charge by volume, If any county is, they need to change their program."  That is what "ending the bounty system" means.  It does not mean permitting:
- payments on "batches" of tickets
- ticket quotas
- Semantic games like this
All of those things would be permitted under the specific wording deliberately chosen for HB 929.  There was simple language in other bills which could have closed this loophole, which has been pointed out to the bill sponsors, and rejected  PROVING it IS their intent to allow such nonsense.   In addition, HB 929 grandfathers in existing contracts for the next three years so local governments can wait until everyone has forgotten the promises to exercise the new loophole.  The Environmental Matters Committee even amended it to give them until May 31 to lock in new contracts which will then be grandfathered in under the old loopholes as well.

* The bill does not solve the problem of errors which raised calls for errors in the first place because the bill does not require that there be any means to identify speed measurement errors after the fact.  Simple proposals were offered to provide the means to identify errors, and were included in other reform bills. but these were all rejected out of hand.  The bill sponsors are apparently terrified that more errors might be proven if secondary evidence of speed were required.

* Malone's bill actually writes into law that anything up to a 5% rate of erroneous ticket is OK (1 in 20).   For a program the size of Montgomery County's or Baltimore's that would mean that having more than 15,000 false accusations per year would be considered acceptable by law.  Even that is according to a narrow definition which only includes citations which the agency agrees are errors -- for example a citation voided by the court is specifically not allowed to be called an error.  In addition, the 5% "acceptable" rate of errors must be across the entire program.  Baltimore city found itself in a PR disaster when it was acknowledged they had a 5% rate of errors for just a few cameras.  It is unlikely that even an utterly incompetent program would ever hit the threshold defined in the law as unacceptable, without independent auditing.  Even then the "consequences" of hitting this threshold are quite mild unless the agency wants to exercise an option to end their contract, something they probably could have done anyways without this bill.

* The SHA's program is completely exempt from Malone's bill.  It doesn't apply to them at all because the SHA's program is under a different statute unaffected by HB 929.

* The cornerstone of Malone's bill, which they claim fixes everything, is to require someone within the programs to be designated to respond to complaints.  It is modeled after a so-called "ombudsman" in Montgomery County.  However that person is really Montgomery's program manager, he is loyal to the program not the people.  Montgomery County's so called "ombudsman" has only ever voided a handful of citations, and has never ordered a refund for a "systematic" problem, nor have we seen any indication that he has ever taken a position contrary to official county policy.  Few people even know how to contact this person, and the bill does not require that the right to complain to this person actually be prominently displayed, so it is likely the designee would receive few complaints.  The reality is this provision will only mean assigning a public relations role to an existing staff member.

* One of the big things people called for was audits, Malone even said they would add "auditing".  Yet the bill does NOT use the term "audit".  What they have proposed is nothing like the audit which took place in Baltimore.  They wouldn't look at citations for signs of errors and they would not look at calibration records.  They'd just report a few random bits of easily sanitized trivia and claim everything is OK.

* The bill makes it so that contractors can operate and test equipment, and allows "operators" employed by the government to simply "rubber stamp" the results.  Right now in some jurisdictions (such as Montgomery County) it is already not possible for defendants to cross examine speed camera "operators".  So this may actually make matters WORSE from a due process and legal rights perspective.

* The bill does require each speed camera program to report a set of trivial facts to the state each year, something the sponsors will no doubt attempt to pass off as an "audit".  However the bill rightly does not use the word "audit" to describe this, and it is not an audit at all.  An agency cannot audit themselves.  It does nothing to search for errors the way the Baltimore City audit which uncovered errors, and does not actually look at things like calibration records, daily setup logs, or compliance with other aspects of state law.  The way it is worded appears to be designed to avoid uncovering either errors or calibration problems.  It appears to be designed to present a favorable picture of each program, since the only "errors" it would report are those the local governments WANT to admit to, and many classes of errors such as those uncovered in court, without making it possible for any outside party to check their facts.
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We have tried to reach out to the sponsors of HB929 to get them to understand the problems we have with this bill.  You can read our proposed amendments and read about the other bills we have supported to decide for yourself whether we trying to be reasonable and constructive.  We think we have been.  The sponsors of HB929 know what the problems are already, and we believe they are simply refusing to fix them because they are afraid some speed camera programs might become marginally less profitable as a result.  This bill is not about reforming.... it is about obstructing reform.

The thing that the authors of HB 929 do not "get" is that the single biggest problem with Maryland's speed camera law right now is that every single motorist in the state is at the mercy of every one of the 40 local speed camera programs.  Even if a motorist were to conclude that some local governments are completely trustworthy, they are still left having to similarly trust Morningside and Forest Heights and Baltimore and every other county or municipality to also be both fully competent and free of corruption.... even if history does not support such a leap of faith.

That lack of outside oversight and outside recourse is the core reason there have been so many broken promises. Yet HB 929's primary sponsor (Delegate Malone) has OPENLY STATED that he is just fine with that and that he thinks if there is a problem with a municipal speed camera program it is up to the municipality, and that people should not bring their complaints to the state legislature.  How can you count on someone to reform a system when that person doesn't think there is anything wrong with it?  That is why this bill doesn't "fix" anything.  Apparently 70,000 false accusations -- amounting to an "industrial scale" miscarriage of justice -- requires nothing more than "changing public perception" in response.

So Malone and his co-sponsors refuse to consider any real fixes, ignore all the real problems, and would rather "pain't it, polish it, make it shine" without changing what the law really is... and assume the voters are too stupid or uninformed to realize it.  The bottom line is they can shine this all they want, but it's still a piece of $#|+.

Baltimore Sun: Committee Looking At 10,000 Pages of Speed Camera Documents

The Baltimore Sun reports on a huge investigation taking place into Baltimore's former speed camera program:

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration has turned over more than 10,000 pages of documents to a City Council committee conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Baltimore's speed camera program. 

Councilman James B. Kraft, chairman of the committee, said he's received 10,000 to 12,000 pages of documents. He believes the mayor may turn over far more, he said.
In February, Kraft delivered a letter to Rawlings-Blake seeking 31 batches of documents involving nearly all aspects of the once-lucrative cameras, which have been offline since last spring. His letter sought documents pertaining to former speed camera contractors Xerox State & Local Solution and Brekford Corp., as well as consultants URS Corp. and Century Engineering. Among the 31 categories of documents sought are "all investigative reports" into the cameras' accuracy rates.

[...] 

The council has authorized an investigation into circumstances behind a secret speed camera audit, which was commissioned by the administration and completed last April but never released. The study, a copy of which was obtained by The Baltimore Sun, found error rates in city speed cameras much higher than city officials have acknowledged 

[...] 

 Baltimore Inspector General Robert H. Pearre Jr. has also launched what he called a "comprehensive investigation" into the city's troubled speed camera program.

Opinion: Public Information Act Oversight Badly Needed

The Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) is one of the cornerstones of open government in this state, and it is one of the few tools available to citizens and the press allowing access to information.  Regardless of what issues you care about, the integrity of government requires that citizens have access to information about the activities of state and local government agencies.  In theory, the MPIA law provides broad rights of access to a wide variety public records with only a limited number of specific exemptions.

In practice however, matters can be quite different.  Many agencies have learned that there are numerous ways they can delay, obstruct, or deter requests for records which they, for whatever reason, do not wish to release.  In some cases agencies may deny a request and claim an exemption to disclosure.  But more commonly agencies will demand excessive fees, deny the existence of records, or in a few cases simply ignore a request completely.  Even though the law nominally requires a custodian to provide "immediate" access to many records and requires the release of records in no more than 30 days in any case, we have found that MOST agencies consider the 30 day period to instead constitute a minimum mandatory waiting period.  Indeed we have witnessed various forms of noncompliance with the MPIA first hand over and over again, by local governments all across the state.

One of the reasons this can occur because there is no oversight from the state of agency compliance with the MPIA.  The Attorney General publishes a manual on the MPIA, which lays out individual rights and agency responsibilities under the act.  However under Doug Gansler this agency has disavowed any responsibility for enforcing the act or investigating noncompliance.  A requester does have the right to file for "judicial review" in circuit court.  However going to court for any reason is an expensive, complicated, and risky proposition.  Government agencies can utilize taxpayer funded legal resources to defend a denial or the use of obstructive tactics, and incurring the costs of going up against an opponent with those kinds of resources is not a practical option for most ordinary citizens or even some media organizations. Agencies know they face little risk of penalties if a defendant prevails.  Agencies know full well that the time it takes to resolve a complaint in court could easily render documents useless for the purpose they were originally requested for.  Indeed the editor of this site was forced to file for judicial review over two obstructed MPIA requests last year, it has now been six months, and the end is still not imminent.

This year a bill was submitted to the state legislature which would create a "Public Information Act Compliance Board".  The bill (House Bill 658) is sponsored by Delegates Jill Carter, Glen Glass, Michael Hough, Neil Parrott, and Mike Smigiel.  It is modeled after the Open Meetings Compliance board, which oversees the other portion of the state's "sunshine law" that requires public meetings to be open.  Such a board would provide a viable option for appeal.  The fiscal policy notes describe the bill's purpose:

This bill establishes the State Public Information Act Compliance Board to (1) receive, review, and resolve complaints from any person alleging that a custodian either denied inspection of a public record or charged an unreasonable fee of more than $500 to obtain  the record; (2) issue a written opinion as to whether a violation has occurred; and (3) order the custodian to either produce the public record for inspection or reduce the fee amount to an amount the board determines to be reasonable and refund the difference. The bill also requires the board to (1) adopt regulations to carry out the bill; (2) study ongoing compliance with the bill by custodians; (3) make recommendations to the General Assembly for improvements to the bill’s provisions; and (4) submit an annual report to the Governor and General Assembly by October 1 of each year.

This approach would be far more cost effective and practical for both requester and agencies than having to go to court.  Indeed the fiscal policy notes for the bill state that "local finances will not be materially affected" and that the OAG could support the board's activities with existing staff.

The website StateIntegrity.org ranked Maryland 40th out of 50 for corruption risk, giving us a grade of "D-" overall and an "F" for "Public Access to Information".  That is unacceptable by any standard.  Maryland residents should demand far more openness from state and local government agencies, and passage of House Bill 658 would be an excellent step in that direction.

Additional Coverage:
Baltimore Sun: Bring Sunshine to Maryland
Delmarva Now: Md. Lawmakers consider forming public information act oversight
Frederick Post: Enabling the public's right to know

Baltimore Sun: Proposed public information oversight board called 'important reform'

Baltimore Knew of More Problems than Previously Reported

The City of Baltimore experienced more errors in its currently mothballed speed camera program than were previously reported, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The Sun reports that in March of 2013, Baltimore issued a speed camera ticket to a bus company with one of its buses clocked going 42mph on Harford Road.  The city voided the ticket after concluding the vehicle's speed had only actually been 26mph.

The internal city documents, which the Sun described as having been "leaked", revealed other problems as well:

In addition to the misprogrammed camera and inaccurate P.O. box, the report notes that about 100 tickets were issued with “repeated images and timestamps,” making them invalid. There were also “a few erroneous citations,” including one that showed two different cars in the pair of photos meant to show a speeding vehicle’s movement. 

The same document stated that Brekford’s data “had continuous errors, missing or transposed information,” that information in the company’s system “keeps changing” and that 474 red light camera tickets somehow appeared in the system as speed camera tickets. 

A separate PowerPoint presentation showed that as of April 15 — a day before the city announced the camera program’s suspension — city officials had noticed discrepancies in Brekford’s own data. 

The issue was noted again in a May 7 memo marked “privileged and confidential” and addressed to Rawlings-Blake and top aides. It said the Department of Transportation “expressed a lack of confidence in the Brekford data due to 30,000 events missing from iP360 reports,” it said. Brekford’s system is called iP360. Every time a camera records a car it’s considered an event.

The errors occurred in early 2013 after Baltimore City ended their contract with Xerox Corporation, amid report of errors (including tickets being given to stationary vehicles), and began a new contract with speed camera contractor Brekford Corp.  However the program was suspended shortly thereafter amid revelations of new errors.  Baltimore has since ended their contract with Brekford as well.

Some Police Still Won't Allow Themselves to be Photographed

A Baltimore City police officer "forcibly escorted" Baltimore Sun photographer Chris Assaf away from the scene of a police involved shooting after he was observed photographing police activities.  The incident was documented by another Baltimore Sun reporter, and the Sun has posted photos of the incident online (the Sun warns that some photos may be graphic).

The Sun noted how they had reported on previous incidents where first amendment rights had been infringed on with respect to photographing police:

A recent event brought this close to home when Baltimore Sun photo editor Chris Assaf was confronted by a Baltimore City police officer at the scene of a police-involved shooting. The incident happened in close proximity to The Sun at the intersection of Centre Street and Guilford Avenue, so Assaf was able to respond quickly to the scene.
While photographing outside the police tape — which marked the established perimeter — an officer broke the tape and told him he would have to move across the street. Assaf protested, stating he was outside the established perimeter of the crime scene and he had every right to photograph from where he was standing.
While asking for the officer’s name, a second police officer grabbed Assaf and began pushing him across the street. Assaf on numerous occasions requested that the officer release him, saying that his rights were being violated. Baltimore Sun photographer Lloyd Fox witnessed and documented the scene. Baltimore Police said they are investigating the allegations.

It is in fact completely legal to photograph police activities in public.  Despite this, there have been several other documented incidents in recent years where police have claimed it was illegal for members of the public to photograph them. The Sun noted a prior incident demonstrating the misconception by police that it is illegal to photograph police activities.

Just recently Sergio Gutierrez was recording Maryland State Police making arrests outside a Towson bar. With the video camera rolling, an officer approached him and told him to stop because he was distracting them. When Gutierrez asked what law he was violating, an officer gets up close and tells him to “shut your [expletive] mouth or you’re going to jail.” 

Gutierrez responded, “I thought I have freedom of speech.” The officer responded, “You just lost it,” as the camera is jostled and the person recording says he is being pushed. 

Other similar incidents in recent years have included:
- in June of 2011, photo journalist Manning Garcia of Kensington was arrested and charged with "disorderly conduct" for taking a video of Montgomery County police who were making an arrest.
- In 2010, Christopher Sharp had his cell phone confiscated after filming police arresting and allegedly beating woman during an altercation at Preakness. Sharp, represented by the ACLU, filed suit against the Baltimore Police Department.
- in June 2010 a motorist was arrested and had her cell phone confiscated by St Mary's County police for photographing police, an was charge under Maryland's wire tapping law
- in March of 2010, a motorcyclist was charged under Maryland wire tapping laws for photographing a police officer making a traffic stop with a helmet mounted camera and posting the video on YouTube

Last year police in Maryland photographed millions of motorists for the purpose of issuing photo tickets, asserting that motorists have "no expectation of privacy".

House Committee Votes Down Repeal, Audit, Reform Bills

A committee in the Maryland House of Delegates has voted down multiple speed camera reform bills, with the committee vice chair vowing that only the bill he has sponsored would be allowed to go to the full House.

Among the bill killed in committee was one sponsored by Delegate Braveboy, which would have authorized the state to perform audits of speed camera programs.  A bill sponsored by Delegate Jon Cardin, which would have ended payments based on the number of tickets and required speed camera citations to contain sufficient information to identify speed measurement errors was also summarily shot down.  Another bill calling for quarterly audits of all speed camera programs, which was sponsored by forty six delegates from both parties, was also voted "unfavorable" by the committee.

The committee likewise voted down a bill that would have repealed speed cameras.  The committee vote on that bill is shown here.

click to enlarge

Many of the bills were prompted by a "secret audit" of Baltimore City's camera program which revealed that the program had systematically issued erroneous speeding tickets to tens of thousands of motorists.  Some of the speed measurement errors were so outrageous that they included citations issued to stationary vehicles.  Other issues recently uncovered include problems in the Town of Morningside, where motorists have alleged they received inaccurate citations and where the town failed to produce calibration records upon request.  In places like Salisbury and Wicomico County, there have been other complaints about calibration issues and/or errors.   Additionally, many local speed camera programs have been flouting a provision of the law which was supposed to bar speed camera contractors from being paid based on the number of citations, something even governor O'Malley has said violates the intent of the law.

The Maryland Drivers Alliance testified in support of several bills heard on the 18th, arguing that auditing was essential to prevent abuse.  We argued that without some requirement for evidence of speed no bill could be said to address the problems of errors which prompted the legislation in the first place.

Delegate James Malone

However these arguments may have fallen on deaf ears, given that Delegate Malone declared at the beginning of the February 18th hearing, before any testimony was presented, that only his bill (House Bill 929) would be approved by the committee.  Malone stated that his committee already knew everything there was to know about speed cameras, and instructed those testifying that  "Today is 'me too day'" and that they should just respond 'me too' if they had nothing new to add the committee hasn't heard before.

HB929 was developed primarily based on input from local governments, and therefore includes only those changes which the larger camera programs in the state concluded would not significantly affect them.  Supporters of HB929 claimed that "stakeholders" were included in the writing of the bill, and Malone stated that the committee had continued working on HB929 "during the interim" since last year's session.  However motorists who testified on speed camera legislation last year, and the Maryland Drivers Alliance, were not informed of any ongoing discussions or meetings during this interim.  Nor was our input as to what our grievances with the speed camera system solicited by the sponsors of HB929.  Montgomery County's Captain Tom Didone testified in favor of HB929 (while still calling for it to be weakened further), and cited a December 4 2013 speed camera symposium as an example of how local governments were working to working to fix problems with speed camera programs.  However Didone failed to mention that this meeting was closed to the public and the press, and that Didone personally blocked a representative of the Maryland Drivers Alliance from observing the meeting. We are forced to conclude that motorists and those who raised complaints in the first place are not considered "stakeholders" in discussions about speed cameras by those who hold power.

In our testimony on HB929, we noted several deficiencies in the bill as originally submitted:
- The bill makes it so speed camera operators need never actually test equipment themselves.  This new loophole would permit speed camera contractors to test equipment, without giving defendants the right to question the person who actually performed the test.  This essentially allows additional "hearsay evidence" to be used against speed camera defendants, without permitting defendants to present hearsay evidence in their defense.

- The bill is claimed to "end the bounty system", something which was supposed to be banned by current law but is nevertheless common practice. However the bill's wording contains a newly created loophole which would permit payments based on the number of tickets to continue, so long as they are not explicitly called "per ticket".  Quotas, payments for "batches of tickets". and other clever arrangements such as one devised by Wicomico County, would all be legal using new "semantic gymnastics".

How one contractor would 'end the bounty system' using semantic games: "Redspeed assures the County that the new system was created to be equivalent to the old system"

- The bill grandfathers in all existing contract arrangements until 2017, meaning it would have little practical effect immediately.  Local governments would thus not need to exercise a new "loophole" until years later, which most people will have forgotten the promises being made by lawmakers now that the practice of paying based on the number of tickets would eventually end.

- The bill essentially still permits all local governments to police themselves, and does not include any sort of outside oversight.  The bill sponsors said they looked into "oversight" in the past, but that no state agency wanted to do it.

- The bill refers to errors, but contains no requirement that a means to identify errors exist.  Without secondary evidence, errors can simply be denied if the admission would be embarrassing or costly to a local government.

- The bill encodes into law that up to a 5% rate of errors (one ticket in 20) is acceptable.  For a program the size of Baltimore or Montgomery County, tens of thousands of tickets per year acceptable under the law.

- The bill contains several provisions which are strikingly similar to existing clauses in Montgomery County's contract with Xerox Corporation.  Encoding such provisions from a specific contractor's existing contract into law could give that contractor a competitive bidding advantage.  Xerox corp currently spends more money on lobbying than any other speed camera company in the state, and has employed a highly influential and well connected lobbying firm to represent their interests.

The key provision HB929 contains which supporters claim would address problems is a requirement that someone be assigned the role of responding to complaints.  This position is modeled after an "ombudsman" which Montgomery County claims they already have.  While having a REAL "Ombudsman" would be a change for the better, in reality the person Montgomery County has given this title is actually their program manager, and he does not fit the definition of the word at all.  In the Maryland Drivers Alliance's testimony we quoted Abe Lincoln "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, Four.  Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. "   Calling a program manager an "ombudsman" does not make them an independent advocate for the public, because he is already an advocate for the program.

In Montgomery County, their existing "ombudsman" stated to the legislature that he has voided 15-20 citations total.  This would be out of hundreds of thousands issued by Montgomery every year... and amounts to only about 0.005% of citations.  Contact information for this "ombudsman" does not appear on citations or in any obvious location on Montgomery County's website, so it is unlikely that most people would even know this person exists or that they could send him a complaint.  Most of the time complaints sent to Montgomery County are responded to by Captain Tom Didone (head of the county''s traffic enforcement division), not the nominal "Ombudsman" (Richard Harrison).  We have seen no indication that Mr Harrison has taken any positions contrary to the county's "official policy", or that he has ever ordered a mass refund of tickets over some systematic issue.  As such, we expect most local governments would likely follow this lead, give the new title to an existing staff member who is loyal to the program, without changing their current procedures significantly, and only void the most embarrassing and undeniable errors.  We believe, as written, this amounts to no more than politely asking municipal speed camera programs to do a better job of public relations.

Malone stated in a subcommittee meeting on the 18th that he believed local governments could deal with problems themselves, that he believed people with complaints about local speed camera programs like those in Morningside and Baltimore, should take those complaints up with local governments and not bring the complaints to state lawmakers.  Delegate McMillan, a co-sponsor of Malone's bill, did not respond to an email we wrote asking him whether he agreed with these statements by Malone.

This is not the final word on speed camera legislation this year.  The committee might still add amendments to HB929, or amendments might be added on the house floor.   However the bill's primary sponsor in the house has been an obstacle to prior efforts to obtain real reform of the system, and the sponsor of the Senate version (Senator Robey) is the author of the state's current corrupt and broken speed camera law.  Our belief is that any positive changes to this bill must come despite the efforts of these two sponsors, not because of them, since Robey and Malone will most likely try to shield the major county and municipal speed camera programs from any changes which might cut into revenues.  Real change will only occur if members of the public complain to state lawmakers loudly, frequently, and RIGHT NOW.

Brentwood Says They Cannot Access Requested Emails

The Town of Brentwood has asserted it cannot produce emails in response to a Maryland Public Information Act request because they are unable to access relevant email accounts.

The issue involves two Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) requests filed by the Maryland Drivers Alliance chairman in October of 2010 and December of 2011.  The request were for, among other things, correspondence related to speed camera errors. State law requires a local government to respond to requests within 30 days, but the requester received no replies from the town for many months, despite having sent the requests both certified mail and attempting to follow up several times by email.  As of May 2013, we had still received no responsive documents. Several more attempts were made to resolve the matter with the town's newly elected Mayor, but in August the request had still not been fulfilled and we filed for judicial review.

In October 2013, after the case was filed (and three years after the initial request), the town produced about 60 pages of responsive correspondence.  However all of the included correspondence was dated after May 2013.  The documents released in October did reveal that errors had been discovered and voided several times in 2013, including several "incorrect tag numbers" and "False Speed Reading".

Portion of released documents

The requester agreed that personal data and citation images would not be included in the disclosure.  However there was no correspondence dated before May 2013, and no correspondence between the town's contractor and the specific email addresses and individuals known to have been involved with the program at the time the requests were made.

In November, we asked the town to look again at the specific email in-boxes known to have been used at the time of the requests, and to perform a "keyword search" for relevant documents.  Three months later, the attorney for Brentwood responded:  "the Town does not have access to these accounts.  These accounts were apparently utilized by former employees of Brentwood and no current employee of the Town can access these accounts."

The email addresses we asked about had been published on the town website, town newsletter, and town Facebook page at various times.  One of the addresses still appeared on the town website as a contact address as of 2/24/2013.

Both parties agreed to ask the court to delay the scheduled hearing for another 60 days, in order to make more time to recover the requested emails another way.

The case in question is Ely vs Brentwood, and is filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court as case number 380194V.  The Maryland Public Information Act authorizes a requester to file for "judicial review" in their home jurisdiction if a request is denied.

Montgomery County Questioned About Potential Camera Refunds

Montgomery County would not say whether they intended to offer refunds in response to a WUSA9 investigation which found that some of their speed camera sites did not meet a requirement of state law.

Maryland law requires that the locations of speed cameras be published in a newspaper prior to their activation.  However in investigation by WUSA9 in August concluded that Montgomery County hadn't published the following locations in any newspaper:

8000 Midcounty Highway, Gaithersburg
8100 Midcounty Highway, Gaithersburg
West Old Baltimore Road (eastbound), Boyds
West Old Baltimore Road (westbound), Boyds
18500 block of Barnesville Road in Barnesville

Prince George's County agreed to refund over 1000 citations over a similar problem there, regarding tickets issued at locations they admitted did not meet this requirement of state law.

Montgomery County did not provide an answer when WUSA9 asked them whether they would do the same, merely providing the following responses for more than a month:

January 23 – "We are reviewing the question"
January 24 – "No update"
January 28 – "Yes" (Response to the question, "Is the decision still pending?")
February 6 – "No decision as yet"
February 24 -- "No thanks. Have a good one." (Response to invitation for an interview.)

Montgomery County contends that motorists "admitted to speeding" by paying citations.  The county spent many thousands of dollars in taxpayer resources fighting to uphold this principal in court in the Baker vs Montgomery County decision, which essentially ruled that local government speed camera programs are protected from class action suits regardless of the basis.

However a motorists making the complaint to WUSA9 have asserted that he was not the driver at all, and that a relative was driving.  Speed camera citations are issued to the registered owner, not the driver.  (Most motorists are unaware of an affirmative defense which can be exercised when you are not the driver, which is not correctly stated on most speed camera citations.)

Montgomery County claims to have a position called an "ombudsman" whom they assert is an advocate for the public who has the power to void tickets.  The county supported a requirement for such a position in other local governments their testimony to legislature. but only as a way of advocating AGAINST more significant changes to the law prompted by large scale errors in Baltimore City.  In reality, the individual cited by the county as an "ombudsman" is really their program manager, and this person stated in hearings to the state legislature that he has only voided "15-20" citations total (which would be less than 0.005% of the number of tickets Montgomery County issues in a year).  We can find no record that Montgomery County's "ombudsman", or anyone else in the county, has ever ordered a large scale refund for any reason, and as a result do not consider designating someone to have such a title as a solution to anything.

For example, four years ago in 2010 we discovered that Montgomery County had been systematically skipping required system tests of their cameras, violating a testing requirement clearly written into state law which the county acknowledged they were not meeting at the time.  While since that time the county has apparently altered their procedures so logs are present, there was never an announcement at that time of a large scale refund over an issue which likely affected many cameras, thousands of tickets, and involved a clear violation of a written requirement of state law regarding the calibration of equipment.

Baltimore City Inspector General To Conduct Investigation

Baltimore City Inspector General Robrt Pearre Jr has said he is starting an investigation into Baltimore City's speed camera program.

The investigation was prompted by the leak of a "secret" audit of Baltimore City's now mothballed speed camera program, which found that cameras used in the city under Contract with Xerox had error rates of ten percent, and even higher for a few individual cameras.  The city had previously claimed their error rate was "one quarter of one percent".  The Baltimore Sun wrote:

Pearre said his investigation will encompass work done with Xerox State and Local Solutions and Brekford Corp., the city's two speed camera vendors since 2009.
"It's going to be a comprehensive investigation," he said. "We're going back to the beginning. It's going to have a broad scope."
The announcement comes as the council committee awaits the production of reams of speed camera records from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Pearre, a former FBI agent, said he plans to "reach out to the council and try to collaborate."

The City Council is conducting their own investigation.  Some members of the council have expressed shock that the the Mayor chose to keep the Audit's findings from the council, asserting that a legal agreement with Xerox forbid the city from releasing it.  The document became public after a copy was leaked to the Baltimore Sun, despite the city's refusal to provide it to the paper.  The errors with the city's cameras included citations issued to stationary vehicles, and tickets accusing large trucks of traveling twice their actual speed... as proven by videos.  Based on the number of tickets issued by Baltimore City and the 10% error rate found in the secret audit, as many as 70,000 wrongful accusations could have been made in a single year.

Despite the investigation, the Mayor is still moving ahead with plans for a new speed camera program, having hired a consulting company to perform "site evaluations and engineering assessments" for new speed camera locations.  This contract was given to Century Engineering of Hunt Valley.

The issues in Baltimore and elsewhere in the state prompted several speed camera bills which were heard by a committee in the state legislature last week.  However Committee Vice Chair Delegate Malone openly stated at the very beginning of this hearing that only the bill which he had sponsored (HB929) would be allowed out of his committee.  In the Transportation and Motor Vehicles subcommittee meeting after the hearing, Malone expressed the opinion that motorists should not complain to the state legislature if they have issues with a local speed camera program.   The Sentinel quoted Malone as saying “I am confident that between those people, if I have a problem it will get taken care of, if there is a problem in Baltimore City, Baltimore City’s delegation can take the appropriate action to get what they need to get, in my opinion.”  Malone asserted that a motorist who had come to the hearing with complaints about the Town of Morningside's program should have taken his concerns up with the town's mayor (which that motorist had in fact attempted to do, without success) rather than bringing them to the legislature.

The Maryland Drivers Alliance noted in their testimony on HB929 that it contained loopholes which would prevent it from having the effects its sponsors claimed, and that it contained no requirement for a means to identify errors and therefore didn't address problems which had prompting calls for reform.  The bill "grandfathers in" exiting contract arrangement until 2017, giving it little immediate effect.  A stronger reform bill sponsored by Delegate Jon Cardin was promptly voted down by the Transportation Motor Vehicles Subcommittee, as was a bill to repeal speed cameras sponsored by Delegate Smigiel, and several other reform bills.  Proposed requirements for "secondary evidence" to identify the presence of errors were summarily rejected.  Malone and co-sponsor Delegate McMillan did leave open the possibility that their reform bill could still possibly be amended to include some form of audits, but claimed no state agency wanted to accept that responsibility.

Baltimore County Ticketed Wrong Motorist

The Baltimore Sun wrote that Baltimore County issued an erroneous speed camera citation to an innocent motorist:

Canton resident Emily Fusting knew right away that Baltimore County had the wrong person when she got a $40 speed camera ticket in the mail recently. She drives a gray Hyundai hatchback. The car nabbed by the county camera on Kenilworth Drive? A dark-colored sedan.
“If anybody took any time here, it would be clear this is not my car,” said Fusting, 24, a judicial clerk.
While her license plate appears similar to the tag on the car that triggered the camera Jan. 28, it’s hard to tell because the photo from the county’s camera is blurry.
On Wednesday county officials acknowledged their mistake. “This vehicle does not appear to belong to Ms. Fusting,” police spokeswoman Elise Armacost wrote in an email.
Armacost said three people, including a county police officer, must review every potential citation prior to issuance. “The officer and the two others who reviewed this one felt that it was clear enough to identify a license plate number and that the vehicle was a Hyundai,” Armacost said.

 The article noted that Baltimore County acknowledged that other such errors of this sort have occurred, but the county claims they are "relatively infrequent".

Armacost said the county will notify Fusting by mail that her citation has been voided.
Fusting said she's glad she won’t have to take time off from work to contest the ticket in court, something she says she would have done on principle. “But I also think it’s good to bring awareness to the fact that several people reviewed this and thought it was fine,” she said.

The assertion that three people review every citation is one made by other agencies, including Montgomery County who claims their three review steps is "the most in the state".  Baltimore City also previously claimed to perform "three tiers" of review

A recent audit of Baltimore City's former speed camera program with Xerox Corp (who is also Baltimore County's vendor) revealed error rates of ten percent, or more for individual cameras, with many vehicles cited for apparent inaccurate speed readings.  Various groups and a number of state lawmakers have called for independent audits of all speed camera programs to verify their accuracy rate.  However Baltimore County stated to the Baltimore Sun that they do not believe an audit is necessary.  

The Maryland Drivers Alliance has also called for audits, and believes that counties which say they do not need audits are the ones need to be audited first.

Forty Six State Lawmakers Call For Speed Camera Audits

A bill sponsored by by forty-six state lawmakers calls for quarterly audits of all local speed camera programs.

The wording of House Bill 1288 reads:
(I) A LOCAL JURISDICTION SHALL OBTAIN A QUARTERLY  AUDIT OF ITS SPEED MONITORING SYSTEMS CONDUCTED BY A QUALIFIED  INDEPENDENT PERSON. 
   (II) THE RESULTS OF THE QUARTERLY AUDIT: 
            1. SHALL BE KEPT ON FILE; AND 
            2. SHALL BE ADMITTED AS EVIDENCE IN ANY COURT PROCEEDING FOR A VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION. 

The sponsors of the bill are: Delegates Warren Miller, Arentz, Aumann, Bates, Bobo, Clippinger, Cluster, Conway, Costa, Davis, DeBoy, Elliott, Frank, Guzzone, Haddaway-Riccio, Haynes, Hucker, Impallaria, Jameson, K. Kelly, Kramer, Krebs, Lafferty, Love, McComas, McDermott, McDonough, McHale, Minnick, Mitchell, Myers, Norman, O'Donnell, Oaks, Olszewski, Otto, Rudolph, Schuh, Serafini, Smigiel, Stocksdale, Summers, F. Turner, Vaughn, Walker, and M. Washington.

The bill comes in the wake of the leaking of a secret audit of Baltimore City's speed camera program, which revealed error rates of ten percent overall, and much higher for a few locations, a rate forty times higher than was previously acknowledged.  There have also been errors in other parts of the state, including Wicomico County and Montgomery County.  And failures to follow calibration procedures have been confirmed in Hagerstown, Greenbelt, and Salisbury.  One local government, Morningside, refused to produced any calibration documents when we requested them.  The SHA also flunked an internal audit of their speed camera program in 2012.

The fact that the audit is required to be admissible as evidence is significant, since a defendant would be able to note any of an audit's findings in their defense.  It also would ensure the audit could not be kept secret.  Baltimore City denied the press access to their own damning audit, and has sought to spy on the employee suspected of leaking the report.

The bill, while simple and straight forward, is unspecific about the TYPE of audit to be performed.  For example whether it needs to actually check accuracy in the same way as the Baltimore City audit did, or whether specific documents and practices must be evaluated as part of such an audit.  It is also unspecific about who constitutes a "qualified independent person".  As such this would seem to be left to the discretion of the local government, unless the bill is amended to add more details.

Despite that, there is a chance that a less competent programs might "accidentally" have their faults revealed despite themselves.  Baltimore probably didn't think they were going to get a "real audit", but ended up accidentally getting the most thorough audit of any speed camera program in the state.

There is apparently some resistance to the idea from local governments. Howard County has also asserted that they see no need for audits.  Todd Pounds, the attorney for the Town of Morningside, told WTOP that if they thought there should be an audit of their speed camera program, WTOP should pay for it.

Tom Didone, who heads Montgomery County's speed camera program stated in his testimony on another bill that they already review each citation "and that does an automatic, basically a self audit for every citation that's issued in the county".  This clearly demonstrates no understanding of what the word "Audit" means, and tends to make one think Montgomery County would not willingly perform the type of audit which happened in Baltimore, but rather would try to pass off something they do already as an audit.

We think the local governments which oppose audits are the ones which should be audited first.

Delegate Aisha Braveboy has created a separate audit proposal, which would authorize the governor to require the audit.  Delegate Jon Cardin has also called for audits, and additionally is sponsoring a bill which addresses errors in other ways.

However the vice chair of the Environmental Matters Committee, James Malone, has created a "decoy speed camera reform bill", with the intention of allowing only "cosmetic" measures supported by county governments which profit from speed camera programs, and nothing else, to get through his committee.

A hearing on HB1288 to discuss audits is scheduled for Feb 25 in the Environmental Matters Committee.  You can follow this and other legislation on our Legislative Tracker Page.

Morningside Fails to Stand Behind Tickets in Court

The Town of Morningside failed to prosecute two speed camera tickets disputed in Prince George's County District Court on February 12th, according to a report by one of the defendants.

One of the defendants reported to us that "a court assistant" advised her to plead guilty.  However, she wisely did not follow this incorrect advise.

"the biggest lesson I learned was when the judge says: "[] you have been charged with doing 43 mph in a 30 mph zone do you agree or disagree? "...I'm supposed to say DISAGREE since Morningside didn't show up!  I said the right thing but it took me a second because the advice I got before I went in was "just plead guilty but say you have an explanation... it pisses the judge off when you say you're not guilty of a camera speed violation." 

This motorist was prepared not only to dispute the recorded speed, but also the legality of the placement of the speed camera on Suitland road.  However since the prosecution did not appear, this was not necessary.

It pains us when motorists who says they are innocent goes to court only to plead "guilty with explanation", especially if it is the product of someone giving them bad advice.  If you are disputing a camera ticket, you ALWAYS plead "NOT GUILTY".  "Guilty With Explanation" means "GUILTY".  You have just waived ALL your legal rights and the prosecution doesn't need to prove anything -- please do not waste the court system's time by doing that.  The worst case scenario of pleading "NOT GUILTY" on a speed camera ticket is exactly the same as the consequence of pleading "GUILTY", which is that you will be found guilty anyways.  Even if they don't have the skills to develop a real defense, a defendant can always state that that they believe the prosecution needs to prove the device was operated legally, and ask to examine each piece of evidence.  We are not saying your odds of prevailing are good with that approach, but it is still better than having a zero percent chance.

Moreover, if you think you are innocent but are unsure whether you can make a case, the correct thing to do is to request a hearing prior to the due date.  This gives you time to conduct research, and you can always pay the fine before the hearing if you conclude you don't have a defense.

Morningside previously dropped the case of a different motorist who happened to have a video recording of themselves driving past the camera, which was reported on WTOP.   The video showed them driving at the speed limit according to the speedometer.

That motorist made a complaint to the Prince George's County State's Attorney about various problems, including the apparent erroneous speed reading.  The response from John Ezren of the Office of State's Attorney demonstrated the total lack of any oversight of local speed camera programs in Maryland:

"If the camera is calibrated incorrectly, this is an issue that the Town of Morningside would need to address with the vendor to correct and ensure the camera remains properly calibrated.  We have not seen a copy of the contract between Morningside and Breckford, but there is probably language in it that speaks to the specifics of calibration.  So, if there is an issue, that would make it a contractual one that the town needs to address with the vendor.

All of this would amount to a civil issue and our office is responsible for criminal cases only.  Therefore, your complaint/concern would need to be addressed by the Town of Morningside."

So basically, according to the Prince George's County State's Attorney, improper calibration of a speed camera is just a "contractual issue" and there is no legal recourse if the local government refuses to address the systematic issuance of erroneous citations.

The cameras in question is located on Suitland Road, near Joint Base Andrews.  One of the cameras is pointed directly at a busy I-495 overpass, with fast moving traffic whizzing past in the background at all times directly behind the cited vehicles.  Our analysis of images from another motorist's citations did not indicate that the distance the vehicles moved between images was consistent with the recorded speeds, and the images clearly showed other traffic traveling in the background nearby.

The Town of Morningside denied a Public Information Act Request for all of their annual calibration certificates (past and current) and daily setup logs for a few specific dates.  The response from town attorney Todd Pounds was that they don't maintain any calibration records because the town is not the "operator" of the program.  We are currently in a legal dispute with Morningside over their failure to comply with the Maryland Public Information Act.  Even after we filed for judicial review, the town's response to our Public Information Act Request so far has been to respond with legalistic arguments about process service, threatening to respond by asking for sanctions against the requester, and the production (six months after the original request) of  just a few pages (but nowhere near all) of the calibration documents we requested.

Morningside installed the cameras on Suitland Road after the county denied their request for permission to put the cameras there.