Camera Firms Continue Lobbying

The state legislature may not be in session for the moment, but speed camera firms continue spending on lobbying activities even in the off season.

Speed Camera company Xerox Corporation has spent the largest amount, reporting a total of $176,000 on lobbying in the one year period ending November 2013 according to documents on the State Ethics Commission website.

Xerox paid the firm Alexander & Cleaver fees totaling $58,000 in the six month period since May, even though the legislature was out of session.  This brought the total amount which Xerox paid the lobbying firm to $114,000 for the one year period.

In addition to doing lobbying on speed camera issues, Alexander & Cleaver also represents local governments on a variety of issues, and specifically list "Traffic photo enforcement" as one of their specialty areas on the firm's website.  Editor's note and disclosure: Alexander & Cleaver is the law firm of the Town of Morningside's attorney; We are currently in a dispute over that town's failure to provide calibration records in response to a Maryland's Public Information Act request. 

Xerox also paid the lobbying firm Harris Jones & Malone a fee of $60,000 over the past year.

According to Ethics commission reports Sigma Space (the parent company of Optotraffic) paid $35,983 to the law firm Rifkin, Weiner, Livingston, Levitan & Silver, LLC during the last year.  Photo enforcement company American Traffic Solutions paid $43,000 over the last year to a lobbying company, and camera company Redflex has also hired a lobbying firm as well.

These private company activities are in addition to lobbying performed by local government employees and their proxies such as the Maryland Association of Counties and the Maryland Municipal League, who have argued for expanded photo enforcement and against new protections for motorist rights at taxpayer expense.  Montgomery County alone paid MaCo $250,000 to lobby on their behalf on issues last year, and spends $895,000 per year of taxpayer money on the "Office of Intergovernment Relations" which lobbies at taxpayer expense on this and other issues, as well as paying members of their speed camera program to testify on legislative matters at public expense.  Precisely what percentage of this money goes towards lobbying on speed camera issues is unclear.  However it was reported to us that in response to a public information request placed by one Montgomery County taxpayer to the Montgomery County Department of Intergovernment Relations for correspondence pertaining to last year's speed camera legislation, the office responded by stating that they had "banker boxes" full of such documents and that it would cost the requester $750 to see them.  When the requester tried to narrow their request, the county responded by RAISING the fee to over $1215 instead of lowering the fee.

Salisbury Records Show Calibration Lapses

The Maryland Drivers Alliance had been trying for months to obtain copies of annual calibration certificates and daily setup logs from Salisbury, after the city claimed that all records were in the hands of their contractor.  Now, the Washington Times reports that they have obtained some of the same records we had been seeking, and sure enough the documents do have some problems.

The Times asked the city, as part of a formal media request under the Maryland Public Information Act, for the following information on October 28th:

1. The annual calibration certificates issued by the independent calibration laboratory for the all speed monitoring systems (i.e. speed cameras) deployed in Salisbury, as specified in transportation article §21-809(b)(4), which were in effect for any portion of 2011-2013.  If a device has been replaced or re-certified, we are seeking all versions of the certificates since the inception of Salisbury's speed camera program.

2. The signed daily set-up logs or 'daily self test logs,' as required by §21-809, for the speed monitoring systems deployed at the following locations and dates:
    a) 700 East Main Street, May 21, 2013
    b) 300 Block East College Ave, May 22, 2013
    c) 700 East Main Street, May 22, 2013
    d) 300 Block East College West Bound, June 3, 2013
    e) 300 Block East College West Bound, June 4, 2013
    f) 700 East Main Street Northbound, June 4, 2013
    g) 600 Blk Bus Rt. 50 West Bound, July 11, 2013
    h) 600 Blk Bus Rt. 50 East Bound, July 26, 2013
    i) 700 East Main Street, January 7-January 11 2013 (5 days)
    j) 700 East Main Street, February 4-February 8 2013 (5 days)

Salisbury provided documents to the Times, which you can see here in their entirely.

Annual calibrations were provided for ten devices.  State law specifies:

   (4) (i) A speed monitoring system shall undergo an annual calibration check performed by an independent calibration laboratory.
      (ii) The independent calibration laboratory shall issue a signed certificate of calibration after the annual calibration check that:
         1. Shall be kept on file; and

         2. Shall be admitted as evidence in any court proceeding for a violation of this section.

The annual calibration certificates for the first year for each of the devices was issued by the manufacturer of the device, Sensys.  The basis for allowing a manufacturer certification to be "independent" is a dubious interpretation of the law.  In addition many of the 'annual' calibrations were in fact issued for 13 months, which would not seem to be 'annual', and a court in Washington County has ruled as such.  

Of the first year certificates, five of them appear to have had more than 12 months between the initial test date and the retest date.  For example: 

• A camera with serial number F3F8B512000 was certified on 1/19/2012 but not re-tested until 3/30/2012... 41 days after the expiration of the 13 (not 12) month period.  
• One with serial number B0FAB5120000 was initially tested by the manufacturer on 12/27/2011 but not retested until 1/27/2013.  
• Serial number ACEBB5120000 was initially tested on 12/21/2011 but not retested until 1/27/2013. 
• Serial Number CEFEB5120000 was initially tested by Sensys on 4/6/2011 but not retested until 7/18/2012. Serial number 6DDAB512000 was certified on 4/6/2011, 7/18/2012 (15 months after), and then again on 10/16/2013 (15 months after).

In addition, while the Times requested a total of 18 daily setup logs (also a requirement of the law), only FOUR total documents were provided.  Of the days produced, ALL of them has some issue:

• A log for 6/3/2013  was provided, but which had no operator signature on it
• A log for 7/11/2013 had been requested, but instead a log dated 7/11/2012 was provided
• A log for 7/28/2013 was provided, for the opposite direction requested by the Times

No logs at all were provided to the Times for any dates requested before June.

We have confirmed that citations were issued on 700 East Main Street on May 21 and 300 East College Avenue on May 22, and at 600 Block of Bus Rt. 50 West Bound, July 11, 2013 based on citations provided to us by local residents.

The requirement for daily logs is also in transportation article 21-809:
   (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;
      (ii) Shall be kept on file; and
      (iii) Shall be admitted as evidence in any court proceeding for a violation of this section.

As such it would seem that all of the unsigned logs are legally invalid, and not having any log at all "on file" for certain days would not be valid either.

Item #1 from the Washington Times request, for annual calibration certificates, was also part of our own request we had placed in June of 2013.  Our own request had also included daily setup logs, however the dates we had requested were different.  Salisbury responded to our own Maryland Public Information Act request by stating that all records were kept by the contractor, who stated to the city that obtaining such records would costs a total $535 in search fees, including $235 for making copies.  The disclosure to the Washington Times, which asked for a similar number of pages, was 50 pages and provided as a PDF (ie no physical copies).  According to sources Brekford maintains records of this sort in an electronic, searchable database which allows records to be retrieved as a PDF with a few clicks of a mouse.

We had requested to Salisbury's Mayor that they perform an 'administrative review', as defined under the MPIA.  Mayor Ireton referred questions about this issue to the town attorney, who has not responded to any emails pertaining to our request for administrative review.  However after the Times obtained these documents, some annual calibration certificates were provided to another individual who had been seeking them... three months after he had placed his request.

Had the documents been made available to the Maryland Drivers Alliance in a timely manner, the public might have been notified of these possible issues and people who received tickets could have chosen to contest them on that basis.  In general Maryland courts have upheld that once a citation is paid their is no legal recourse for a driver, so potentially the delay in making documents has denied some motorists the ability to use this information to make a determination to dispute tickets in time for them to do so.

Hagerstown and Greenbelt both issued citation refunds earlier this year after it was found that citations had been issued while annual calibration certificates had gone more than a year without retesting.

Summary of released documents and issues
Salisbury Calibration Documents
Washington Times Editorial: Revenue camera shakedown

WTOP News: Speed camera accuracy questioned in Morningside, Maryland

MORNINGSIDE, Md. - A WTOP Ticketbuster investigation has uncovered serious questions about the accuracy of a speed camera on Suitland Road in Morningside, Md

For the entire story, see:

http://www.wtop.com/1319/3512254/Speed-camera-glitch-captured-on-videos

From the story:

Todd Pounds, Morningside's town attorney, declined to be interviewed for this story, although he did speak to WTOP on the phone and email. He tells WTOP that the cameras are accurate and comply with Maryland law, but wouldn't comment on the videos themselves. WTOP asked Pounds to produce annual calibration and daily self- test records for the Suitland Road camera to substantiate his claims, but he refused to do so.

 

 

MaCo Hosts Speed Camera Love Fest

The Maryland Association of Counties (MaCo) will be holding a speed camera symposium on December 4th, from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM at the Kenhill Center (Old Bowie City Hall: 2614 Kenhill Drive, Bowie, Maryland, 20715).

The agenda for this meeting will include Requirements for a Speed Camera Program, Partnerships, Vendor Contracts, Policies and Procedures, program results, Current Law, and Proposed Changes in 2014.

The Maryland Association of Counties performs lobbying on behalf of county governments, who fund the organization with your tax dollars.  MaCo was the "bunt instrument" used by local governments including Montgomery County, Prince George's County, for killing off proposed "common sense" changes to require speed camera citations to provide sufficient evidence to detect speed errors after the fact (a change which the Maryland Drivers Alliance supported).

The organization also fought to keep in place the current "loophole" which permits speed camera contractors to be paid based on the number of tickets issued.  Despite an existing provision of the law which even Governor O'Malley admitted was intended to ban paying contractors based on the number of tickets, this practice is now common across the state.  Local governments all know by now that the law simply means whatever the government wants it to at any given time, and that the courts in Maryland will indulge any "loophole" or creative interpretation of the law which is convenient for local governments.

MaCo stood in opposition to the positions of the Maryland Drivers Alliance in both house and senate legislative committee hearings.

MaCo nominally represents all twenty four counties plus Baltimore City.  However the Maryland Drivers Alliance has obtained correspondence written by MaCo during the last session opposing speed camera reform legislation, showed that the organization's correspondence on this matter was copied to Prince George's County, Montgomery County, Baltimore County, Howard County, and Baltimore City, a representative of the Maryland Municipal League, and that's all.  Representatives of Counties which do NOT have large speed camera programs were notably NOT copied in the correspondence.  One might imagine that had any elected officials or counties which do NOT currently profit from speed camera programs (perhaps because the cameras are very unpopular there) been "in the loop" on such discussions, they might have disputed MaCo's interpretation of the facts or the law.  They might also have taken issue with MaCo speaking on behalf of ALL counties in opposition to changes designed to protect the legal rights of motorists, based on consultation only with local governments which profit from speed cameras.

Sample MaCo Correspondence, 'looping in' only those counties which profit from cameras

Sample MaCo Testimony Opposing Speed Camera Reform Legislation

According to the invite, "MaCo urges counties with speed camera programs to attend this educational event."

Anyone who wishes to attend to register can find the instructions for doing so here.

Our readers can Find their county's representative to MaCo's Legislative Committee on this page.  Those who wish express their opinion to MaCo regarding their positions opposing speed camera reform legislation.  We would particularly encourage anyone to write who has objections to:

• MaCo's opposition to legislative changes requiring accurate timestamp evidence which could prove speed measurement errors, and their support for allowing local governments to withhold accurate timestamp evidence which could potentially exonerate innocent motorists as it did last year in Baltimore City.
• MaCo's opposition changes to ban paying contractors based on the number of tickets
• MaCo's support of "cosmetic" legislative changes which are intended only for "public relations", and which would merely be a "smokescreen" designed to fool the public into believing that things are now "fixed" without actually changing the way speed camera programs actually operated
• MaCo's exclusion of counties which do not profit from speed cameras from discussions about legislative activities
• The use of taxpay dollars in general to support legislative positions which in any way limit the legal rights of drivers

Speed Camera Company Misses SEC Filing Deadine

Speed Camera Contractor Brekford Corp announced on November 14th that they would not meet the deadline for filing their Q-10 quarterly results report with the SEC.

The notification of late filing form (FORM 12b-25) stated:

The Registrant anticipates that its consolidated statements of operations for the three- and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2013 to be included in the Quarter Report will reflect: (i) a net loss of approximately $568,492 for the three months ended September 30, 2013, compared to a net loss of approximately $50,948 for the corresponding period of 2012; (ii) a net loss of approximately $968,960 for the nine months ended September 30, 2013, compared to net income of approximately $198,895 for the corresponding period of 2012; and (iii) basic and diluted net loss per common share of $0.01 and $0.02 for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2013, compared to basic and diluted earnings per common share of $0.00 and $0.00 for the corresponding periods of 2012.  The reduction in net income for the 2013 periods when compared to the 2012 periods resulted primarily from increased expenses related to salaries, benefit programs and associated support costs for the expansion of ATSE without corresponding increases in revenue as certain program implementations were delayed.  Increased depreciation expense associated with newly installed technology infrastructure and camera equipment also contributed to the loss.

In late 2012, Brekford was riding high on having won the contract in Baltimore City, only to have the program shut down shortly after Brekford took over in 2013 after hundreds of tickets had been found to have been issued by improperly programmed cameras.  Brekford also found itself unable to meet contract obligations when the prior contractor, Xerox Corp, failed to turn over software required to run speed cameras already deployed in that city.  

Brekford stated in August that they anticipated the city's program would restart the third quarter.  However, according to an article in the Baltimore Sun, "Tests by the city have shown that 11 months after Brekford took over, the system is still troubled by inaccurate speed readings, incorrect addresses and tickets listing wrong information on how to pay a citation, city officials have said. Now officials are working to end the five-year contract, the sources said."

In addition, Brekford was forced to refund hundreds of tickets issued in Hagerstown and Greenbelt after it was discovered that the devices had been operated with expired annual calibration certificates in early 2013.  Two other Brekford Clients, Salisbury and Morningside, have failed to provide their prior annual calibration certificates in response to Maryland Public Information Act requests.

The manner by which local government have tried to privatize law enforcement by outsourcing the functions of their speed camera programs to private companies has raised issues in the past. Now a new question is raised: what happens when a speed camera company begins to fail?  Would municipal governments provide a speed camera company with some form of "government bailout?"  Would a local government assist a hemorrhaging speed camera company in keeping secrets, by agreeing to allow Public Records to be withheld if those documents might reveal some problem which might force that company to face embarrassment or incur the expense of refunding more citations?  And might a desperate for-profit company, whose fee depends on the number of tickets issued, reconcile its need to keep stockholders happy by increasing revenues with the demands of maintaining quality control to avoid ticketing innocent people?

Baltimore City Issued 1.5Million Camera Tickets As Accident Rates Rose

A report by the Baltimore Sun showed that Baltimore City experienced an almost 5% increase in traffic accidents from 2009 to 2012. In that four year time period Baltimore City put approximately 50 speed cameras online and issued 1.5 million speed camera tickets.

Baltimore's first speed cameras went online in November of 2009. However most of the city's cameras did not go online until months, and 2010 was the first full year with speed cameras.

The city defended the program's results by asserting that traffic accidents dropped at six intersections where cameras were used.  That data came from only a small fraction of the city's cameras, and was compiled in late 2012 when the city's program was coming under increasing fire over erroneous citations and many other complaints.  No data from 2012 was provided.  It is unclear why "intersections" were the basis of the city's collision analysis when the cameras involved were speed cameras rather than red light cameras and thus are not necessarily enforcing just in "intersections".

Baltimore's program was shut down in early 2013 after hundreds of erroneous citations were sent out to innocent drivers.

Montgomery County Council Examines Converting Car Lanes To Bus Routes

The Montgomery County council has been working on a proposal to "repurpose" lanes away from cars to support a new $3billion 'rapid transit' bus system.  Supporters of the plan say it will reduce traffic congestion by taking cars off the road.  "Bus rapid transit is rooted in the notion that if you take away a lane for cars on a congested road and set it aside for attractive, light-rail-like buses, some motorists will abandon their cars." wrote the Post.  So far funding for the proposal has not been identified.

Do you support proposals to "repurpose" car lanes for bus only traffic?

Is Parking on a Bike Path Legal?

While it is doubtful that parking on a bike path would be allowed for the peasant folk, Montgomery County's speed camera maintenance vans are apparently "special".

This photo was taken of a camera located on Travillah road just before 9am on 11/11//2013. ( The photographer was parked and was not obstructing any traffic at the time). Since this vehicle does not have "local government" plates, it would not appear to be an actual government registered "law enforcement vehicle".

After this photo was taken, this camera which only photographs speeding cars proceeded to "flash" the photographer as soon as he pulled back onto the road, while he was still traveling at least 5mph below the posted speed limit.

The Maryland Drivers Alliance would love to see any photos our readers might acquire of speed camera vans "being special".  Just use Our Contact Form to reach us.

WUSA9 Investigations: Speedcam loophole & unpublished Montgomery Co. camera sites

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- A WUSA9 investigation casts new doubt on Montgomery County's speed camera program, a system that racks up millions in revenue, because there is no evidence some sites were ever published.

Entire article and video at:

http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/281439/158/WUSA9-Probe-Montgomery-Co-speed-cams-legal

Court Rejects Optotraffic Lawsuit in Ohio

Maryland based speed camera company Optotraffic continues running into difficulties expanding their business into other states, as an article in TheNewspaper.com reports that a court in Ohio has rejected a complaint filed by the company against a local government.

Optotraffic's complaint stemmed from a prior court ruling where a Hamilton County Common Please judge ruled that the speed camera program in the town of Elmwood Place Ohio was illegal.  After  Maryland based Optotraffic failed to actually turn the cameras off in response to the court order, Judge Robert P. Ruehlman, he ordered the sheriff to confiscate the equipment.  Optotraffic filed the complaint in an attempt to reverse the decision and have the equipment returned.

In Maryland it has typically been motorists who have been denied legal recourse.  The Maryland high court has ruled that class action suits cannot be filed against a speed camera program because Maryland law does not permit the government to be sued and because paying speed camera tickets constitutes "the owners' admission that they were speeding" (even though the citations do not use those words and the owner may not even have been driving).  In Ohio however, the tables have been turned on the Maryland based speed camera company.  Optotraffic was forced to withdraw the complaint after the appellate court refused to intervene.  "Judge Ruehlman was the party that made the decision to have the sheriff confiscate the cameras," wrote Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Deters wrote. "However that does not help Optotraffic because they did not join Judge Ruehlman or the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court as a defendant, and the common pleas court is entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity."

Read TheNewspaper.Com article

MDA Exclusive: Brekford representative to travel to Salisbury tomorrow to hand over documents

A source at Salisbury's speed camera vendor, Brekford Corporation, has informed the MDA that a Brekford representative will be meeting with Col. Barclay on Friday, November 8, to deliver "a very large packet" of speed camera calibration certificates.   Col. Barclay manages Salisbury's speed camera program. 

State law requires that the calibration certificates be maintained in the files of each jurisdiction that operates speed cameras.  

The MDA requested calibration certificates from Salisbury five months ago, but the city did not fulfill the request.  Another request was submitted two months ago.  The city has continued to disregard the requests for calibration certificates even after numerous calls and emails to Mayor James Ireton, Council President Jacob Day, the city clerk, City Attorney Mark Tilghman and other city officials.

The Brekford representative also stated that Salisbury will be posting the calibration certificates on the city's website on November 8.

Baltimore City Still Uncertain of Camera Restart Date Due to Accuracy Concerns

The Baltimore Sun reports that Baltimore City is still unable to give a restart date for its speed and red light camera programs, which were shut down six months ago over reports of systematic erroneous citations.

"If we don't have people that can do the job correctly, then we have to find someone who can," said City Councilman Brandon Scott. "This is something that needs to be handled posthaste. It's bad business for us to let the issue hang out there this long." 

Tests have shown that the system sometimes produces inaccurate speed readings, makes address errors and provides incorrect information on how to pay a citation, city officials said. 

"We want to make sure when they go back online, they go back online with accuracy, efficiency and consistency," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday. "The current vendor is not there yet."

 Baltimore City's program was previously run by speed camera contractor Xerox Corporation, the same company which runs the speed camera programs for the SHA, Montgomery County, and Baltimore County.  However at the end of 2012, Xerox was forced to admit that several of its cameras were systematically ticketing innocent motorists, revealing that 1 in 20 tickets at some locations were issued due to erroneous speed readings caused by what Xerox officials referred to as "radar effects".  This admission of the fallibility of speed cameras was the result of an extensive investigation by the Baltimore Sun, which included discovery that a stationary car had received a speeding citation, as well as evidence uncovered by the our organization which included analysis of video and photographic evidence, and the discovery of documents which revealed that the city and Xerox were aware of prior instances of errors and had received prior complaints from businesses about erroneous tickets on more than one occasion.  Baltimore City shut down several speed cameras as a result.

Xerox lost the contract to Brekford corporation at the end of 2012.  However Brekford was forced to shut the program down shortly thereafter when it was revealed that hundreds of additional erroneous citations were issued early in 2013 shortly after Brekford took over the program.

The incidents sparked calls to modify the state's speed camera law to require stricter evidence standards including requiring citations to contain enough information to verify speed in the same manner which the Baltimore Sun did.  However the state legislature rejected the changes at the insistence of local governments which run speed cameras who feared the information would be 'misused' and that 'the courts would be swamped' if falsely accused motorists had access to enough evidence to mount fair defense.

Baltimore City had originally budgeted to bring in over $15 million in revenue from its speed and red light camera program, however Mayor Rawlings Blake told the Sun "We look for ways to become more efficient and absorb that loss" and that "there are no programs that are going to be cut."

A report on Fox Baltimore stated that when it was noted to Mayor Rawlings Blake that the program had been shut down for six months, the mayor responded "Your welcome."

Baltimore City's current contractor, Brekford Corp, also runs the speed camera programs in Hagerstown, Laurel, Greenbelt, Morningside, and Salisbury.  Brekford was forced to issue thousands of speed camera ticket refunds when it was discovered that cameras in Greenbelt and Hagerstown were operating with expired calibrations.  This year the cities of Salisbury and Morningside both denied public information act requests for calibration records made by the Maryland Drivers Alliance, and we are still to this day attempting to obtain those records.

Additional Coverage
WBAL: Conflicting Reports on Status of City Speed Camera Program

Baltimore County Calibrations Lapsed

The Baltimore Sun reports that twelve Baltimore County Speed cameras  were secretly shut down in February-March of this year, and more than 1467 citations voided, after the annual calibrations for the devices were allowed to lapse by speed camera contractor Xerox Corp.

Xerox corporation reported to the Baltimore county government in February that it had failed to re-certify the twelve devices prior to the expiration of their calibration certificates, which are required by law every year.  The county quietly took the devices offline so they could be re calibrated, and no announcement was made of this certification lapse at the time it took place.  The devices were put back online in March.

At the time this reported lapse took place, the state legislature had been considering changes to the state's speed camera law which would have set much more stringent standards for cameras, including requiring a means to verify vehicle speed after the fact from citation images.  The legislature rejected the proposed changes, partially on the word of an organization which lobbies on behalf of the counties which profit from speed cameras (The Maryland Association of Counties or MACO) that stricter standards were not needed because speed cameras are calibrated annually.

Had news of a calibration laps become public at that time, it would likely have worked against MaCo and Xerox's arguments to the legislature that stricter standards were not required.

By pure coincidence, a public records request had been placed on behalf of our organization for Baltimore County's documents on January 28, 2013.  In February, we received a letter confirming that our request would be granted.  However no calibration records were actually provided to us with that letter, and we did not actually receive any certificates until June.... well after the end of the legislative session.

The county also denied a portion of that same records request for the "FCC ID" (an identifier issued by the Federal Communications Commission for radio emitting electronic devices to ensure they operate only at particular frequencies and avoid interference with other devices), claiming that private contractor Xerox was the custodian of this information.  Three local government which used this particular model of camera (G1-ATR) had been asked for its FCC ID, and none were able to provide the information.

Gansler Comes Clean on Speed Camera Ticket

Attorney General Doug Gansler has admitted that a state vehicle issued to him had received a speed camera citation from the District of Columbia.  The Washington Post recently reported on inappropriate demands which state police alleged that Gansler had made to drivers assigned to transport him.  Gansler denied a report that he had received and refused to pay a speeding ticket he got in the mail stating “There’s a public record to show I never got a speeding ticket, so we know that’s not true.”

The Washington Post now reports that Gansler has acknowledged that the Attorney General's Office was issued a ticket by the District of Columbia for a vehicle assigned to him.  Maryland state troopers had previously reported that the citation was issued "while the Attorney General was operating the vehicle in DC".  The citation, issued in June of 2012, was issued for traveling 21-25mph over the speed limit in a 30mph zone at the 2300 block of Porter Street NW.  The fine for the citation had been doubled because it was overdue.  Gansler says he has now paid the citation which he had "inadvertently not paid", without determining who was driving, according to the Post.

After Three Years, Brentwood Records Request Still Unresolved

Two Maryland Public Information Act requests we filed with the Town of Brentwood continue to be unresolved more than three years after the first request was sent to the town.

The requests were prompted by reports of erroneous speed readings by Optotraffic cameras, including ones in Brentwood, and also evidence that the speed limit boundaries on US1 had been altered prior to the deployment of a speed limit in Brentwood at that location.  The first request had been filed in October 2010.  Despite the fact that a certified mail receipt showed the request was received on October 18, 2010, and despite several inquiries we made to the town by email, no response was received for well over a year.

A second request requesting "correspondence between Brentwood and Optotraffic" pertaining to speed camera errors, as well as documents such as citation review procedures, was sent and received via certified mail in December 2011.  Once again, the request was not responded to within the time period required by law.  When the town eventually sent a letter in reply many months later in June 2012, they still provided no records and "neither granted nor formally denied" the request, and instead sent a fee schedule including a $200/hour fee for attorney services, with no total payable amount and no guarantee any documents would actually be provided if this were paid.  A response by us to this letter went unanswered for many more months.  In 2013 several letters were exchanged with the town over the matter, at which point the $200/hour fee was repeated by the town.  Brentwood provided few pages of budget information and the total number of tickets they issued, which was not part of the requests, and did not provide any "correspondence" or other documents we had actually requested.

More than 1000 days after the first request was received by the town, we filed the complaint in Circuit Court.  Filing such a complaint is not something we would take lightly.  We had sought to exhaust every other possible recourse before doing so, and those efforts are well documented in our complaint.  Simply put, it isn't supposed to require going to court or having teams of attorneys to obtain public records.  Anyone is supposed to be able to ask for them and get a response compliant with the Act within 30 days.

Brentwood has since filed an answer to the complaint, in which they admitted many of our assertions.  In their answer the town admitted that they did not respond within the timelines required by the MPIA, and that they 'neither granted nor formally denied' our request even in their 2012 letter.... about 20 months after the first request was received.

This is unfortunately only one of many examples of how poor compliance by local governments with the state's open records laws.  Indeed, we have seen this situation grow worse this year.  Last year StateIntegrity.org gave Maryland D- on it's "corruption risk report card" and an "F" on "Public Access to Information".  Maryland placed 40th out of 50 states in this ranking.  Certain public officials, such as Doug Gansler, have promised initiatives to improve government transparency.  Such initiatives definitely have merit.  Unfortunately the actions of the Office of Attorney General during Gansler's term does not, in our experience based on several interactions with the OAG, demonstrate a commitment to open government. In our opinion based on prior experience, the OAG is more likely to assist a local or state agency in circumventing the MPIA than they are to investigate an instance where a local government has violated the law.  And if the OAG, which publishes the state's manual on the Public Information Act, won't get involved in a positive way then what other state agency will?  Until such time as public officials currently in state office use the authority given to them to enforce the state's open records laws, it will continue to be up to private organizations and individuals to take matters into their own hands.

SHA Deploys New Camera in Frederick County

The Maryland State Highway Administration has announced that a new speed camera will be deployed in a workzone on Route 340/US 15 in Frederick County.  The location is between I-70 and Zion Road.  Tickets will begin going out on November 12.

The new mobile speed camera site, which is all about safety and has nothing to do with revenue, will be located in workzone where the highway speed limit has been temporarily reduced from 65mph to 55mph.  Citations may be issued 24/7 and "regardless of whether workers are present", according to the wording of state law.

The SHA deploys speed cameras in cooperation with the Maryland State Police under a contract with Xerox State and Local Solutions (formerly known as ACS State and Local Solutions).  Xerox is the same contractor who formerly ran Baltimore City's program before they lost the contract and the program was shut down due to revelations of systematic errors, errors which occurred even though the Baltimore devices passed all calibration tests.  To prove accuracy, the SHA now publishes annual calibration certificates online... certificates issued by the same "independent calibration lab" (MRA Digital) which "certified" the cameras which produced the errors in Baltimore.  However the SHA and Xerox need not worry about speed measurement errors being proven in the SafeZones program using the same method that erroneous speed readings were proven by us and by the Baltimore Sun, since unlike Baltimore City the SHA rounds off timestamps on citations to the nearest second and Xerox has refused requests to provide the time intervals for lidar cameras, even in response to a subpoena.  The SHA advocated against a change in the law which would have made precise timestamps mandatory in order to detect errors, a change which was successfully blocked with the assistance of heavy lobbying by Montgomery County and groups like the Maryland Association of Counties.

Another Optotraffic Client Faces Lawsuit

Maryland based speed camera company Optotraffic is running into more difficulties expanding their business into other states, as the city of Lucas Ohio is being sued over the legality of their camera program which Optotraffic runs, according to the Mansfield News Journal.

60 individuals, mostly from the towns of Mansfield, Lucas, and Perrysville.  Several business are also represented in the suit.  The town of Lucas started their speed camera program in February under contract with Maryland based Optotraffic LLC.  Several attorneys who had been approached separately by different clients came together to file a single class action suit.  Attorneys for the motorists laid out the complaints:

Cassandra Mayer, another of the seven attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said the local lawsuit is similar to one brought against the Village of Elmwood Place in Hamilton County. 

Attorneys for people issued speeding citations say the speed camera ordinance is invalid and unenforceable because the municipality never certified that it met state requirements to post the ordinance for at least 15 days before the program went into effect. 

They also argue that procedures for appealing tickets are not consistent with rules governing Ohio’s mayor’s courts, don’t require proper service of violation notices, don’t permit those receiving tickets to require the village or Optotraffic to testify or produce evidence and don’t permit parties to subpoena witnesses. 

“There is no right of confrontation,” Mayer said. “If somebody wants to challenge it, the ordinance does not provide for notice to attorneys,” she said. 

Under the ordinance, a vehicle owner trying to fight the ticket cannot merely convince a hearing officer that they weren’t driving, but must provide the name and address of the real driver — potentially requiring them to testify against a spouse, the lawsuit said.
Clients raised issues concerning whether speeding violations actually occurred, Mayer said. Some tickets were given on stretches of Ohio 39 where state speeds, not local speeds, actually were in effect, Mayer said. “In some of the pictures, you can even see the 55 mph speeding sign in the background,” she said.

The city has responded that they have done nothing wrong and that as a local government entity they are immune to being sued.

The nearby town of Elmwood place, also an Optotraffic Client, had their speed camera slammed and shut down by an Ohio judge over similar complaints.

While Ohio courts have been skeptical of these programs and willing to intervene under their interpretation Ohio's laws in some cases, Maryland courts have refused to consider similar cases.  In Maryland the Court of Appeals ruled that paying a fine is considered an "admission that they were speeding" (using those precise words without consideration of the issue that one might not even have been driving), and therefore that the only way to dispute the manner in which a speed camera program is run is to contest each individual ticket in district court, and ruled that under Maryland law the government is immune to class action suits regardless of whether the issue in dispute has merit and regardless of the severity or systematic nature of the issue in dispute.

Source: Mansfield News Journal: Lucas sued over its traffic cameras

Washington Post Article: MD Trooper Memos Depict AG Gansler as "Reckless Passenger"

The Washington Post has published a series of memos written by state troopers assigned to Attorney General Doug Gansler which document a series of safety related complaints by the police.

Excerpts from the Washington Post Article:

"Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler regularly ordered state troopers assigned to drive him to turn on the lights and sirens on the way to routine appointments, directing them to speed, run red lights and bypass traffic jams by using the shoulder, according to written accounts by the Maryland State Police.
When troopers refused to activate the emergency equipment, Gansler, now a Democratic candidate for governor, often flipped the switches himself, according to the police accounts. And on occasion, he became so impatient that he insisted on driving, directing the trooper to the passenger’s seat. Gansler once ran four red lights with sirens blaring, a trooper wrote. Another account said he “brags” about driving the vehicle unaccompanied on weekends with the sirens on.
“This extremely irresponsible behavior is non-stop and occurs on a daily basis,” Lt. Charles Ardolini, commander of the state police executive protection section, wrote in a December 2011 memo that said the problem had existed for five years. “Attorney General Gansler has consistently acted in a way that disregards public safety, our Troopers safety and even the law.”
In the Dec. 16, 2011, memo, Ardolini said he realized how serious the problem had become that March after he saw Gansler’s SUV driving “Code 1” — speeding with lights and sirens — on Interstate 97.”

[...]

...a trooper wrote that he was “directed by the Attorney General that he was going to drive himself to the first event and for me to sit in the passenger seat.”
“While riding in the passenger seat,” he wrote, “I observed the Attorney General exceeding the speed limit, using his lights and siren to move people out of the way, hit the shoulder with his lights, and turn his lights and sirens on to go through four red lights.”
The same trooper reported that Gansler had “ordered and asked me on several occasions to run the shoulder while activating my lights and sirens. The Attorney General has also informed me that ‘Troopers do not sit in traffic.’ While driving him he constantly informs me that Troopers drive as fast as possible to events. 

In the documents obtained by The Post, the troopers also cite several things allegedly said by Gansler that they found troubling. Among them: “Stop signs are optional” and “I don’t care how fast we drive. The faster the better.” 

Ardolini’s memo said Gansler insisted on driving with lights and sirens to routine events such as “breakfast, meetings and his children’s sporting events.” 

[...]

The documents provided to The Post also include references to a few speeding tickets that involved Gansler’s vehicle when troopers said they were not driving it.
An e-mail written by Ardolini in November 2012 said a trooper told him about a speeding ticket Gansler received that remained unpaid. “He threw it away and said he was not paying it,” Ardolini wrote.
Wheelock said Gansler has no recollection of receiving any speeding tickets while driving the state-owned SUV.

A spokesperson for Attorney General Dough Gansler, Bob Wheelock, denies the reports.  "Wheelock said it’s common for troopers to drive faster than the speed limit when traveling with elected officials, and he questioned the motives of Ardolini," the Post reported.

“Doug was feeling like he was being given second-tier or too recently trained troopers," The Post Quoted Bob Wheellock as saying, "They were very inexperienced, and several of them didn’t know the area well. That was a source of irritation to Doug.”   A spokesperson for the Maryland State Police, Greg Shipley, was reported by the Post as saying that the executive protection section has no "second-tier" troopers.

Read the complete article in the Washington Post
Read State Trooper memos published by the Post


The Maryland Attorney General is the chief legal officer for the state, and heads the Office of Attorney General(OAG) which advises state agencies and the legislature on law.  During Gansler's term as Attorney General, the OAG has intervened in traffic enforcement issues in several recent instances by writing legal opinions supporting interpretations of the law convenient for local governments and opposing the interests of Motorist rights.  Among the opinions issued under Gansler's watch was a "get out of jail free card" which condoned Montgomery County's contingent fee speed camera contract.  This set a precedent for most speed camera contractors across the entire state to be paid based on the number of tickets issued, despite the fact that even Governor O'Malley has said this practice violates the intent of current law.  The Office For Attorney General also issued an opinion that citizens could not petition for referendums on speed cameras at the county level, unless this is a specific local law permits it. This is one of the reasons that only one local jurisdiction in the state has ever put speed cameras to a referendum.  The OAG also wrote an opinion which went against the decision of a circuit court judge who dismissed a speed camera citation, in a case which had appeared in the press.

While the OAG acted in support of local governments on these issues, when the editor of this website attempted to bring violations of the law BY speed camera programs to the attention of the OAG (including alleged violations of the Public Information Act by local governments and an instance of alleged forgery by local government officials) the OAG replied in each instance that they do not get involved in local government matters.

Doug Gansler is currently running for governor of Maryland.  Gansler denied charges of 'back seat driving' and responded that the complaints are a political attack by supporters of one of his opponents in the upcoming democratic primary.  “That story was based on one of the O’Malley-Brown henchmen. The guy actually works in the governor’s mansion” stated Gansler.  A statement by the Maryland State Police objected to troopers being referred to has "henchmen" and to the assertion that they engage in politically motivated actions , according to another article in the Post.

Additional Coverage:
WBAL: Troopers Complain About Gansler's "Backseat Driving"
NBC: Gansler Responds to 'Irresponsible Behavior' Allegations
Baltimore Sun: Gansler responds to claims he ordered troopers to drive in unsafe manner
Washington Post: Maryland state police rebuke Gansler for calling veteran trooper a ‘henchman’

DC Council Examines Ticket Adjudication Process

WTOP reports that the DC council is considering a bill which would alter the ticket adjudication process.  The Traffic Adjudication Amendment Act of 2013 would require the DMV to rule on appeals within 6 months or automatically dismiss citations, and also permit drivers to reopen cases "if there's new evidence that clearly demonstrates their innocence."
Read Text of Bill

Many drivers think these measures will fix what they call a broken system. 

"It's their position that they're right. We don't really have a lot we can say," said Jocelyn Johnson, who testified at the hearing before the council's Committee on Transportation and the Environment. "No matter what you tell them, you have to go through so many hoops. It goes above and beyond because they don't have a process to give you the benefit of anything."

That sentiment has been echoed many times to WTOP since the Ticketbuster series launched earlier this year. Many drivers are upset with the DMV over what they see as red tape and a lack of customer service. Some feel the department's hearing examiners are predisposed to finding ways to rule against drivers on challenged tickets.

DMV Director Lucinda Babers disagreed with that assessment when asked about whether the process is fair.

"Absolutely I believe so," Babers said. "I review hundreds of these cases. If I believed they weren't, then I'd do something about it if they have evidence to support it."

WTOP reports that DC writes 1.8-2million tickets for various types of violations every year.  For parking and speed camera tickets which are appealed the city is not required to meet the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt", but only "preponderance of evidence" or "clear and convincing evidence" respectively, which is a far lower standard in legal terms.  WTOP found several cases where motorists had been fined for violations issued to a license plate which they had surrendered years earlier, and reported that they frequently hear complaints of "poor customer service" with respect to DC tickets. 

The Transportation and Environment committee, chaired by Councilwoman Mary Cheh, must now review the bill's language and decide whether to change, approve or kill it.

Read complete story on WTOP

New Cell Phone Law in Effect

Maryland drivers are reminded that the state law banning the use of hand held cell phones has recently been modified to make it a primary offense, which means motorists can be stopped at any time for using a hand-held cell phone.  Maryland had a cell phone ban on the book for several years but police were not permitted to stop a motorist solely for this reason until the legislature amended the law this year.  Police have begun enforcing the new law, which now carries a $75 fine for the first offense and higher fines for second and third offenses.

Police officers are specifically exempted from Maryland's cell phone law.
Read Text of Cell Phone Legislation.