On the other hand, had Cisneros been driving a corporate vehicle — if her car had been registered to her mortgage company, for example — there would have been no story.
No process servers would have come. No court date would have been assigned.
Laura Segall
Redflex Traffic Systems processes photo tickets in this nameless north Scottsdale building.
Laura Segall
David Pickron runs a process-serving company that delivers photo-enforcement tickets.
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Cisneros would have skated like Wolf & Associates did. The Phoenix law firm triggered 18 photo violations in Scottsdale in the first nine months of 2006. One Loop 101 violation was for going 97 mph.
Repeated calls to the firm for comment were unreturned.
Scottsdale records show that Wolf & Associates, which advertises that it defends people charged in auto accidents and with DUIs, never responded to violation notices. It's not like the firm has a large fleet, either: The MVD says five vehicles are registered to the company.
So while one speeder goes to jail and faces public scorn and ridicule for ignoring multiple tickets, a big law firm does the same thing with no consequence.
The photo-enforcement system is like a bad cop.
It's like a bigot on crystal meth — a sleepless, unfair lawman who ignores certain types of drivers as it punishes others.
And it's multiplying. Six Valley cities now use speed or red light cameras: Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, and Paradise Valley. Glendale and other Arizona cities are considering them.
Because of the Loop 101 program, photo enforcement has been huge news lately in Arizona. Governor Janet Napolitano lauded the program last month and suggested that cameras be installed on other stretches of state highways. On January 30, the Scottsdale City Council voted to reactivate the Loop 101 system. The cameras are slated to start flashing again on February 22.
Authorities insist the public must respect these badgeless auto-police.
You're supposed to pay your ticket promptly when the photograph clearly shows it's you in the driver's seat. If someone else was driving, you're supposed to tattle on that person — wife, daughter, best friend, trusted employee, whomever.
Then again, photo enforcement doesn't play fair — so why should you ?
Screw the machines.
Savvy motorists have long known that ignoring a ticket can be effective in beating it, and numbers show this is no urban myth. More than 25 percent of the 90,520 people issued photo citations on Loop 101 in Scottsdale last year had their cases dismissed this way.
Knowing the system is the key. Once you do, you can choose what's right for you: opening your wallet with a resigned sigh, or taking countermeasures.
Sure, there are ethical considerations in playing cat-and-mouse with the process server or in putting a glare-producing shield over your license plate. But when the system lets tens of thousands of corporate vehicle drivers get away with speeding and running red lights at all times, it's easy to forget about personal ethics when it comes to photo tickets.
You see, vehicles registered to a corporation, limited liability corporation (also known as an LLC), limited partnership, or family trust are immune to photo tickets. So are public entities like city governments (though some do occasionally pay tickets received from other jurisdictions).
Here's why: The police and courts may send process servers to visit the home of someone who blew off a mailed ticket. But they don't do the same thing for businesses.
Lawyers say Arizona civil traffic violations can only be issued to a real, live person. Since the corporation can't be held liable, there's no reason to serve it the ticket.
Most cities don't send real citations to corporations. They send weakly worded notices that can be safely thrown in the trash. Unlike the grim tone of a citation, which orders the motorist to pay a fine or appear in court on a certain date, the violation notices let the company know up front: "This is not a Summons to Appear. There is no fine associated with this Notice."
The notices sent to businesses gently ask them to identify the driver and mail the form back so a new ticket can be reissued in the driver's name. No law forces anyone to do that, however.
Scottsdale's been mailing such notices for years; Mesa and Phoenix started sending them last year. Tempe sends businesses a letter instead of a citation.
Police do nothing when the notices are disregarded. Granted, police could choose to investigate repeat offenders like Wolf & Associates — but they've never done so.
The process is slightly different in Chandler and Paradise Valley, which sends all violators, regardless of the name of the registered owner, a citation. The result is the same, though. Corporations, trusts and government entities that blow off the notices are not held accountable.
Officer Jed Gunter, Chandler's photo-enforcement manager, receives a daily list of violators who ignored their mailed tickets. He asks the court to sic process servers on most of them. But not all.
"If there are any corporations, I just go ahead and X them out, because you can't serve a corporation," he says.
Asked why Chandler never tries to catch repeat corporate offenders, Gunter replies, "I've never thought about it."
Mailing the businesses toothless notices, rather than citations, saves work for police and courts. The reason is, citations, unlike notices, are filed with the court just before being mailed.
