Now that revenue from photo radar has officially failed to meet the lofty, $90-million expectations of former Governor Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Supreme Court will decide on whether to give the go-ahead to proposed changes in the rules on how the tickets are served.
The way it works now is, people speed, the camera takes a picture, and a ticket is mailed to the address where the car is registered. Anyone who pays this ticket is an idiot because there is no legal consequence for chuckin' it in the trash. It's not until a process server hand-delivers a speeder a ticket that the person is on the hook for the citation. And the reality of a process server paying a visit to everyone who gets nabbed by a camera is implausible.
Unfortunately, Paradise Valley Police Chief John "Buzz-Kill" Wintersteen has a problem with the "loophole" and petitioned the Supreme Court to change it.
If Chief Buzz Kill has his way, tickets could be legally served through first-class U.S. mail.
Wintersteen tells KPHO that photo enforcement saves lives and prevents accidents -- a claim that has been widely disputed by many opponents of the cameras.
Those same opponents argue that the proposed change has little to do with safety and more to do with bringin' in some moolah.
DPS officials estimate that if all photo-enforcement tickets were actually paid, the state would have raked in about $127 million so far. Rather, many people have opted to play a game of catch-me-if-you-can with the state -- which has allowed the government to only collect about $36.8 million.
That's not exactly chump-change, but that's the (ahem) beauty of a money-grab -- the more creative the grabber gets, the more money there typically is to grab.
