Connected Contracts Continue
The Arizona company whose red-light cameras have pumped out more than a million Chicago tickets will be paid $32 million just to maintain its first 136 video surveillance systems, under a five-year contract approved by City Hall last month.
Redflex Traffic Systems has installed 248 cameras at 123 accident-prone Chicago intersections since 2003, with 50 more intersections planned for 2009. The cameras have raised $94.5 million and reduced red-light running by 59 percent.
The catch?
- It requires Redflex to "maintain an 85 percent prosecution rate" and pay penalties and damages for malfunctioning cameras.
"prosecution rate"? We're assuming that's different from "conviction rate" which might lead to uncomfortable questions about timing of the lights and all. And the beneficiaries?
- Redflex lobbyists include former Chicago Ald. Mark Fary (12th), husband of O'Hare expansion chief Rosemarie Andolino, and William Griffin, a friend of Mayor Daley and Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th).
Ah, the pleasures of being connected.
Labels: city politics
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
20 Comments:
Who owns or is affiliated to Redflex? Or has stock in it?
And this comes as a surprise to someone?
how come tara quit buyin g the gas masks for personel cause the city don't pay thier bills? isnt it fed funded?
Why is there a red light camera at Touhy and Oketo? Its a T intersection and I live on the block and have never seen an accident at this location. Can you say stick it to those who have $100.00 to just mail in. This city is a joke and the Mayo has just become more empowered can you see son Patrick taking his place soon!!!!!!
Things will never change. They will only get worse now.
Isn't it true that with a red light camera comes a second or half second shortening in the yellow light? If true thats a big difference. Can you say sandbagging.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Why is there a red light camera at Touhy and Oketo? Its a T intersection and I live on the block and have never seen an accident at this location. Can you say stick it to those who have $100.00 to just mail in. This city is a joke and the Mayo has just become more empowered can you see son Patrick taking his place soon!!!!!!
11/05/2008 08:34:00 AM
*****************************
I live just down the street on Northwest Highway and was thinking the same thing. If I sent my kids to Juliana's, I wouldn't want those cameras recording them 24/7. There's another new one at Harlem and Higgins - an intersection with a generous delay after each red light. I'm willing to bet they messed with the yellow light timing, though.
I e-mailed Doherty about it and, you can bet your ass that the prick didn't reply. He'll get re-elected anyway - nevermind what people think or want that live in his ward and pay his $110k+ salary!
The first comment is right on with asking who owns Redflex or who has stock....
Follow the money trail, it'll show you the corrupted assholes involved, (if any). Look at the idiot who's pushing in the pile, good place to start.
The feds aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, keep looking and asking, it'll make the assholes wonder if your on to there game.
Speaking of Red Light Cameras, be wary of the ones in Rosemont.
If you do not come to a 100% full stop on a red light, before hitting the wide, white line, before a right on red YOU WILL GET A TICKET.
I watched my "incident" on the company's web site, I came to a 99% stop and I still got one.
At least our cameras don't activate unless the vehicle is going over 15 mph.
Red Light Cameras: Higgins & Harlem will be a gold mine for the city with cars exiting & entering Xpressway. Toughy & Oketo, big drops there guy, BIG!!!! $$$$
Isn't it true that with a red light camera comes a second or half second shortening in the yellow light? If true thats a big difference. Can you say sandbagging.
11/05/2008 09:39:00 AM
****************
Yes. As it is now, every intersection I've tested with a digital video camera does not comply with Federal MUTCD recommendations for yellow-light phase timing. The ITE has a formula that takes into account 85th percentile traffic speed and intersection width that's not followed either. The only reason the city gets away with it is because the Federally accepted minimum is 3.0s, and our lights are timed precisely at 3 seconds on the nose. Kostner and North is a wide intersection..it's 3 seconds. Smaller intersections are the same, which is what throws drivers off even further. The one at Foster/Nagle used to be 2.8s until I disclosed that finding in a hearing for my defense a couple years ago. I checked it a few weeks later and it was at 3.0s. There is simply no way to beat the tickets through their Administrative Hearings Office. You can get in front of a judge, but it'll cost you $98 and change in non-refundable court fees. It's cheaper to just pay the $90 and walk.
If you examine light timings in suburbs, you will notice their phases of both yellow light timing as well as red-red phase are both a lot more generous. The intersection at Northwest Highway and washington in Park Ridge (speed limit of 25mph) is another T intersection, and that light is in excess of 4.0 seconds, and the intersection isn't wide at all (two lanes). There is no camera there, btw.
I'm all for prosecuting blatant red-light runners, but I'd say a good portion of those fined are done so where the spirit of the law isn't being upheld - it's merely an excuse to generate revenue.
North/Kostner also doesn't comply with any MUTCD recommendations for signal clarity, intersection ambiguity prevention, etc. It's designed to fail (and make money). Nevermind how many people get in accidents..every one of those is another possible violation!
I went to Arizona Corp. data base Deleware corp. (suprise) any names look familiar???
Joe the Citizen.
................................
File Number: F-1037207-8
Corp. Name: REDFLEX TRAFFIC SYSTEMS, INC.
Domestic Address 23751 N 23RD AVENUE
PHOENIX, AZ 85085
Foreign Address 160 GREENTREE DRIVE, SUITE 101
DOVER, DE 19904
Statutory Agent Information Agent Name: NATIONAL REGISTERED AGENTS INC
Agent Mailing/Physical Address:
638 N FIFTH AVE
PHOENIX, AZ 85003
Agent Status: APPOINTED 08/27/2002
Agent Last Updated: 07/28/2005
Additional Corporate Information Corporation Type: BUSINESS Business Type: PHOTO TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT
Incorporation Date: 08/27/2002 Corporate Life Period: PERPETUAL
Domicile: DELAWARE County: MARICOPA
Approval Date: 08/27/2002 Original Publish Date: 09/23/2002
Officer Information KAREN FINLEY
PRESIDENT/CEO
23751 N 23RD AVENUE
PHOENIX,AZ 85085
Date of Taking Office: 12/09/2005
Last Updated: 09/24/2008
CRISTINA WEEKES
SECRETARY
23751 N 23RD AVENUE
PHOENIX,AZ 85085
Date of Taking Office: 03/23/2007
Last Updated: 09/24/2008
Director Information CHRISTOPHER AUSTIN COOPER
DIRECTOR
23751 N 23RD AVENUE
PHOENIX,AZ 85085
Date of Taking Office: 08/06/2003
Last Updated: 09/24/2008
GRAHAM DAVIE
DIRECTOR
23751 N 23RD AVENUE
PHOENIX,AZ 85085
Date of Taking Office: 11/26/2002
Last Updated: 09/24/2008
ROBIN DEBERNADI
DIRECTOR
23751 N 23RD AVENUE
PHOENIX,AZ 85085
Date of Taking Office: 11/26/2002
Last Updated: 09/24/2008
Annual Reports
Next Annual Report Due: 08/27/2009
Just drive right and you have nothing to worry about. But you must now come to a complete stop before a right on red, or they gotcha!
Here's one for you...
The first to become the 3rd vehilce invloved in a crash and you can show it was caused by an over-reacting driver because of the camera, just sue REDFLEX and hopefully your jury pool by that time is full of pissed off ticketed motorists... couple of those and maybe they'll rethink the great money maker idea...??
How many red light cameras are in clout heavy Bridgeport in comparison to blue collar areas like Jefferson Park? Oh, notice how there's not too many in tourist traps. They get robbed anyway because downtown tax is like 11.25%. Now Cook County is pressuring suburbs to put up cameras or the county will. I can't wait until these money makers are made illegal!!!!!
Anonymous said...
Things will never change. They will only get worse now.
11/05/2008 08:36:00 AM
You got that right.Hope Fitzgerald goes into high gear for the next month or so before President Daley orders Obama to remove him.Patrick,fire away before January.
HURRY....HURRY....HURRY
You probably don't have kids that cross that intersection,stand there in the morning and at about 3:00 in the afternoon. If you drive normal you don't have to worry. It is not just neighborhodd people driving on Touhy (a state highway)you will see why we have a red light camera. Ald. Doherty was a big help.
A new 'tow truck law' took effect July 1, 2008, which is to be enforced by the Illinois Commerce Commission Police.
The boss of the Illinois Commerce Commission Police in Des Plaines is SHAWN KELLY.
Shawn Kelly is the daughter of CHRIS KELLY, one of Blago's top fundraisers, now under indictment.
Shawn makes about $130,000/year and is in her early thirties.
Do you think she really gives a shit about tow trucks or anything else?
Don't think I need to say any more,
except to do what you need to do with the dirty tow truck scumbags out there.
And by the way, Pam Zekman knows all about that little tidbit....why isn't THAT on the news?????
NYC to Make Public Safety Cuts
City will cancel NYPD's January police academy class
Posted: November 5th, 2008 12:11 PM EDT
By SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK --
Canceling a new class of police officers is one of several extreme measures that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to make to steer the nation's largest city through an economic slowdown that he says is just beginning.
Bloomberg was set on Wednesday to outline revisions to the city's $59 billion budget that slash jobs and spending in an attempt to bridge billion-dollar deficits, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made.
The sobering news includes the decision to cancel January's class of more than 1,000 police cadets. The police department will go without those officers, and the next class will begin in July. It is an unusual decision for a mayor - during tough times in the early 1990s, mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani delayed the start date of academy classes by a few months, but did not cancel them entirely.
I would like to see one installed at 79th/Pulaski and 79th/Cicero A.s.a.p! Can you do it alderman?
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