Missouri towns struggle to collect traffic-light camera fines

ST. LOUIS -- Red-light traffic cameras have generated a steady stream of revenue for cities in the St. Louis area as motorists caught running red lights pay fines of $100 per violation. But cities that installed the cameras are finding it's not so easy to collect from those who refuse to pay the tickets.

For a regular traffic ticket, failure to respond often results in a judge ordering a warrant to arrest the driver. But on the majority of red-light camera tickets, the court cannot be sure that the registered owner of the vehicle was driving, making it difficult to issue an arrest warrant.

The reason is simple: It's tough to arrest the culprit if his or her identity is unknown.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday that chronic red-light violators represent a weakness in photo-enforcement programs. Other drivers appear to be changing their habits: A sharp decline in camera citations has been reported at several St. Louis intersections.

Because most red-light cameras take a picture only of the car -- not the driver -- it's difficult for cities here and around the country to make people pay.

For example, Mikel Ramsey Jr.'s vehicle has been clicked more than two dozen times by red-light traffic cameras in St. Louis, racking up $2,600 in fines. Ramsey hasn't paid a dime of it. But the city has not impounded his car or hauled him off to jail. Police aren't even looking for him.

Officials acknowledge that, for now, there's little they can do.

"If you threw it in the trash," says St. Louis Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr., chairman of the aldermanic Traffic Committee, "nothing would happen."

Ramsey, 28, could not be reached for comment, but a lawyer who has represented him previously said his advice was not to pay the fines.

The lawyer, Herman Jimerson, said the city had no way of knowing if Ramsey was driving the car at the time of the infractions, or if he had lent the vehicle out.

"We are not into enforcing moral obligations here," Jimerson said. "If they are saying he violated the law, I say prove it. And I don't think they can."

In 2005, Arnold became the first city in the area to install the cameras. Since then, St. Louis, St. Peters, Florissant, Creve Coeur, Hazelwood, Bel-Nor and St. John have followed. Brentwood and even the tiny hamlet of Moline Acres with an area of less than a square mile installed cameras recently.

In St. Louis, the cameras have raised more than $1.4 million since they were activated nearly a year ago. But many of the fines are going uncollected. In Arnold, about 30 percent of the citations issued from October 2005 through January had not been paid. The nonpayment rate in St. Louis is about 35 percent.

In Florissant, a pair of vehicles has each racked up $1,200 in fines. Two drivers from out of state one from Peoria, Ill., the other from Philadelphia owe Florissant $500 apiece.

"Right now, we have no active program to go after these people other than request that they comply with the law," said Timothy W. Kelly, the municipal judge in Florissant.

Kelly presides over red-light camera court, held four times a month in Florissant. There, drivers contesting tickets face what is often fairly convincing evidence a video of them cruising through the light. But if a driver decides to ignore the ticket altogether, the next step is typically just another letter requesting that they respond.

"It's not enough," Kelly said. "We need to take more steps."

Some cities have sought to address the shortcomings by employing a creative definition of what it means to run a red light, or making it a separate crime to ignore the violations notice.

Last year, the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur established the infraction of "violation of public safety at intersections," committed when a "motor vehicle of which that person is an owner is present in an intersection" while the traffic signal is red.

The law applies only at intersections with cameras. It also allows the city to prosecute individuals for simply not responding to a citation notice. Creve Coeur city attorney Carl Lumley says he believes, based on cases elsewhere, that the tactic would pass legal scrutiny though it's never been tested there.

"I can't tell you that I have a court that says, 100 percent, this is OK. Because I don't," Lumley said. "It's just our opinion."

The approach -- crafting new laws narrowly tailored to help aid camera enforcement -- strikes one expert as dubious.

"It's what they did to Al Capone," said St. Louis University law professor Eric J. Miller. "They really wanted Al Capone for racketeering, but they could only prove tax violations. This is worse. Here they are creating a specific crime to punish you because they cannot get you on the first crime."