In case you haven’t noticed, many counties and municipalities around Mississippi, most notably Jackson, have placed cameras at street intersections in an attempt to enforce traffic violations.
The purpose of the cameras is to take pictures of license plates on vehicles that fail to stop or stop for the appropriate length of time at the intersection.
I’ve heard people complain it is long enough for the driver to get out of the vehicle, run completely around it once and get back in. I’m not sure if that is supposed to include ample time to unfasten and refasten the seatbelt or not.
There are many problems with these cameras. First, there are the annoying operating procedures. The cameras only work the way they were intended if they are calibrated correctly according to the width of the intersection. In order to drive through most intersections in Mississippi, supposedly, it takes six seconds from the time the driver puts his foot on the accelerator to the time the back of the vehicle clears the intersection.
Of course, the problems don’t stop with the logistics. There are legal problems as well. First of all, there is no way to appeal the ticket short of paying a lawyer a retainer fee to fight it in court. Since the ticket is generally much cheaper ($75-$100) than a lawyer’s retaining fee (about $500), most people will simply pay the ticket and not fight it.
This sounds more like “guilty until proven innocent” than “innocent until proven guilty,” the concept our legal system is based upon. Second, since there is no policeman there, exactly who is the accuser the defendant has the right to stand face to face with?
Finally, there are no laws on the books to authorize the counties and municipalities to place the cameras there. Of course, if we had a competent person in the Mississippi attorney general’s office, this column wouldn’t be necessary. The cameras would automatically be deemed illegal until such time as regulatory laws were placed on the books.
The proponents of what I like to call “scameras” say the placement of these cameras is a public safety issue. I disagree. It is simply a follow-the-money issue, much like radar speed detection was many years ago.
Back then, the Mississippi Legislature had both the brains and the guts to take radar away from counties and municipalities that failed to meet a minimum population, and to date, only a handful of counties and municipalities have radar.
Let’s hope our current legislature is competent enough to do the same with the traffic “scameras.” The bill that is currently sitting before the Mississippi Senate Highways and Transportation Committee and the Judiciary B Committee is numbered SB-2743.
The bill, if passed, will band these “scameras” on local streets and roads, just as the Mississippi Department of Transportation has banned them on major highways throughout the state.
To contact your local representative, the number to the capitol switchboard is 601-359-3770.
We need to create such a heavy call volume demanding that SB-2743 lands on Gov. Haley Barbour’s desk that the phone lines will do everything but melt.
Your message is especially important if your senator is on one of the referenced committees and according to my understanding, contacting them this week is critical.
When you call, please know the name of the senator who represents you and by all means, be nice to the person that takes your call.
Kerry Hunt is a Parking Services officer at Mississippi State. He can be contacted at [email protected].