Baltimore Suspends Red Light & Speed Camera Systems
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Baltimore's speed camera problem came to a screeching halt Tuesday night. The entire automated enforcement system has been shut down after even more ticket errors surfaced.
Kai Jackson explains the city is now doing damage control.
The city is suspending the automated traffic cameras for now--but not for good.
The Baltimore City Department of Transportation has temporarily suspended use of its red light and speed cameras because, according to officials, the devices haven't been accurate.
"It was clear that we need to slow down the program, suspend it until we're sure that all the mistakes have been corrected," said acting transportation director Frank Murphy. "So that's what we're doing."
The Department of Transportation says the mistakes by the speed and red light cameras are unacceptable and these devices won't operate again until the problems are fixed.
"If you really look at it, the only time that a driver slows down is when he knows where the cameras are. And you want to slow them down, put it in the school areas and put in speed bumps," said driver Flynn Deonarine.
Acting transportation director Frank Murphy says the problem was clerical mistakes, which involved a camera on the Alameda in Northeast Baltimore and a recent switch from an old vendor to a new vendor.
"We found out there is at least one camera that was incorrectly coded in terms of the speed limit that it should be enforcing so that the threshold speed should have been 42 and it was 37," said Murphy.
The current vendor, Breckford, is based in Hanover in Anne Arundel County. WJZ tried to contact officials with that company but were unable to reach them.
"I hope that they reimburse a lot of folks," said driver Anselm Ottley.
At the moment, the city isn't saying when the traffic enforcement cameras will resume operating.
