WASHINGTON, D. C. (Tuesday, February 6, 2018) ––At least 1,555,946 motorists were issued speed camera tickets in nearly 40 jurisdictions across Maryland in the 12-month period from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017. Ticketed motorists faced paying the staggering sum of $62,237,840 in speed camera fines for speeding in school zones across the state and in residential areas in Montgomery County alone. County and municipal law enforcement agencies in localities and communities in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County issued 1,188,345 speed camera tickets with a face value of $47,533,800, or 76.3 percent of the statewide total, according to an analysis by AAA Mid-Atlantic. The maximum fine is $40 per infraction.

During the past three years, 4,711,961 motorists in Maryland were ticketed by speed cameras and those drivers amassed nearly one-fifth of a billion dollars in speed camera fines, the AAA analysis reveals. If it’s true that the numbers of motorists speeding will eventually drop once jurisdictions implement speed camera programs, as proponents argue, what does it mean if the number of speeding violations remains virtually the same? Yet the sheer number of speed camera tickets issued in Maryland jurisdictions appears to defy the law of gravity, averaging around 1.5 million photo-radar tickets in each of the past three fiscal years, although two police departments in Maryland dropped their speed limit enforcement camera systems last year.

“Motorists are almost three times more likely to receive speed camera tickets while driving through localities large and small in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties than in any other locations in the entire state,” said John B. Townsend II, AAA Mid-Atlantic’s Manager of Public and Government Affairs. “It is very shocking that so many drivers have a wanton disregard for safety. In the course of three years, motorists incurred nearly five million speed camera tickets that carried $188,478,440 in fines, a mind-boggling sum.”

Admittedly, it is enough to cause your eyes to glaze over. But keep in mind, while advocates are upfront in insisting the photo enforcement technology promotes highway safety, there are the facts and figures they are reticent to publicly discuss, and possibly why. To wit, the tens of millions of dollars generated in revenue for the coffers of localities yearly. Then there is the matter of the lucrative payments each jurisdiction made to for-profit contractors, which range from 33 percent to as much as 48.4 percent, depending on the fine print in the contract. Critics say such exorbitant payments comprise the dark side of automated enforcement.

Although 1,555,946 motorists were snagged by speed cameras while driving “hell-bent-for-leather,” mostly in school zones where kids are often present, in Maryland during Fiscal Year 2017, the rate of speeding violations detected and documented by speed monitoring systems remained essentially unchanged from FY 2016.  Even so, lead-footed drivers racked up 456 fewer notices of infractions year-over-year, according to an analysis by AAA Mid-Atlantic. Previously, 1,556,441 drivers in Maryland were slapped with speed camera tickets, as was the case in FY16.  To make amends for their speeding ways, they were fined $62,257,640. A year earlier, 1,599,574 motorists were caught on camera while speeding flagrante dēlictō in various and sundry jurisdictions statewide during FY15.  Under the law, they were required to make recompense for the error of their ways by forking over $63,982,960 in photo-radar revenue.

In 2014, 46 local Maryland jurisdictions operated speed monitoring systems that ticketed 1,290,000 motorists and generated $51.6 million in revenue, report the Comptroller of Maryland and the Maryland General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Services. It brings the ticket total to six million, which produced a windfall of $240 million during the course of four budget cycles. Maryland boasts 125 law enforcement agencies, including 80 municipal and county police departments. Of that number, only three dozen or so localities operated speed camera programs in their footprint in FY17, nine fewer than in 2014.

Collectively, county and local law enforcement agencies operated a total network of 432 speed monitoring camera units all across Maryland, from the state capital in Annapolis to localities in the hinterlands and the highlands. But the preponderance of photo-radar cameras -360 speed cameras or 83.3 percent – are stationed along streets and roads in the towns and cities within Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.

That’s according to an analysis by AAA Mid-Atlantic of the 2017 Report to the State of Maryland –Speed Monitoring Systems Use. As mandated by the Speed Monitoring Systems Reform Act of 2014, the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission released the report to the Maryland General Assembly on December 31, 2017. Speed cameras are deployed to safeguard the lives and limbs of school children.

At the top of the funnel, nearly half (47.3 percent) of the 1.5 million speed camera tickets issued statewide during Fiscal Year 2017 were handed down by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) and the Prince George’s County Police Department (PGCPD). Municipal police departments in enclaves in the shadows of the nation’s capital in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties issued another 451,224 tickets in FY17.   Tickets are issued to motorists traveling 12 or more miles per hour faster than the posted speed limit.

Deploying 169 speed cameras collectively, Montgomery County Police and Prince George’s County Police issued a combined total of 737,121 photo-radar citations in FY17. In dollars and cents, this equates to $29,484,840 in potential ticket fine revenue. This tally also works out to nearly a moiety or 50 percent of the speed camera fine sum generated statewide by “37 reporting jurisdictions,” including Baltimore County, Charles County, Howard County, Annapolis, the City of Frederick, Hagerstown, Salisbury, and Smithsburg. Speed cameras in school zones are active Monday through Friday from 6 A.M. until 8 P.M.

Statistically, three out of every ten (or 32.7 percent) speed camera tickets meted out in Maryland in FY17 were issued by speed cameras operated by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD).  It also leads the state in speed camera revenue. All told, 509,542 lead-footed motorists were nabbed by the countywide Safe Speed program. For the most part, they faced fines valued at $20,381,680. Arithmetically, it compares to 529,993 speed camera tickets, valued at $21,199,720, the MCPD handed out in FY16, and the 507,531 speed camera citations the department issued in FY15 that carried $20,301,240 in penalties.

Of the 37 jurisdictions operating speed monitoring systems in Maryland, the Prince George’s County Police Department (PGCPD) issued nearly 15 percent of the state’s speed camera ticket total last year. That reality dawned on 227,579 motorists after they were clocked and photographed speeding in school zones by the department’s countywide automated speed enforcement program. Consequently, those tickets carried $9,103,160 in fines. In comparison, the speed cameras deployed by the PGCPD issued 263,302 tickets in FY16 valued at $10,532,080 and nabbed 260,911 speeding motorists for photo-radar violations in FY15 that carried $10,436,440 on fines. The County implemented its automated speed enforcement program in 2011.

It is significantly higher than the speed camera ticket output by the Baltimore County Police Department, which issued 176,358 photo-radar citations in FY17, the state’s third highest total (11.3 percent).  Baltimore County Police operates 65 speed cameras. In contrast, Montgomery County Police deploys 88 speed cameras, while Prince George’s County Police has an arsenal of 81 speed cameras. Under greater oversight and scrutiny, the moribund speed camera program in Baltimore City was re-activated in June 2017 with 20 speed camera sites initially. Plus, 15 more sites were added in September. The city shuttered its network of 83 speed cameras in 2013 after a journalistic investigation revealed a widespread miasma of erroneous ticketing.

Yet 20 municipal police departments in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, which deployed a total of 191 speed cameras,  accounted for nearly one third (29 percent) of all speed camera tickets issued in the state in FY17. A veritable alphabet soup of  whistle-stop towns and smaller stomping grounds in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, such as Bowie, Forest Heights, Hyattsville, Riverdale, Seat Pleasant, and Takoma Park, issued 451,224 speed limit enforcement camera tickets during FY17 that carried $18,048,960 in penalties. That compares to 379,376 speed camera tickets with a face value of $15,175,040 in FY16, and 456,959 photo-radar tickets with $18,735,219 in levies in FY15.

As of January 2018, 143 communities across the United States had speed camera programs, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Automated speed camera programs are operated by a host of local police departments in suburban Maryland. Some police departments operate as few as two speed cameras, including the Berwyn Heights Police Department and the Landover Hills Police Department. Three police departments in the state have only one speed camera each in their jurisdictions, as the latest annual report by the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission shows. In the metro area, speed camera units are also deployed by the Capital Heights Police Department, the Cheverly Police Department, and the Chevy Chase Village Police Department. During their daily commutes and treks, motorists run a gauntlet of speed cameras from Hyattsville to Rockville, and from Landover Hills to Laurel. The same is true while tooling around in Gaithersburg, Glenarden and Greenbelt. Speed cameras keep highway users safe and sound.

Unlike other jurisdictions, the City of College Park also deploys speed cameras on roadways on the periphery of institutions of higher education, namely, the University of Maryland, as well as within a ½ mile radius of the city’s elementary schools.  College Park’s nine speed cameras issued 79,256 speed camera tickets totaling $3,170,240 in fines during FY 2017. That compares to 44,242 speed camera tickets with $1,769,600 in charges in FY16. On top of that, the “town and gown” community issued 114,388 photo citations with a fine yield of $4,575,520 in FY15, the year after the City of College Park began operating speed cameras 24 hours a day, following pedestrian deaths near the University of Maryland.

A year ago, two law enforcement agencies stopped deploying speed cameras on roadways in their jurisdictions: the Brentwood Police Department and the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission. Across the map of Maryland, county and local law enforcement agencies are deploying a variety of speed limit enforcement camera systems, police departments say, to monitor compliance with the posted speed limit, and to combat and ticket speeding motorists. The veritable arsenal includes speed cameras perched atop portable trailer units, mobile traffic camera units, fixed pole-mounted systems, stationary photo-radar units, and handheld speed camera monitoring systems. Speed monitoring systems automatically enforce traffic laws. Contesting a speed camera ticket in Maryland? State law requires local jurisdictions to appoint an ombudsman to investigate the concerns of ticketed motorists.

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