Arizona Will Scrap Janet Napolitano's Highway Speed Trap Cameras

I noticed these damned speed trap buzzards when I drove out to AZ for the immigration protests. Freaky.

At NYT, "Arizona Halts Photo Enforcement of Speed Laws":

PHOENIX — At the first tick of the clock Friday, an array of automated cameras on Arizona freeways aimed at catching speeders were to stop clicking.

There is no glitch. The state, the first to adopt such cameras on its highways in October 2008, has become the first to pull the plug, bowing to the wishes of a vocal band of conservative activists who complained that photo enforcement intruded on privacy and was mainly designed to raise money.

It was a tumultuous, impassioned run here. A man wearing a monkey mask racked up dozens of tickets, fighting them in court, to protest the system. Vandals at different times attacked the cameras with Silly String and a pickax.

More seriously, the operator of a van carrying a mobile speed camera was shot to death on the side of a freeway in April 2009. The suspect is being prosecuted on first-degree murder charges and the family of the victim has announced a lawsuit against the Department of Public Safety.

Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican seeking election to a full term, never embraced the program, begun under her predecessor, Janet Napolitano, a Democrat whose revenue projections from the tickets fell short largely for a simple reason: violators tended to ignore them.

The cameras, which included 76 units either mounted near the shoulder or operated from vans, were adept at snapping speeders as they whizzed past sensors, but getting offenders to pay after the tickets were mailed to them was another matter.

Less than a third of the 1.2 million tickets issued were paid, and the state collected $78 million, far below the projected $120 million annual revenue.

Some of those tickets, typically $181 apiece, no doubt were lost in the mail; others no doubt were not paid as violators tested a legal theory that they needed to be served in person. Process servers who were supposed to follow up could hardly keep up with the load.

Ms. Brewer made no secret of her disdain for the system operated by Redflex Traffic Systems, which will turn off the cameras the moment its contract expires.