The Dayton Police Department cannot afford spending millions of dollars to put a police officer around the clock at the 19 sites of its stationary red light and speed-detection cameras, said Jason Ward, the department’s photo enforcement administrator.
But the department will deploy three mobile speed-detection units to catch speeders, because cameras demonstrably have reduced crashes and improved motorist safety across the city, he said.
“We’ve shown that it has drastically reduced crashes at these intersections,” Ward said.
Gov. John Kasich last month signed a new law forbidding photo-enforcement camera systems to issue citations unless a police officer is present at the time of the traffic violation.
On March 19, the city of Dayton will stop using its 36 fixed red light and speed-detection cameras to cite motorists. The cameras will continue recording data about the speed of passing motorists exclusively for informational purposes, city officials said.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said the fixed cameras likely will cease being a deterrent once they stop issuing citations, and motorists more frequently may speed when they do not fear receiving a fine in the mail.
“We still maintain (cameras) are an effective way to police our roads,” Whaley said.
But the police department has decided to use three sport utility vehicles outfitted with cameras and radar to cite speeding motorists.
The city already owns a white Ford Escape with mounted cameras, which it acquired in 2011 and sometimes places in construction zones. The city will receive two more vehicles in coming weeks from Redflex, the Arizona-based company that owns Dayton’s fixed traffic cameras.
The mobile units will be parked in construction zones and along roadways that residents have identified as having problems with speeding motorists.
Most commonly, however, the vehicles will be put at the intersections containing the fixed cameras.
Ward said that’s because those locations were selected based on an analysis of crash data and were deemed dangerous spots. Crashes at those intersections declined by about 41 percent between 2010 and 2013, after the cameras were installed, according to the city.
“We’ll put them in the same spots as where the fixed cameras are now, it’s just the mobile vehicles will capture the violations instead of the fixed cameras,” Ward said.
Ward said the mobile units will be parked for a few hours a shift, meaning they could be active for as many as 18 hours per day. The plan is to use each mobile unit every day. Citations issued for speeding violations recorded by the mobile units will be $85.
Ohio Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, sponsored the legislation that curtails the use of photo-enforcement traffic systems.
Seitz said mobile speed-detection units are perfectly legal under the law, and he has no issue with them if operated properly.
But Seitz said the important impact of his legislation is the number of traffic cameras in Dayton will decrease dramatically.
“The good news for the people of Dayton is there will be a lot fewer cameras in use some 90 days from now when that law goes into effect,” Seitz said.
Mayor Whaley said fixed cameras reduced crashes and encouraged more cautious driving habits without wasting police resources.
She said she hopes the mobile units will similarly curb bad driving behaviors. But she said they will not be as effective as the fixed cameras because they do not operate 24/7, and there are far fewer of them.
Since being installed, the fixed speed-detection cameras issued more than 168,000 citations. The city last year received about $1.7 million in revenue from red light and speeding citations involving traffic cameras.
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