Is speed-camera plan really safe?

SPRINGFIELD - When a suburban man with 60 traffic tickets smashed his Ferrari into another car, killing the driver, her 4-year-old son and himself in 2005, state and local officials responded by tightening loopholes in state traffic laws to make sure police and prosecutors have up-to-date information and can get problem drivers off the streets.

But now, some local lawmakers and prosecutors fear those efforts could be undermined by the growing interest in letting cameras enforce speed limits.

The problem, some say, is those speed-camera tickets wouldn't get reported to the state as long as the driver pays the $100 fine. As a result, drivers who normally would risk losing their licenses would keep driving.

"You can't have a system where you have ticket after ticket and just pay a fine. There has to be some kind of reporting to the secretary of state," said DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett.

A plan pending in the state Senate would allow cities and villages to contract with camera companies to remotely issue speeding tickets.

DuPage County created a computer program designed to correlate driving records from Illinois' 102 counties to prevent repeatedly ticketed drivers from qualifying for court supervision. The program was developed after the tragic 2005 crash in West Chicago that prompted outrage from the victim's family and the public at how the speeding driver was able to keep his license so long.

Because speed-camera violators would not be reported to the secretary of state unless the driver failed to pay five speed-camera tickets, DuPage's database would become far less useful, Birkett said.

The state official in charge of traffic safety, however, doesn't see this as a problem and has lent his support to using speed cameras for enforcement.

"We think this will save lives and make the roads safer," said Dave Drucker, spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. "The priority is to slow down speeders."

Previous secretaries of state thought differently and fought attempts to shield driving infractions from state eyes.

In 1998, then Illinois Secretary of State George Ryan sued the villages of Hanover Park, Northfield, Schaumburg, Kenilworth and McCook to stop them from issuing so-called "P-tickets," local violations issued by village police that didn't go through the court system so long as the fines were paid.

One major problem with the P-tickets, according to the appeals court that struck them down, was that the secretary of state never learned of the violations.

"By allowing offenders to circumvent the court, the alternative traffic programs derail one of the Secretary of State's most important duties - monitoring traffic offenders through reports of convictions," wrote Justice Thomas R. Rakowski in the ruling. "The Secretary of State can only effectively execute these exclusive duties when traffic offense convictions are reported."

The Illinois Secretary of State issues driver's licenses and suspends the licenses of drivers who rack up three moving violations in a 12-month period. A speeding ticket issued by a police officer counts as a violation and gets reported to the secretary of state.

The plan pending in the state Senate does not include a reporting requirement. And because the tickets are not issued by police, they would not be considered moving violations.

"We can't do it any other way than the way we're doing it," state Sen. Terry Link, a Waukegan Democrat, said about the legislation he's sponsoring. "And with this type of technology, it's helping to prevent accidents. It's helping to prevent people from speeding. This is a safety factor and safety only."

If you don't have the cameras to catch the speeders, Link said, you'd have to "have a police officer there constantly at every intersection, every corner, every speed lane in the state, and we pay billions of dollars for police officers - not millions, billions."

But his plan has clear-cut opposition at the Capitol where some lawmakers think the proposal is more about money than safety.

"If it was going to be for safety issues, they would report it to the secretary of state, and it would go on your record," said state Sen. Dan Duffy, a Lake Barrington Republican. "These cameras are being used more as cash-station machines than they are as safety equipment."

If Link's plan is approved in the state Senate, it'd still need approval from the Illinois House and Gov. Pat Quinn to become law.

It would be up to each municipality to decide which contractor to use for speed cameras. The plan requires signs be posted ahead of any area monitored by speed cameras. But each city would decide whether and how much leeway to give drivers.

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