AURORA | Aurora police are asking city council for unmanned cameras and radar devices to snag speeding violations, reigniting a debate over the use of traffic cameras in the city.
Police Lt. Chris Amsler of APD’s traffic division told city council members at Monday’s meeting that the change is needed because the department has struggled to hire enough officers to regularly patrol for speeding on Aurora streets.
“In the past, we had manned vehicles, and in the past, we had issues with staffing and retaining employees to operate those vehicles,” AMMM said. So this ordinance change would allow us to have unmanned devices that would capture speeding violations.”
Under the proposal, the city would use systems such as “photo radar vans” and other unmanned systems to detect speeders, photograph license places and dispense speeding tickets. Each violation would still be reviewed by a city employee or a contractor before a penalty is issued, Amsler said. In more severe cases, such as when an individual’s speed exceeds 25 miles per hour over the limit, the investigation could be referred to a police officer as a traffic offense.
The plan drew sharp pushback from Councilmember Curtis Gardner, who said the measure feels too similar to so-called red-light cameras, which Aurora voters previously rejected.
“I don’t support this. Our voters have turned down red-light cameras, which is a very similar concept,” Gardner said. “I think this is using public safety to generate revenue. And again, I feel like our voters have pretty clearly said they do not want cameras monitoring their traffic behavior. So I’m going to be a ‘no’ vote on this.”
Councilmember Alison Coombs said she did not want to infringe on civil liberties but she is also concerned about deaths and injuries linked to speeding.
“I have significant reservations, because we want to make sure that we’re protecting people’s civil liberties in relation to surveillance,” Coombs said. “However, I’m also very concerned about the deaths, particularly pedestrian and cyclist deaths caused by speed.”
Council members Stephanie Hancock, Francoise Bergan, and Steve Sundberg all stated that they have received numerous complaints about excessive speeding. Hancock said she has had people tell her they regret eliminating Aurora’s red-light cameras. In contrast, Gardner said he has received kudos for voting to rid the city of red-light cameras and other similar ordinances.
“I think this goes in a way to help us mitigate some of the issues that we’re having with speeding,” Hancock said.
Amsler said that the devices would capture radar data, photos of license plates, and an image of the driver, which would then be reviewed by a recently hired APD contract employee with 22 years of experience at the Denver Police Department.
“This will be 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Amsler said. “We have two automated devices that will be used. They’re both also movable and portable, so they won’t be in the same area all the time. So we can move them to different areas.”
Amsler also told city council members that state law restricts photo enforcement to school zones, construction zones, municipal parks and streets with a speed limit of 35 mph or lower. The city council could authorize the use of speed cameras on major thoroughfares by passing a resolution, which would also require support from five years of crash and speeding data, Amsler said.
Coombs asked if the police have information on who the vendor might share the data with, or who all might have access to the pictures and information about violations and violators.
“My understanding is that because they’re actually creating a back office for just our use,” Amsler said in response. “It would only be the Aurora Police Department and then the vendor.”
However, Amsler said he would have to clarify with the vendor that the data stored would only be accessible to the vendor and the police department.
The ordinance was approved on first reading with all members of city council in favor, except Gardner and Coombs.
I have no problems with cameras monitoring the behavior of drivers in school and construction zones or near parks or neighborhoods. I also hope they will expand this to busier streets with speeding issues based on data as the article suggests. I also have no problem with red light cameras. I see people speeding through red lights all of the time! It makes a person wary of proceeding forward on green lights, which creates additional problems. As an Aurora resident, I wish the Police Department could be fully staffed with top-notch officers, but I realize it takes time to fill that gap. It’s a tough job.
As with everything out idiotic city council approves, this will not help the problem. They really think mailing a speeding ticket a driver long after the violation is going to help the problem. What about all the drivers with expired plates or no plates. What we need is a stronger police presence on the streets to address these issues along with all of the excessive criminal behavior in our city. Then again, no one every accused a politician of having intelligence.
We can and should do both, this could take police off of needing to do speed traps so that they can actually catch people who have months or even years old plates, and those of us who are legally driving but might occasionally speed may now think twice. It’s a win-win.
I disagree with this issue due to the lack of human contact to arrest suspects. This will generate City Funds, but does not address the issues of criminals who commit some crimes also disregard our speed zones and aggressive driving that cameras do not address. I saw a vehicle the other day with an expired license plate from 1967, Yes 1967. Every day criminals are caught by the interaction of a human Police Officer, not a camera.
Government has a primary purpose to establish a framework for law and order. This includes paying attention to the influx of problems. The city is in the business to pay attention and solve these problems, and this still leads as a big one. This comes across as a good faith effort to get a handle on this city-wide pervasive problem. As much as a few on council want to, none this time, like the recent city court FTA interrupter fee payment increase can make the argument this is unfair and designed to focus unfairly on only certain races in the city’s cultural landscape. These portable photo taking vans do not discriminate; they only concentrate the consummate lawbreaker. The right turn on red ticketing project had to many flaws, and not that practical, the voters agreed.