AURORA | Aurora has begun rolling out a trio of radar-equipped vehicles that will allow police to ticket speeding drivers mostly automatically at a time when traffic fatalities are up across the state and nation.
The vehicles use lasers and cameras mounted on the front and rear to catch speeding drivers in the act — up to three vehicles at the same time, according to Lieutenant Carrigan Bennett of the Aurora Police Department. Bennett showed off one such van outside of Utah Park on Monday.
Unlike traditional speed-limit enforcement, where a sworn police officer parks and waits for speeding drivers, speeding tickets produced by the Photo Speed Enforcement pilot program will be generated automatically when a vehicle is traveling 11 miles per hour or more above the posted speed limit, reviewed and then mailed to suspects.
Fines are capped at $40 per ticket or $80 in school zones, with proceeds going to cover the cost of the program and fund traffic calming projects. When drivers are caught traveling more than 25 miles per hour over the speed limit, Bennett said police officers will follow up with the suspect face-to-face.
The program is meant to discourage speeding and reduce crashes while requiring minimal officer involvement at a time when the department is short-staffed.
“Our staffing numbers are limited. Our traffic stats continue to get worse. We have more crashes, and every crash takes an officer away from being able to do proactive work like speed enforcement,” Bennett said.
“So this is kind of a force multiplier for us. And it means that we can take our officers who would otherwise be doing residential neighborhood enforcement and maximize their time on the main arterials and highways and things like that.”
Aurora police wrote in a news release that 50 people died in traffic crashes in Aurora last year out of a total of nearly 5,000 crashes reported. The number of deaths resulting from traffic crashes has increased 32% since 2019, in part reflecting a rise in dangerous driving behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
Police also cited state and national crash data indicating that the number of annual crash deaths has increased by 28% in Colorado and 18% across the country since 2019.
The country also saw a 16-year peak in traffic fatalities in 2021 with minimal improvement in 2022. U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has referred to the elevated rate of traffic fatalities as a “national crisis.”
“Traffic fatalities have been on the rise in Colorado and throughout the country, and speeding is a major contributing factor,” interim police chief Art Acevedo said in a statement.
“We recognize as a department that something must be done. The photo enforcement program is another important tool that we will utilize in our mission to keep our residents and the traveling public safe.”
A majority of Aurora’s City Council voted last July to authorize the 13-month pilot program with technology vendor Conduent. The decision came after voters opted to end the city’s red-light camera program in 2018, which resulted in downstream cuts to youth violence funding and other program budgets.
Bennett said the city spent the past year meeting with the vendor and getting the equipment and staff in place to launch the program.
Until Aug. 14, the vehicles will stick with generating warnings. After that, speeding drivers will start receiving tickets in the mail. Vehicles will be parked near schools, outside of parks and in residential areas where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or less, the city said in a news release.
The vehicles will be labeled, and signs will be set up to alert drivers to the existence of the enforcement zones. Police will choose where to park the vehicles based on traffic data, safety risks and public input. Officers will track ticket data to see if the number of violations falls
A technician will be stationed inside each van while it is operational, Bennett said. He said tickets will be reviewed before they are sent by an employee of the vendor as well as an Aurora police employee who has been trained in the use of the equipment inside the vehicles.
“Every violation is reviewed by a human to make sure that the photo was clear, that the violation looks valid, that we have a good picture of the driver, a good picture of the license plate and a good description of the vehicle,” Bennett said.
He stressed that the goal of the program is not to write tickets but instead change driving behaviors so that fewer people drive dangerously around homes, parks and schools.
“I wish we didn’t need this program, but going the speed limit is going to be the biggest thing that’s going to reduce our number of crashes and save lives,” he said.
Sorry that some drivers make this program necessary.
(Why not allow the map to enlarged so that we can see the roads?)
just an image not an interactive link
“2021 traffic fatality locations statewide. Aurora fatalities are in blue. SOURCE: FARS from NTSB.
Thank you. Publish the map LARGER so that we can see the roads.
Well ok, we are sold this notion of successful an efficient law enforcement tool at a great value by the city just for us. What this really is, is XEROX Company taking out of mothballs and dusting off their investment in their high-tech camera equipment and vehicle identification system with its rebranded as Conduent Transportation. This is nothing “new”. For sure, a great business revamping decision by Xerox. It’s the same ole fundamental routine just now comes with a four- wheel mobile feature, its astute, they simply see the market. They will get their ROI in short order. And this current ongoing speeding epidemic, some more fall-out of Covid- yea-right. Everything seems to be a consequence of Covid. These ticketing contraptions will not change much of anything until the city actually starts getting serious about law enforcement. A big deal news maker, a whole week of expired license tags APD is going to get after it – whoopee… yet ignoring the other 51 weeks- that’s classic! A crackdown on dangerous airborne fireworks we were told two years in a row, with the mantra from city hall “this has got to stop” I doubt one ticket was issued, as this year was non-stop and worse.
The one for sure positive of the new speed ticketing units, surely, we won’t hear it’s designed as racially biased law enforcement… Or – Will We?
Great! Now can we bring back the red light cameras? I can’t count the number of times some jerk has tried to kill me by making a left turn on a red light. Full-disclosure, I voted for their removal. I was wrong. But it seems that without enforcement, traffic laws are merely suggestions, so we will have to rely on enforcement. Personally, I’d prefer an impersonal sensor system over some human’s judgment, especially when race or other factors are added in. I lived with this kind of enforcement system in Germany. It works. Bravo. Now let’s bring back the traffic light cameras for our own safety.
Ok! I’m for it ….. always have been
If this camera set-up takes a good picture of the rear plate, it should be able to show the yellow tag for a 2022 registration and then an overdue plate violation fine could be added at the same time the speeding violation goes out. I don’t know who will get the ticket for all the vehicles with no plates at all. I see about six of those every day.
You know this radar camera speeding ordinance took about a year to work out the bugs from when it was first pitched to city council. Your idea seems pretty simple in theory and like an excellent one. My thoughts are the resistance to it will come from APD to not use it as a constructive tool more than anybody. And they say they want and need help. For some odd reason they continue and refuse to issue tickets anymore for expired tags. And city hall goes along with it. It’s amazing!
There is more than an epidemic of speeding in Aurora. On Parker road near my home, the street racing gangs treat the highway like their own personal recreational space to emit as much noise and burn up as much fuel as they possibly can, in a never-ending pissing contest. The speed limit is 45 MPH; I can hardly imagine that they are not breaking this law with impunity and they seem to know they can get away with it. And in fact I recently spoke with an officer who informed me that they can’t do anything about it due to having very limiting policies on high-speed pursuits. The drivers simply speed away from them, according to the officer. This place is simply lawless. I’m glad that the new program is being set up but reading this article and finding out about the red-light cameras being discontinued, the situation makes a lot more sense. I only wish I had known this before I bought my home here…
What about those who mask the license plate with a dark cover. They going to just let them go?
Presumably police officers would have to spothe less-readable license plates.
Will the strobe flash causenough reflection from the reflective plate painto enable them to be read?
This type of ‘Big Brother’ overreach has gone too far. If the police department is understaffed, that’s the city’s problem. I hope somebody litigates against this because it cannot possibly within their right to do this.