Thousands Of Unpaid Photo Red Light Tickets

Posted on 14. Oct, 2010 by Collections Recon in Collection News, Press Releases

The cities of Denver and Aurora are trying to come to grips with a collections problem for photo red light tickets.

“Obviously that’s concerning,” said Captain Joe Padilla in the Traffic Operations Bureau of Denver Police.

Statistics obtained by CBS4 show only 57 percent of nearly 6,000 photo red light tickets issued in Denver since March have been paid.

That means nearly 42 percent, more than 4 out of every ten, are not paid.

In Aurora, the compliance is almost as bad. Since the start of 2010 Aurora’s issued nearly 6,400 photo red light citations and a third of them, 33 percent remain unpaid.

Aurora officials blame part of the problem on a loophole in state law.

It forbids any traffic violation “detected through an automated vehicle identification system” from being used to block renewal of a drivers license.

“If state law were different then a photo red light violation would need to be collected when a person renews their driver’s license,” said Ron Craft, Deputy Finance Director with Aurora.

But lacking that clout hurts the collection efforts of cities like Aurora and Denver.

“Most people want to renew their license so that’s a pretty effective tool,” said Craft.

Aurora is considering a private collection agency and accepting credit cards as ways to boost enforcement.

Denver tried one collection agency, had problems, and is about to go with another agency.

Denver also recently partnered with the Colorado Department of Transportation so it can identify the drivers of cars bearing temporary tags.

Still, it’s striking how surrounding suburbs are so much better at collecting their fines for photo red light tickets.

Both Greenwood Village and Littleton report better than 80 percent compliance with people paying the standard $75 fine.

A criminal lawyer who takes traffic cases says suburbanites have more money to pay their fines and he believes they are more motivated to avoid hassles with the law.

“In the inner city, we have a greater amount of illegal aliens, we have gang members, we have a lot more crime … those people are going to scoff at the law just like they scoff at their parking tickets,” said attorney Joe Scheideler.

Both Denver and Aurora official claim improving safety is the primary purpose for photo red light enforcement, not raising revenues. But the fact remains, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake here in unpaid tickets and in these rough economic times, the cities have strong motivation to do a better job with collections.

Can people beat the system simply by ignoring a violation notice?

Unpaid tickets mean extra fines apply and there’s the risk of getting points on your license.

All cities and suburbs use process servers to serve a citation for unpaid photo red light tickets. Failure to appear means you’re stuck dealing with the court system.

“I don’t think that’s a risk you want take,” said Capt. Padilla.

Here are the locations of Photo Red Light locations for Denver and Aurora:

In Denver:

Location/Intersection Enforce Direction
36th Street & Quebec Street Northbound
6th Ave & Kalamath Street Eastbound
6th Ave & Lincoln Street Eastbound
8th Ave & Speer Blvd S/B Westbound

In Aurora:

1. East Mississippi Avenue and South Blackhawk Street
2. East Mississippi Avenue and South Chambers Road
3. East Iliff Avenue and South Blackhawk Street
4. East Alameda Avenue and South Abilene Street.

By: Paul Day
© MMX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Aurora, collections, Denver, photo red light tickets, unpaid