meanwhile, back in chicago...

[twoeleven]

City Hall spells out review of suspicious red light camera tickets

City Hall plans to start sending out letters Friday to at least 9,000 drivers with details of the review process to determine whether the city sends them $100 refunds for red light camera citations issued during unexplained, suspicious spikes in tickets.

Reacting to a Tribune investigation published last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration said in an email that drivers will have 45 days to request a review of their violation by email, phone, mail or in person.

Within 30 days of receiving the request, an outside auditor will review “all available information” and issue a determination. In those cases where video is no longer available, still photos will be reviewed, according to the administration.

...

The city’s red-light system has come under intense criticism since the Tribune last Friday published an analysis of more than 4 million tickets issued since 2007. The investigation revealed numerous cases in which intersections that had issued just a few tickets a day temporarily began spewing them at rates of up to 56 per day. National traffic experts shown the findings concluded the tickets were issued unfairly because of faulty equipment or human tinkering at those intersections and suggested the city should refund those fines.

Instead of offering refunds to all the affected motorists, Emanuel has opted to offer at least 9,000 drivers ticketed during a dozen spikes identified by the Tribune a chance for a refund through a review process the administration says will be conducted by an outside auditor.

Asked Thursday whether it’s fair to ticket a driver one day for a behavior that wasn’t being ticketed the day before, Emanuel would not say. “I will answer a fair question,” he said.

...

The mayor also said his office has established “protocols” to bolster public confidence in the beleaguered program. He said city transportation officials now will meet more often with Xerox to discuss the system’s performance and his administration will post online the daily ticket counts for each of the city’s 352 red light cameras.

...

well, isn't that sweet: they're establishing "protocols". now where did i see that word lately? oh, right, in riley:

[T]he Government proposes that law enforcement agencies “develop protocols to address” concerns raised by cloud computing. Reply Brief in No. 13–212, pp. 14–15. Probably a good idea, but the Founders did not fight a revolution to gain the right to government agency protocols.

silly me, i have a foolish in due process, for instance whether the city engaged in arbitrary or capricious enforcement of the law. mayor emanuel may not think that's a fair question™, but i imagine a jury would have a great deal of interest in the answer.

fortunately for the residents of illinois, chicago's dubious red-light camera program¹ is already facing a class-action suit. if that's accurate, the illinois supremes are already considering the matter. while this latest boo-boo wasn't before them, i can't imagine the judges are entirely ignorant of it.

1: disclaimer: i think red-light cameras are useful things for improving road safety and traffic flow. however, because of the inherent conflict of interest in setting up devices which just happen to rake in a lot of cash, they need a lot of oversight. since the jurisdictions that run them benefit directly, the only reasonable oversight i can see is from independent panels of residents and technical experts.

i wonder if it's possible to file another class-action suit relating to the current little problems with that one already pending. i think just the civil discovery could be delicious. too bad i'm not a member of the illinois bar, or i could just do it myself.