Officials in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are having trouble getting their revenue generation system, oops, we mean their traffic safety system to work.
It seems the same people who don’t pay attention to red lights are also ignoring the fines they get for being caught on camera running them, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says. And without the help of the Tarrant County tax assessor several cities are complaining that they have no leverage to collect the fines.
They aren’t talking pocket change. Fort Worth has 60,000 outstanding red-light camera violations with a value of about $6 million, the story says. Arlington estimates its uncollected total at $6.5 million. City officials there say they turn over 30,000 tickets a year to a collection agency, which has managed to collect about 18 percent of total in fines.
Because the red light fine is civil rather than criminal the only real threat to violators is to deny their vehicle registrations until they pay their fines. Ron Wright, the tax assessor in Tarrant County, says he won’t subject his clerks to all of that extra work and the inevitable vitriol over the wildly popular fines unless he is reimbursed.
Corpus Christi currently pays Nueces County $7.50 from each collected ticket. Dallas County collects $5.24 a ticket from Dallas. Officials in Fort Worth among other cities are hoping a similar arrangement can be made with the assessor.
They aren’t talking pocket change. Fort Worth has 60,000 outstanding red-light camera violations with a value of about $6 million, the story says. Arlington estimates its uncollected total at $6.5 million. City officials there say they turn over 30,000 tickets a year to a collection agency, which has managed to collect about 18 percent of total in fines.
Because the red light fine is civil rather than criminal the only real threat to violators is to deny their vehicle registrations until they pay their fines. Ron Wright, the tax assessor in Tarrant County, says he won’t subject his clerks to all of that extra work and the inevitable vitriol over the wildly popular fines unless he is reimbursed.
Corpus Christi currently pays Nueces County $7.50 from each collected ticket. Dallas County collects $5.24 a ticket from Dallas. Officials in Fort Worth among other cities are hoping a similar arrangement can be made with the assessor.
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Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter at @marktxwatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Photo of a red light camera by flickr user cokescroaks, used via a Creative Commons license.
Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter at @marktxwatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Photo of a red light camera by flickr user cokescroaks, used via a Creative Commons license.
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