Woman feels targeted by Chicago speed cams
Xaviera Johnson insists she’s not a reckless driver, and she can’t figure out why she keeps getting traffic tickets from Chicago’s automated cameras that nab speeders and motorists who run red lights.
“Every time I go to Chicago, I get a letter saying I owe them money,” the Milwaukee woman said when she called the Journal Sentinel to vent.
“For the last two years, I’ve been targeted in Chicago, and I’ve been paying them and paying them,” she said. She makes regular trips 90 miles south to see her fiancé’s kids and bring them back to Wisconsin for visits.
She gave me the license number of her Kia SUV, and I looked her up on Chicago’s website where you find the photographic and video evidence of your alleged wrongdoing.
Don’t bother looking for a similar website in Milwaukee or anywhere in Wisconsin. Photo enforcement of traffic laws is not allowed here, which is probably why people are running red lights in the city all the time.
In June 2016, Johnson, 45, was ticketed for running a red light, and the camera clearly captures her doing exactly that. This was 100 bucks.
She was accused of speeding four times between November and March, receiving a warning the first time — a courtesy everyone caught by the cameras gets — and then three tickets, each one for 11 or more miles over the limit, and each carrying a fine of $100. Unless you don’t pay fast enough, which doubles it to $200.
Every one of these speeding tickets came at the same spot, 445 W. 127th St., which was the second-highest location in the city for tickets issued at 52,672 last year.
Want to hear some truly big numbers? The dollar value of tickets issued via the red-light cameras at 151 intersections last year was $59 million. Add another $51 million for the 150 speeding cameras, which are all in school or park zones.
This kind of enforcement allows police to focus on fighting crime, and since it began in 2003 has resulted in a 40% reduction in accidents causing injuries and death, said Mike Claffey, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation.
Not everyone is sold on these cameras, and some places have dropped them. The National Motorists Association opposes them and questions if they improve safety.
I told Claffey about Xaviera Johnson.
“Is she claiming she wasn’t speeding?” he asked.
She is, I replied, but she has two other theories. She thinks she’s being targeted because her plates are from Wisconsin, and she wonders if the locals driving alongside her also are being ticketed.
The transportation department’s annual report for 2016 states that 54% of the red-light tickets and 51% of the speeding tickets went to Chicago residents. It does not break down how many went to Wisconsinites.
The numbers were similar for 2015 and 2014, though Chicagoans’ share of speeding tickets dropped from 59% to 51% over those three years. All of these enforcement zones are marked with signs, and the locals apparently have learned where to slow down.
Johnson’s second theory is this: “It seems like they’re targeting me because I’m paying. It seems the more I pay, the more I get tickets,” she said. She has paid all the tickets except the most recent one. She tried to contest it but was told she hadn’t provided the required information to do this. So that ticket now stands at $200, she was informed in a letter this month.
“There’s no favoritism,” Claffey insists, and whether you pay or tear up tickets has nothing to do with whether you get busted again.
“It’s a high-tech system. There’s video, and they’re calibrated regularly,” he said. “We just urge your reader to slow down and to drive the speed limit in Chicago.”
I watched the videos of Johnson’s alleged speeding. It looks like a vehicle just driving along, but radar connected to the camera measures speed, and it says she was going too fast. If you’re less than 10 mph over the limit, the system doesn’t even bother to ticket you.
“I don’t recall myself speeding because I don’t drive fast,” Johnson said. “I feel worn out from this.”
The lesson for the rest of us when we visit Chicago is to watch out for street signs saying a camera has its eye on us.