Anti-speeding program advances
The return of a controversial anti-speeding program using cameras and radar in unmanned vehicles skipped through a city committee Tuesday and is expected to come before the full Santa Fe City Council for consideration next month.
The Santa Fe Traffic Operations Program would revisit a traffic enforcement effort Santa Fe police oversaw from 2009-13, this time using vehicles from a different company, Arizona-based Verra Mobility Corp., which would keep 40 percent of every $100 traffic fine paid.
“The company has been selected; this is the first stop in the show to bring the program back,” police Chief Andrew Padilla told members of the city’s Public Safety Committee. The committee did not have enough members present for a quorum and advanced the proposal without any formal recommendation.
An earlier City Council voted 5-4 in 2017 to bring the program back.
The committee chairman, Councilor Chris Rivera, had opposed the unmanned speed-monitoring vehicle program in the past and told The New Mexican on Tuesday that he still has concerns about it.
“The people that I represent on the south side really have a difficult time, sometimes, even just affording groceries or rent for the month,” the District 3 councilor said. “And to get a $100 ticket, even though you were in the wrong, is significant to people in my district.” Also, some people believe that “if you’re going to get a ticket, it should be from an actual police officer,” he said.
Rivera expects the program has enough
support now on the city governing body to be reinstated. Mayor Alan Webber told The New Mexican on Monday that he is in favor of the plan.
Said Rivera, “I will do my best to make sure that it’s implemented in a fair and equitable way.”
Supporters of the proposal say it might help prevent some crashes in Santa Fe. However, the two vehicles Santa Fe police would deploy cannot be used on state roads, including the main thoroughfares of Cerrillos Road, St. Francis Drive and St. Michael’s Drive.
Padilla said enforcement locations would be driven by traffic data on speeding, resident complaints and whether the design of the roadway can accommodate one of the unmanned vehicles. The vehicles require at least 150 feet of straight road to read speeds correctly, and streets must be wide enough to park the SUV without impeding vehicular or pedestrian traffic.
Program detractors argue that this type of camera enforcement raises privacy concerns and could unfairly target some motorists without the benefit of a human police officer’s judgment.
The police chief addressed concerns, saying his department would regularly make announcements in local newspapers about the date, time and location where the two vehicles would be deployed, “to give the public plenty of notice.” Signs on the front and rear of the vehicles would announce that it is a speed-monitoring vehicle, he said.
“So there’s no accusations of a ‘gotcha’ moment,” Padilla said. He insisted that proposal was not “a moneymaking program” for the city but an effort “to gain that voluntary compliance to follow the rules of the road,” in this case, to follow posted speed limits and ultimately, he said, to reduce crashes.
Padilla said one of the vehicles could be deployed on the north side of Santa Fe and the other on the south side. There would also be a grace period of up to 90 days from the start of the program when those cited for speeding would simply receive a warning in the mail.
The police chief said the program would be largely the same as the earlier one. If a person did not feel they were speeding, or maintained they were not the driver, citations could be contested at an administrative hearing, he said. Those unable to pay would be given opportunities for community service.
Padilla said Verra Mobility Corp. also provides hand-held speed monitoring devices and that the department could in the future consider those as options as well. The company’s unmanned vehicles could also be modified to allow their cameras to monitor highcrime areas in real time, Padilla said.