19-05-2025
Mesa amps up traffic camera network
Mesa will continue with photo traffic enforcement and add two more school zones to the list despite claims from some residents that cameras were problematic and nothing more than a money-maker for the city.
Council last week unanimously voted to approve a $1.8-million annual contract with vendor Verra Mobility, which includes a five-year renewal option. Councilman Francisco Heredia was absent.
'The National Motorists Association is against photo enforcement and so am I,' said Mary Maybeno at the May 12 council meeting. 'There are many problems associated with this.
'Number 1, there is no certifiable witness to the alleged violation,' she continued. 'So there's no accuser for the motorist to confront, which is a constitutional right. Maybe somebody was having a heart attack in the car and they were driving him to the hospital. Maybe a guy's wife was having a baby in the back seat.'
Just because a camera was operating properly when set up doesn't mean it's operating properly when the picture was taken, Maybeno contended/
She also claimed that tickets are mailed to vehicle owners, who may not have been behind the wheel when the camera snapped the pictures.
'The owner may not know who was driving at the time so he's forced to prove his innocence,' Maybeno said. 'Maybe they never got the ticket in the first place in the mail or saw a process server.
'The next thing the unsuspecting owner knows is his license got suspended and he now has an arrest warrant out for him.'
Maybeno added that companies providing the service claim road safety is their goal 'but it seems like the real reason is to increase revenue.'
She claimed the state removed traffic enforcement cameras from the Loop 101 because drivers 'would hit their brakes when they saw them, thereby increasing the dangers of accidents.'
Arizona removed the program in 2010 after two years of operation after intense public push-back.
'I know this is primarily a money-generator,' said Maybeno, who suggested the city instead put traffic cops at locations where speeding is a problem, which is 'a legal and fair deterrent.'
Lynda Patrick-Hayes also spoke on the cameras' dangers, recounting her experience driving one night and having a camera flash another vehicle, which blinded her.
'It was like the whole world exploded,' she said. 'It scared the living daylights out of me and it blinded me. It takes a long time for us to get back to the vision of night so I think they're very unsafe.'
She said that the city would likely be on the hook if something like that happens and causes an accident. She also called the enforcement cameras 'unconstitutional.'
David Winstanley, who chaired the city's Transportation Advisory Board, said he favored the use of red-light cameras but not speed cameras.
'I did my own investigation that showed on an empirical basis lives are saved with red light cameras,' Winstanley said. 'I understand my conservative compatriots will castigate me for speaking in favor of it but again reasonable people can disagree.
'But even we conservatives have to demonstrate that we obey the law and this is a way to save lives. I don't want to have to ask one of our policemen to go to a home to tell a family member that someone has been seriously hurt or killed in a traffic accident that might have been avoided.
'There is good data that says red light cameras do reduce accidents at intersections.'
The city will put cameras at four intersections that previously had them but were either damaged or sustained equipment issues. Cameras also will go up in two new school zones at Highland Junior High and Eastmark High.
'Part of the reason for this contract is to continue the work of providing safe intersections and school zones but also to replace a lot of outdated equipment, which will make it much more efficient,' City Manager Chris Brady said.
'This is something that we've been able to use and it really helps us with instead of having to deploy police officers in all these school zones. We're able to do that with photo radar and it's turned to be very effective.'
He added that studies showed that in intersections with cameras, there's been a reduction in collisions.
He reminded the council that it made the decision many years ago to reinvest the revenue collected from photo radar into safety projects.
Councilwoman Jenn Duff added that the revenue also contributed to school-zone upgrades. 'I think it's a great benefit to our city,' she said.
According to Assistant Chief Gina Nesbit, Mesa originally had cameras at 35 intersections, dropped that to the current 16 and will be moving to 20.
Several had been deactivated but over time, 'we realized looking at the data that we need to bring the cameras back,' Nesbit said.
She added the two new school zones came at the request from the public and are based on what traffic officers saw at the two campuses.
'And we do base it on what our statistics are showing us,' she said.
Nesbit noted that the Police Department in 2024 issued 48,548 citations. In about 7,000 incidents when the camera flashed, no citation was issued, she said.
Nesbit said that all the citations are first reviewed by a police investigator who determines if a violation occurred before it is sent out.
'From there you have your options to go before the magistrate and that's where you would get the additional due process,' Nesbit said. She added that she would like to talk with the vendor to address complaints about the brightness of the camera's light at night.
Councilwoman Alicia Goforth asked for more information about the cameras' impact on safety.
'We don't have any specific data that would tell us that the photo safety cameras cause people's driving behavior to change, meaning in the negative - speeding up and causing an accident,' Nesbit responded. 'Basically, this is a common concern for those people who are not for photo safety.
'They bring this up over in the (state) Senate, too – having them there cause drivers to speed up or slam on their brakes. We have no information to support or negate that.'
Now that the question has come up, the department has already start to pull some of its collision reports to see if it can get any of the pre-driving behavior data, Nesbit said.
On the other hand, data shows having cameras is akin to having a police officer on the corner or on an intersection, which is not feasible, she added.
Brady pointed out that the photo radar systems are put at intersections that have been determined to be unsafe or more dangerous than others.
'If we believe that the photo radar system in of itself is creating accidents then we probably wouldn't see the results that are opposite that,' Brady said. 'The point is we do see that photo radar intersections are safer and they're safer from when they previously were installed.
'There's no motivation for us to do it just to collect more revenues. That's not driving our budget or anything like that because all that money is just reinvested back into pedestrian safety and bicycle safety programs.'
Councilman Rich Adams said he assumed that the due process was the same for a person receiving a ticket from a camera or a cop.
Nesbit said that there is officer discretion in one and not the other but the process for challenging the validity of the citation is exactly the same.
City Attorney Jim Smith said the evidence in a photo is the same as that coming from an officer.
For example, he said, 'if you had a photo of someone committing a murder the idea that we wouldn't prosecute it because all we had was a photo of the person committing the murder is the same sort of concept.'
'That is sufficient evidence to convict somebody,' Smith continued. 'The jury gets to take that in consideration. In a traffic situation the magistrate gets to take it into consideration but the due process is exactly the same.'
Duff brought attention to the safety on Mesa's streets.
'We have more fatalities through traffic accidents than we do in homicides in our city in a given year,' she said. 'So, this is something that we take seriously in the transportation department.'
She also pointed to the city's Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, which looked at how Mesa can reduce fatalities.
'The two top things that create the fatalities are speeding and red light running,' Duff said. 'Those are the two that contribute to our fatalities.
'So I support having these tools in order to discourage people from speeding and red light running. We're trying to save lives.'
