Pressure is mounting on red-light camera operators as Democratic Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced Monday that, beginning Feb. 6, her office will no longer assist municipalities in collecting fines for violations caught by the devices.
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SPRINGFIELD — Pressure is mounting on red-light camera operators as Democratic Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced Monday that, beginning Feb. 6, her office will no longer assist municipalities in collecting fines for violations caught by the devices.
“Over the years, it has become clear that these red-light cameras were less about keeping people safe and more about collecting revenue,” Mendoza said in a street-corner Chicago news conference overlooked by a red-light camera.
The cameras are automated devices that photograph vehicles if they pass through a red light without stopping, and generate a citation to the vehicle’s owner. Local governments typically split the revenue from citations with vendors that place the cameras.
“They were sold as a way to prevent motorists from racing through the intersections, but the stories have shown they are now more about charging people high fines for failing to come to a complete stop as they make a right turn on red at intersections where right turns on red are allowed,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said the comptroller’s office has been helping collect red-light fines since 2012 after the General Assembly allowed municipalities to use the comptroller’s offset system — which withholds state income tax refunds or other state payments — to collect traffic fines including red-light violations.
Historically, this system had been used to collect child support, overpayment of benefits and other types of debt, the comptroller’s office said.
Mendoza said her office helped collect about $11 million in revenue specific to red-light cameras last year.
The comptroller’s office said it does not collect red-light camera fines for Chicago, but a growing percentage of offset collections have involved violations from the city’s suburbs. Beginning Feb. 6, that arrangement, which Mendoza called “plain rotten,” will end.
“It exploits taxpayers and especially those who struggle to pay the fines imposed, often the working poor and communities of color,” she said.