CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) --The non-partisan advocacy organization Illinois Policy has taken a look at Chicago’s red light cameras from last year and the results could be called “eye-popping.”
When the city changed the cameras to ticket at 6 miles per hour over the limit last March, drivers were being ticketed, on average, every eleven seconds.
Over the next ten months, the cameras brought in nearly $74 million dollars in revenue.
Illinois Policy reports that’s $30 million dollars more than the cameras generated in each of the previous three years.
Former chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, Ald. Anthony Beale, introduced an ordinance last March that would have reverted Chicago’s speed camera policy back to previous rates, according to Illinois Policy.
“Frankly, we don’t even know for certain whether the cameras reduce crashes and fatalities. But what we do know is that the city’s speed cameras function as a cash cow,” Beale said in a statement.
One woman who was caught, twice, in the same trip to get coffee, Vanessa Ortiz, said it cost her $70 per cup and she said that’s on top of nine others.
Lowering the threshold from 10 miles per hour over to 6 miles per hour, appears to have made all the difference.
That, and as it was widely reported, there was a lot more speeding after the start of the pandemic.
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