ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - On Monday, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and Board of Alderman President Megan Green announced plans to introduce a bill that would make the use of red light cameras possible again in the city of St. Louis to counter the increase amount of reckless driving in the area.
The use of red light cameras throughout the state of Missouri has been non-existent since 2015 due to a ruling in the Missouri State Supreme Court.
"The Missouri Supreme Court did strike down red light cameras, but on very specific grounds," said KMOX legal analyst Brad Young, "(The Missouri Supreme Court) didn't say in a blanket fashion that they're unconstitutional but the way the red light cameras were previously used were unconstitutional."
In 2015, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to ticket car owners without being able to prove they were the ones who committed the violations.
"Whenever you received a ticket, there was no opportunity to challenge it, you were assumed guilty whether you were driving or not, there was no police officer to review it," said Young, "The Missouri Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional because it put defendants in a position where they had to prove they were innocent instead of having the burden of the government to prove you were guilty."
According to Young, for Jones and the Board of Alderman to be able to reimplement red light cameras in the city, it would have to be crafted in a legal manner where it "would avoid the pitfalls of that doomed the previous examples of red light cameras."
"The St. Louis Board of Alderman will have to make sure that the ordinance actually allows for defendants to challenge the criminal infraction," said Young.
According to the plan by the Board of Alderman, the red light camera will have technology that will make it possible to identify the driver of the vehicle and any revenue collected from tickets will be going into a newly created Traffic Safety Improvement fund rather than it goes into the city’s general revenue fund.
Board members say any money that goes into the fund will be used to make road improvements like crosswalk striping, illuminated stop signs and other signage improvements on non-major roads in the city.
Another point that Young says the Board of Alderman has to prove is that the use of red light cameras will not solely be used as a money grab.
"In the Supreme Court case of 2015, the court specifically said cities employing the red light cameras may have discovered the elusive 'goose that lays the golden egg'," said Young, "So even the Missouri Supreme Court realized recognized that (the use of red light cameras) is a money grab."
Should the bill move smoothly move the legislative process and the Board of Alderman send it to Mayor's Jones's desk to get signed, reimplementing the use of red light cameras could take 10 months after the bill is signed for the red light camera system to be return for full use, according to the mayor’s office citing a Centers for Disease Prevention and Control study.