The cities that were denied approval to keep their speed cameras running do have another chance to make their case.
The director of the DOT Systems Operations Bureau, Dave Lorenzen, says they would have to file an appeal. “They would need to submit a written explanation of their issue, and along with any supporting information or documentation to the DOT director. Once the director receives that appeal, the director has 30 days to respond,” he says.
Lorenzen says the next step is legal action if their appeal is denied. “The director’s decision is the final agency action, so if they would not be in agreement with the director’s decision, then their next step would be to start through the court system, through District Court for their next appeal process,” Lorenzen says. A seven-member panel put together by the DOT’s top safety engineer reviewed accident reports and other material that led them to approve 11 of 139 requests to keep the speed cameras in place.
“They met almost every week for about three-hour meetings going through those they spent quite a bit of time assessing each permit application,” he says. “So it wasn’t, you know, they did their due diligence. I think they really looked at them extensively.” This is the first round of reviews under the new law passed by the legislature to regulate the cameras. Lorenzen says it will be a yearly process for those who were approved and any city wishing to put up a new speed camera. “In March of each year, they’ll have to resubmit a renewal application with that same set of data on it that were required on the initial application,” Lorenzen says. “And what that ensures is to make sure that the system, it’s where or their traffic, is still warranting that need of a system, or if there’s speed that warrants that, or if there’s number of crashes or incidents at those areas. So it’s, again, it’s making sure that the systems are matching up to the current traffic trends and the current traffic problems.”
He says there could be new speed cameras approved or current ones dropped in the next review. “Traffic patterns change pretty regularly. You know, you have communities that continue to expand, and there may not even be traffic in an area where, two years from now, it’s, you know, it’s a heavy corridor,” he says.
Lorenzen says the cities that did not receive approval for their speed cameras could still keep them up, but they can only issue warnings and cannot collect fines from motorists. It may not be an option for cities as the revenue generated from the fines is used to fund their operation.