Posted: Monday, 26 October 2009 7:18AM

City's red light cameras yield nearly $10 million in fines



Brian Kelly Reporting
kmoxnews@kmox.com

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) -- As the city of St. Louis nears the ten million dollar mark in red light camera fines collected, officials are saying the effort is paying off both in safety and revenue.

Since the cameras went on line in May of 2007, the city's collected 9.9 million dollars in fines and after paying the camera vendor its share the city's net gain is 6.8 million.
Mayor Slay's Operations Director Ron Smith says while it's hard to pinpoint the cost of the additional police and judicial resources used in the program, there is a net gain."In terms of flat dollars, based on the amount of tickets that have been paid, we are not losing money on the situation," Smith says. "What we are noticing is that once people look at the video of the incident, they realize there was an infraction and they pay their ticket."
Smith says there is evidence the lights are improving safety, with citations from some intersections down 85 percent from two years ago.

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