TX, Rhome & Marble Falls - Poliscan Automated Speed Trap

Texas Cities Embrace Automated Speed Traps
Small towns in Texas return to the idea of using machines to run automated speed traps.

Nestor speed cameraThe owners of vehicles passing through small Texas towns on high-volume roads will soon be hit with speed camera fines in the mail. The Austin suburb of Marble Falls has allowed a private vendor Nestor to charge $100 to those traveling with the flow of traffic on Highway 281 and RM1431. Nestor keeps a $25 bounty for each ticket the company is able to issue. Ticketing begins in three weeks.

In the North Texas city of Rhome, the police chief wants to expand his current ticketing force of five officers with machines. A camera will soon target motorists passing through on Highway 114 as Rhome officials have also bought into the sales pitch given by Nestor. The company has been traveling the state in a desperate attempt to shore up its stock price before its listing is removed from the Nasdaq stock exchange.

This is not the first time cities have tried this method of revenue enhancement. La Marque and Friendswood briefly experimented with speed cameras twenty years ago. The program lasted less than a year. "You could say there was a good bit of unhappiness," La Marque's former mayor Jack Nash told the Los Angeles Times.

Source: Marble Falls installs speed cameras (KVUE-TV (TX), 10/19/2006)

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Smile – you could be on city’s traffic camera

Published Sunday, January 7, 2007

By Christina Lane

Speeders beware – the city of Rhome will go live on Monday, Jan. 8, issuing citations by using an automated program that notes vehicles traveling above a trigger speed.

The system uses LiDAR technology to scan lanes, notes vehicles traveling above the trigger and takes a photograph of the driver and license plate number. A citation is then issued to the owner of the vehicle.

Rhome acquired the technology in December and has been issuing warnings to speeding vehicles.

Mayor Mark Lorance said the goal of this program is for people to slow down when they pass through the city, and he hopes that those who have already received warnings will not repeat the offense.

“Once you get a warning in the mail, you’re probably not going to speed through Rhome again,” he said.

The equipment is housed in a black van and tripods with cameras are placed along the roadway.

“It’s not something you just sneak up on, so we’re hoping people will slow down,” Lorance said.

Some leeway is given between the speed limit and the trigger speed of the system.

Sgt. Jennifer Ruiz said warnings have been issued with a trigger speed of 8 to 10 mph over the speed limit.

Lorance said the number of warnings written varies from day to day. On the first day, there were around 20 issued and on another day there were around 90.

When a citation is issued, it is mailed to the owner of the vehicle along with copies of the photographs that were taken. When the photos are mailed, only the driver is visible; other passengers are either cropped out or blurred out for privacy reasons, Lorance said.

“If it goes to court, the full image still exists,” he said.

If a situation arises in which the owner of the vehicle is not the driver, then there is a form that the owner can fill out, state who the driver’s name is and mail it back