South Carolina: Internal Emails Reveal Speed Trap Profit Motive

The Newspaper
by The Newspaper

An ongoing federal lawsuit against the speed trap town of Ridgeland, South Carolina uncovered internal emails last month that shed light on the motivation behind the state’s only photo enforcement program. Since July 2010, Ridgeland has allowed the private firm iTraffic to operate a mobile speed camera van on Interstate 95, despite a state law outlawing the practice and a pair of attorney general opinions warning that the photo ticketing was not legal ( view opinions).

The lawsuit filed by attorney Pete Strom in December has been expanded to reflect information recently gained from the discovery process. iTraffic has an unusually close relationship with the town and its mayor, Gary W. Hodges. For each ticket issued, iTraffic receives 50 percent of the profit from the $100 to $300 tickets and takes a 66 percent cut on any overdue collections.

Although Hodges points out in his public comments that “police officers” man the automated ticketing vehicle, those individuals are paid by and under the control of iTraffic. In an October 15, 2010 email, iTraffic CEO William Danzell issued orders to Officers David Swinehamer and R. Lowther.

“Starting today please fill out and sign a time card at the RV when you arrive and when you depart,” Danzell wrote. “Your iTraffic 40 work week is determined by the hours deployed. The time cards will be delivered to Jason Cox by you for each day of work. Thanks. Bill.”

In an October 18, 2010 email to Ridgeland town administrator Jason Taylor, Danzell made it clear his primary motivation in deciding when and where to place the cameras was generating the maximum possible number of citations.

“Just a follow-up to our lunch on Friday,” Danzell wrote. “We should be consistently be delivering 120 to 130 tickets to Sandy on a daily basis. The potential is 200 but further improvements are required in the backoffice to achieve this number. We are working on this… but, we are not there yet. I’ll keep you posted. Bill.”

Another iTraffic employee, Jason Cox, ordered a change in the police officers shift in a January 17, 2011 email.

“If possible, I think we should move to 24 hour Friday-Sunday deployments,” Cox wrote. “The numbers show (last week’s data) that we will get a 50 percent increase if we move the weekday deployment to the weekend.”

Strom’s lawsuit argues that the “I-95 Speed Trap Enterprise” violates racketeering statutes by engaging in mail fraud to obtain money from motorists under false pretenses. The suit argues that each mailed citation makes fraudulent claims regarding the legality of the tickets and the consequences of failing to pay. South Carolina law does not recognize the service of citations by mail.

iTraffic emails (Ridgeland, South Carolina, 4/19/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

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  • GS650G GS650G on Apr 20, 2011

    So if this is Not Permitted then the police should pull up to the van and ask them to cease and desist.

    • Advance_92 Advance_92 on Apr 20, 2011

      The police are the ones being paid to man the thing, off duty. You'd need country or state police to go after the local police.

  • Mr Carpenter Mr Carpenter on Apr 20, 2011

    Sending illegal tickets via the US Mail service? That's defrauding people via the US Mail, a FEDERAL MAIL FRAUD OFFENSE, is it not? Ridgeland town administrator Jason Taylor, anyone else in the city who has touched this and all employees of this company should be up on Federal Mail law offenses. Then if found guilty, they should spend time in FEDERAL PENITENTIARY for their crimes. That'd teach them. It might even stop some of the other criminals disguised as "public servants" from doing such things in future.

    • Golden2husky Golden2husky on Apr 20, 2011

      You mean a "pound you in the a$$ federal pen?" I loved Office Space. All automated ticketing schemes should be made illegal. End of discussion.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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