Louisiana: Speed Camera Company Looks for Litter Louts
Speed camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) next month will use its automated ticketing expertise to run a litter camera program for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Under first-of-its-kind initiative, city workers will drive around photographing neighborhoods with special cameras hooked into a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite tracking device. The workers will be looking to capture homes that might have litter, weeds or trash on their lawn so that a hefty fine can be imposed.
Fifteen “code enforcement specialists” this week began training on the program in which they will drive around looking to issue tickets to homeowners. The code specialists are paid at least $12.49 an hour and must have a valid driver’s license, a GED and some experience working in construction to be hired. ATS will download the images that these specialists generate and then use an automated computer system to generate warning letters, tickets and hearing notices similar to those used in the traffic camera program.
When “construction materials, litter, refuse, rubbish, appliances, junk vehicles, limbs, trees or other discarded materials or debris” are photographed at a home, a letter will be sent to the last address of record for the property owner. The situation must be remedied within fifteen days to escape the ticket. The penalty imposed by the program is the same as a red light camera citation — $117 plus “court costs” of $50. If the owner is on vacation or the address on file is incorrect, Baton Rouge will hold a “litter court” administrative hearing where a municipal employee will find that it is “more probable than not” that the missing property owner is guilty. Residents will also be ticketed for putting out garbage cans before 4pm or failing to retrieve them before 6am.
The ticket vans start rolling on August 1 and the litter court hearings open September 17.
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I actually grew up in Baton Rouge. One reason I'll never move back is because there were so many asinine rules and laws to force people to do what they should do...things that people in the Midwest and Plains states take for granted. I've always thought it had something to do with the codified legal system, which is unique to that state. One example occured about a year ago when I visiting my family; I used a pedestrian crosswalk in a mall parking lot. A car was about 100 feet from the crosswalk when I started to cross, causing driver speed through and then screamed at me from her open window for getting in the way. A mall cop was nearby and admonished the driver for failing to yield, which caused the driver to scream that she didn't need to yield because there was no sign telling her to do so at the crossing. So don't assume that "yield to pedestrians" is a universally known rule of the road. Members of my family who still live there (including my mother) tell me that the city continues to deal with growing pains, due to the large number of people who moved there from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. So I'd expect that many of the "nanny state" laws that are common to Louisiana will multiply in the coming years.
Residential bylaws were created to promote harmony among citizens, not to tell people how to live. To have a camera-toting Big Brother conducting random invasions of privacy, in the absence of any complaints by neighbours, is a horrendous abuse of power.