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If this wasn't actually about revenue enhancement, the cities could prove it. Make the fine how much ya want it to be, but run the program as revenue neutral... say violators have to pay $10 to the city, the other $40 goes to the charity of their choice. See how many cities go for that.

It is an absolute joke. I haven't gotten a ticket in 10 years now. The last one I got was on a straight, nearly empty interstate going 78 in a 70 zone by a cop who was hiding behind a billboard. Yeah, I feel so much safer knowing he is hiding back there "to protect us".

My theory is that we should just add more cops who regularly patrol. If while on patrol they see a violation, they ticket it. The Hide-a-cop, radar photo cameras are an intrusion into our freedoms though.

City officials had hoped the program would generate about 80,000 monthly citations when they contracted to implement it last year, according to documents. Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey yesterday said the program isn't about collecting money but saving lives.

If it is about "saving lives" then why did they hope for 80,000 monthly citations? If this really works the number of citations should shrink, and that's what they should hope for. But they always say that more citations "proves" that it works. It's just about the money.

D.C. police spokesman Kevin Morison said the latest data show that about 16 percent of drivers are exceeding the speed threshold.
"Average speeds in 25 mph zones appear to have stabilized at 29 mph — down from 35.5 mph in July," said Mr. Morison.
Monitoring of 35 mph zones shows a reduction in average speeds from 43.7 mph in July to 39.4 mph in December, he added.

Any traffic engineer can tell you that the long-accepted practice for setting speed limits is to measure motorist speeds, then to set the limit at the 85th percentile of thos speeds, rounding up. This is enacted in law in probably every state, based on the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). Thus, limits are set above the average speed.

When they tell us that the average speed in the 25 zone was 35 mph, then the limit is set too low, based on safety criteria (unless there is evidence that this road has significant safety concerns compared to other roads with comparable speeds). Same for the 35 zone, with average speeds nearly 10 mph above that.

If they wanted to succeed at eliminating speeding, they would raise the 25 limit to 40, and the 35 limit to 45. But that would leave them bereft of the multi-million dollar revenue stream.

The other interesting story is the fact that only half of violators are paying up. Like most such systems, they are probably not legally serving the accused (they can't prove that the violator received notice) and the payment is essentially voluntary.