06 February 2012

Court stops access to red light camera video

In re Travelers Prop. Cas. Co. of Am. v Nassau County Traffic & Parking Violations Agency, 2011 NY Slip Op 21470 [Sup Ct Nassau County 2012] [available here]

I hate red light cameras. Not for the usual big-brother, privacy-type concerns (although there is that), and not because I have been known to stretch a yellow light a bit further than nature intended ('though there is that, too). No, my problem is that the cameras are a naked money grab on the part of cash-strapped municipalities, masquerading as a public safety measure. If the goal were to actually reduce the number of people running red lights (and thereby make intersections safer), then every intersection equipped with a red-light camera would also have a big sign that said, "THIS INTERSECTION MONITORED BY A VIDEO CAMERA: MOTORISTS FAILING TO STOP AT A RED LIGHT WILL BE TICKETED." I guarantee the number of drivers running a red light would drop dramatically if signs went with the cameras.

But that is not the way the red light cameras are set up. If you are not looking for the camera, you would never even know it was there, mounted discretely just above the traffic signal (at least here in Rochester). The point is to catch as many people as possible running the red light and collect the fines. The more unsafe the intersection, the more money the muncipality makes. That seems wrong somehow.

Also, the owner of the vehicle gets the ticket, not the driver. Again: what?

I digress.

Given the ubiquity of red-light cameras in metropolitan areas, it was inevitable that the video that those cameras capture would, at some point, be relevant in a personal injury action. The question confronting the Court in Travelers was whether a municipal traffic violations agency was required to turn over the footage from red-light cameras to private litigants, under FOIL* or otherwise.

In Travelers, an insurance company brought an order to show cause against the traffic violations bureau responsible for maintaining and operating the red-light cameras in Nassau County, asking the agency to turn over the footage from its red light camera from the date and time of an accident at that intersection involving the company's insured, so that the insurance company could "properly investigate the accident."

The traffic agency opposed the request, noting the "Red Light Camera Program was enacted to aid law enforcement and to protect public safety"** and the agency would be crushed under requests for camera footage from insurance companies and private litigants if the insurance company's request was granted.

Ordinarily, a private entity seeking public information need only file a FOIL request. However, the state legislature, in a rare bit of foresight, included a provision in the statute authorizing red-light cameras that specifically exempted the red-light camera footage from FOIL. The Court denied the insurance company's request for the footage, holding "the legislature intended that the information contained on the photographs, microphotographs***, videotape or other recorded images obtained from a traffic-control signal photo violation-monitoring system should be excluded from the information generally made available to the public."


* Freedom of Information Law
** I call B.S., for the reasons stated at the top of the post, but whatever.
*** Any reader who can define a "microphotograph" is welcome to drop a comment.

1 comment:

  1. just because you know i have to.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/microphotograph

    I agree its a money grab, and that insurance companies can pound sand.

    ReplyDelete