Leadfooted drivers, beware.
The city issued a wallet-walloping 445,065 speed-camera tickets last year, according to data obtained via a Freedom of Information Law request. By contrast, cops manually issued 117,767 speeding tickets over the same period, NYPD records show.
At $50 each, the camera tickets have produced $16.9 million for the city’s coffers, with more than $5 million still owed, the data reveal. “That’s a lot of dough,” said Glen Bolofsky, founder of Parkingticket.com, which helps motorists dispute tickets. “It’s a tremendous new revenue gain.”
Fines began to be imposed last year after Mayor de Blasio persuaded Albany in June to let the city boost the number of cameras to 140 as part of his Vision Zero push to decrease traffic fatalities.
Many of the cameras have yet to be installed. There were 49 cameras active last year, and 57 are currently operational, records show. The city anticipates having all 140 active by the end of this year.
City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg maintained the cameras were all about safety.
“If the drivers of New York slow down and obey the speed limit and the city collected no revenue, I would consider the speed-camera program a victory,” said Trottenberg.
The speed cameras are located near schools. The tickets are doled out to drivers going more than 10 mph over the speed limit.
Street-safety advocates support the extra cameras, saying they have helped reduce traffic deaths.
But one Brooklyn pol is furious the city has placed a camera near Ocean Parkway right off a Belt Parkway exit ramp. “Not a soul crosses that street,” said City Councilman Mark Treyger.
City officials defended the camera, noting it is near Lincoln High School. The school is in one of Brooklyn’s priority corridors, meaning that it has one of the highest rates of pedestrians killed or severely injured between 2009 and 2013 in the borough.
Drivers nabbed speeding are mailed a ticket within 30 days. But some have not paid up yet. There’s $5.2 million in outstanding speed camera tickets, data show.
That contributed to the huge boost in the number of wheel boots slapped on drivers with $350 in judgments. The city Finance Department grounded a whopping 115,749 cars last year with the clunky metal devices, up from 53,739 in 2013.
The city has aggressively switched from tows to boots, arguing it is a cheaper and more efficient alternative.
