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Youngstown police started using new manned radar guns
Youngstown police unveil new radar guns
YOUNGSTOWN
Starting Aug. 15, if you speed on a highway or in a school zone in the city, don’t think you’ve necessarily gotten away with it.
The police department started using new hand-held radar guns last Thursday that will issue civil fees to speeders rather than moving-violation tickets with fines that also add points to their driving record.
“The goal is to reduce crashes and lower speed,” said Police Chief Robin Lees. “It will be focused on prevention. Safety is the overriding concern.”
During the first 30 days of using the equipment, speeders will be sent warning letters. That ends Aug. 15.
After that, speeders face civil penalties – $100 for those driving up to 13 mph over the speed limit, $125 for 14 to 19 mph over the limit, and $150 for those driving at least 20 mph over the limit, Deputy Law Director Anthony Donofrio said Wednesday.
The city’s three-year deal with Optotraffic of Lanham, Md., calls for the city to keep 65 percent of the fee with the company getting 35 percent, Lees said.
The radar guns will be in marked police cars with uniformed officers typically on a four-hour shift. The city has three radar guns and plans to use two at a time, Lees said.
It would be at the officers’ discretion whether to ticket speeders, he said. Also, if the speed is excessive, the driver is too reckless, the motorist is a repeat offender or other such issues, officers could pull over vehicles, he said.
The department has used the guns three times so far, said Lt. William Ross, head of the traffic unit.
The focus now is on highways in the city, particularly Interstate 680 and the state Route 711 connector, but will expand to school zones when class is back in session, Lees said.
There were 1,050 speeding tickets given by law enforcement in the city limits in 2013 and 960 last year, Lees said.
“I won’t predict what we’ll ticket this year, but we think it will be more” because of the new equipment, he said.
Lees said the civil penalties will be a little less than current fines and court costs for speeding in municipal court.
But that isn’t always the case.
All moving-violation convictions carry a mandatory $79 court cost. The fines are $25 for up to 14 mph over the limit, $30 for 15 to 20 mph over the limit, and for those going 21 mph and more over the limit, a fine is set by the judge.
So someone going 15 to 19 mph over the speed limit would pay a $125 civil fee under this new program, but would pay $109 in municipal court.
State law, enacted in March, doesn’t permit unmanned traffic cameras.
James A. Denney, an attorney who won a class-action lawsuit in 2006 against Girard over that city’s use of unmanned traffic cameras, has said the Youngstown policy follows the law.
But Denney objects to what Youngstown is doing because of its using an outside company that will take 35 percent of the city’s money.
The radar guns take pictures of cars. But an example shown Wednesday of a speeding vehicle didn’t show the face of the driver.
Officers using the radar guns push a button that sends the pictures to Optotraffic of those speeding. The company then sends a letter to the owner of the motor vehicle seeking the payment.
“It’s like a parking ticket,” Lees said. “The owner would be responsible. But if evidence can be produced it was someone else, that person would be responsible for the payment.”
The city will hire a lawyer to handle administrative appeals from those billed for violating the speed limit and want to dispute it, Donofrio said. Those decisions can be appealed to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.