Reply to How do we get the D.C. government to care about crime?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've heard DC is ineffective at going after out-of-state drivers with their speed cameras and red light cameras.  It's kind of mind boggling that there are often times where here in SW DC 98% of the cars I see driving like idiots or choking Maine Ave with congestion are VA and MD plates.

If it's true that DC isn't going after these out-of-state drivers then that needs to be fixed immediately.[/quote]
It’s an urban legend that the urbanist crowd in DC have promoted. No matter where you live, if you get a ticket from a red light camera in DC they can and do send that ticket to collection for non-payment. Camera tickets are not considered traffic infractions. If you don’t pay, it will ruin your credit and they will send you to collections.

If you are a DC resident, you are not allowed to register your vehicle unless you pay all of your outstanding tickets, including traffic camera tickets. What DC wants is to have MD and VA agree that cars licensed in those states cannot be re-registered if they have outstanding traffic camera tickets in DC. This is not a scenario that other states have adopted.

In order to implement this, they would need to negotiate an agreement with MD and VA and neither MD or VA are interested in making such an agreement. There are currently agreements with MD related to resolution of traffic infractions, but since camera tickets are not traffic infractions they are not included and as a result DC cannot use other states police powers to enforce payment.

There are obvious reasons why neither MD nor VA would want to have their state agencies used as debt collectors for DC. However, they would and do this for actual traffic citations however DC is not interested in deploying the resources to issue actual, written traffic citations. Additionally, DC is quite notorious about making it impossible for people to get their camera tickets cancelled when their cars are stolen, which is a major and obvious issue for MD and VA where their residents cars are frequently stolen and driven into DC to commit crimes. If DC was interested in actually promoting public safety, they know what they need to do and yet refuse to do it because it’s all about revenue to them. [/quote]

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