Are you miserable driving in LA now? Just wait

Coming soon, perhaps, to a street near you: speed cameras, aka citation machines.

Dozens of such cameras could generate tickets as soon as this fall under a plan from the LA Department of Transportation.

The City Council should nix this money-guzzling scheme.

Traffic-ticket cameras rarely work as promised, invite public grievance, and raise issues of profiteering and lack of due process.

(Otherwise, they’re doing well — to borrow a quip from the president.)

There’s also the (key) question of whether the cams, touted by LADOT as a safety measure, would target egregious violators … or churn out ticky-tack tickets to meet revenue quotas.

History suggests the latter.

In the past two decades, dozens of cities nationwide have tried and discarded citation-issuing cameras.

The cameras — including LA’s red-light cams of 2004-11 (RIP) — have succumbed to high costs, legal questions, unpaid fines, and public backlash. 

Q: Why expect a different outcome this time?

A: Hope for (ever more) public money springs eternal.

By one estimate, LADOT’s latest scheme could bring the city $64 million a year, based on fines ranging from $50 to $500 per citation. 

Problems: First, the public (rightly) resents government profiteering from punishment. 

While state rules say cities should not profit from the cams, local governments can find workarounds. 

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Second, such cameras rarely meet “revenue” needs over time. Some motorists locate and avoid the speed traps or just don’t pay the fines.

That can create pressure for more citations, to keep the scheme going.

And camera-based citations raise due-process concerns. Those who get tickets typically struggle to fight them: Appeal windows are short, in-person hearings are rare, and the ability to vet camera technology is limited. 

Camera systems also send tickets to registered owners, regardless of who was driving.

The solution? If the city really wants better traffic enforcement, it should deploy more officers to trouble spots — and fully re-fund the LAPD to serve public safety broadly. 

Why pursue a costly, dubious, unpopular, and probably unsustainable camera network instead — a system under constant pressure to mete out fines to pay for its own operation and then some?

Flagrant speeders can’t keep the racket going; there just aren’t enough of them.

That means the cameras will be eyeing you. 

Don’t slip up.