Small Ohio Town Receives 6,600 Speeding Tickets During First Month of Speed Camera Use

Think speed trap cameras are a scam? Believe it or not, an Ohio judge agrees with you. This past September, the small town of Elmwood Place, Ohio, had speed cameras installed – and according to a lawsuit, it’s been said that its citizens were not given an appropriate heads-up, as per Ohio law.

In the first month, a total of 6,600 tickets were issued. For those without a calculator nearby, that’s $693,000 – from a town of 2,200. Since then, the revenue has surpassed the $1 million mark. Unlike a regular utility, which cities would usually pay out-right for, the installers of these speed cameras, Optotraffic, earns its pay by snatching up 40% of the value of each ticket handed out. Could it be that these cameras were configured to be a little too strict? The only other option is that everyone in this town – and their dog – drives no other way but flat-footed.

While it doesn’t seem to be the case for Elmwood, Dayton recently experienced a surge of outraged drivers due to speed cameras, and some have refused to pay their tickets. In that particular city, though, two unpaid tickets gives the city the right to tow your car. Picture yourself out and about, only to return to your car and it be missing because of unpaid traffic tickets that you felt you simply didn’t deserve.

I certainly don’t think that speed cameras are a waste of time, because clearly, if someone is going way over the speed limit, so as to become a true danger to other drivers, they should be sought out. But in cases like these, it seems highly likely that there are many more innocent drivers receiving these tickets than those that actually deserve it.