Redflex Traffic Systems, a for-profit company, makes about $90 each time the city of Scottsdale collects on a photo radar ticket. Traffic attorney Susan Kayler alleges that Redflex poses a legal conflict of interest. "The same company that testifies to your speeding in court makes money off the verdict," she says. "That's a conflict of interest."

Brake For the Camera

But money isn't the only issue residents are decrying. Scottsdale citizen and activist Michael Merrill says that Scottsdale is ignoring concerns and complaints from residents.

"We'd like to get this on the ballot because most Scottsdale citizens don't know what's going on," says Merrill, who attempted to obtain enough signatures to put photo enforcement on the 2006 ballot.

Merrill says the average Scottsdale resident has no idea that $700,000 of taxpayer money is funding photo enforcement on the 101. "If they would put it on the ballot, it would be thumped. I'm sick of the city lying to people," he adds. "When people came and said don't do this, the city just ignored us."

In response, Scottsdale Public Affairs Officer Pat Dodge said, "We're not in this to issue tickets. We're really in this to get people to drive safely."

Safety, the declared impetus for photo enforcement, is also the primary concern of its greatest opponents.

"To think that photo enforcement is going to reduce injury accidents and deaths isn't rational," says Sgt. Bill Whalen, chairman of the Arizona State Troopers Labor Council. "If you just request accident data on that stretch of highway, you will see that the major contributing factor is not speed."

Whalen adds that sudden braking for a photo enforcement camera causes a hazard. "It happens all the time. People see our patrol car and jump on the brakes. I don't know how many accidents I've witnessed because of that. Is photo enforcement going to cause more accidents? It's definitely not going to reduce the accidents."

City representatives say they'd like to know for sure. "This is a demonstration program that is designed to answer those questions exactly. We can all speculate. This is going to give us some hard data that will tell us if it works on this stretch of freeway."

But Merrill wonders why Scottsdale needs a multimillion dollar insurance shield if the cameras are a safety experiment. "The city takes all the responsibility and liability and gives the state the money," he says.

Do Cameras Save Lives?

Dodge says that since Scottsdale installed photo detection equipment in 1997, fewer drivers speed past the cameras. "The number of collisions (on surface streets) leveled off after we instituted photo radar. Our experience has been very good. That's the reason we want to test it out."

Opponents say the correlation of the statistics does not imply causation. To date, Scottsdale offers no direct proof that photo radar has saved lives in the Valley, but city officials point to documentation from around the world to prove their point.

A study in Britain, citing years of records, concluded that both collisions and fatalities at camera locations had decreased by 40 percent. A similar study in Australia found a 23-percent decrease in fatality crashes. Not everyone agrees with those findings.

"Almost everyone who sees photo radar slams on their brakes," Susan Kayler says. "One federal safety study showed that speed itself isn't dangerous. Speed variance is dangerous," she explains. "The danger is when vehicles slow down. What we're finding with photo radar is that everyone hits their brakes."

The Safety Business

From Britain and Australia to Scottsdale, photo radar often takes heat for generating money, lots of money. However, in 2004 records indicate a financial operating loss of about $36,000 for Scottsdale's photo enforcement program.

The city of Scottsdale did not produce requested photo enforcement financial data from 2005, but officials insist the program is driven by safety, not money.

"They say on one hand they aren't making any money," Merrill says. "On the other hand they say the $700,000 up front (costs) will be paid back by the fines."

Merrill and other opponents say safety has not been directly tied to photo radar in the Valley. Similarly, they suggest that photo radar programs around the world do make money, and therefore Scottsdale's will too. The same British study that found a decrease in fatality accidents concluded that the government made roughly $306 million on the program.

Sgt. Whalen sees the photo enforcement program as purely money-driven. "Is photo radar going to save lives? No. It's a revenue generating stream for the city." He and the Arizona State Troopers Labor Council would like to see money invested in trained officers rather than cameras.

"How will a camera get a drunk driver off the road?" Whalen asks.

Scottsdale officials say cameras on the 101 will function like the Frank Lloyd Wright cameras, which they say have been very successful. "When the Frank Lloyd Wright cameras began, we did have a significant increase in the number of citations," Public Affairs Officer Pat Dodge says. "But after a couple of months, the number of citations decreased dramatically. That's probably the nearest parallel to the system we'll be installing on the 101."

Dodge adds that the city will caution Loop 101 drivers with a 30-day trial as well as radio advertisements warning drivers of the presence of cameras and with large five-by-sixteen foot "Photo Speed Enforcement" signs.

"The goal of the program really is to control speeds and reduce collisions," Dodge says. Many disagree, but even opponents would concede the value of life cannot be measured in dollars. Should Scottsdale prove a direct causation of lives saved by the photo radar program, the protestors may be forced to recant.

Until then, brake light-leery commuters, large-government skeptics and heavy-footed drivers will continue crying "foul photo."