Maryland recently passed an amendment to their speed camera law that makes clear that jurisdictions can’t contract with vendors to pay a Bounty for every speed camera citation issued. The new law will close the loophole that allows localities to claim they are exempt from the original ban on paying per-ticket bounties to speed camera contractors by using a verbal trick. However that ban was always in place as the original statute prohibited the bounty. The jurisdictions simply took the legal position that their contractors weren’t “operating” the speed camera system.
So. Is it a guarantee that the bounties will end? No. The problem is that the statute allows self-enforcing by the governments. Since no attorney general has gone after the towns for violating the statute before, on the bounty or the requirement to have a law enforcement officer review the tickets, the jurisdictions can act with the knowledge that the penalty provision isn’t likely to be enforced. This is especially true as the jurisdiction will still have a financial incentive not to return the collected money.
The lesson? The bounty will end when we elect local government who serve the people and obey the spirit as well as the letter of the law.
