Cities across the country have used automated speed cameras in traffic enforcement for decades. Today, nearly 200 communities have them in place. But critics say that in places like Chicago, the tickets and fines they generate fall disproportionately on Black and brown residents. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
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John Yang: For many of us, the daily commute includes slowing down to go by automated speed cameras. Cities across the country have used them for decades, and today nearly 200 communities have them in place. But critics say that in places like Chicago, the tickets and fines they generate disproportionately fall on black and brown residents. Economics correspondent Paul Solman has our report.
Paul Solman: An open road in Black, South Chicago. This is another example of an arterial street with terrible infrastructure that encourages people to speed and at the same time has cameras that send out tickets automatically, points out Oboi Reed, Chicago traffic reform. activist.
Oboi Reed, CEO, Equiticity Ventures: The infrastructure is horrible in our neighborhoods. Potholes, multilane streets, highways, interest in exit ramps, arterial streets like Stony Island, Ashland.
Paul Solman: And speaking of Ashland, the speeds on this avenue, says garage owner Shay Sumter are sometimes —
Shea Sumpter, Owner, Star Bright Hand Carwash: At least 60 to 70 miles an hour. Paul Solman: Really. Shea Sumpter: It's like a highway.Paul Solman: Truth be told, if I weren't here for a story on speeding fines, I'd probably be cruising at around 40 myself. Good thing I wasn't. Hairdresser Daira Brooks, who runs a salon next to Shea Sumpton's garage, had no such reminder.
Daira Brooks, Hairdresser: I got a speed ticket. I was going like 35, 36 in. Paul Solman: A 30 miles an hour zone, and then — Daira Brooks: I never received any tickets in the mail. That next Friday, I had a boot on my truck.Paul Solman: Chicago introduced automated speed cameras in 2013. The fine $35 for going 10 miles an hour over the limit. But in 2021, the threshold was cut to 6 miles an hour over. Chicago has since raked in an extra $120 million paid mostly according to ProPublica by drivers of color. ALD. Anthony Beale, 9th Ward, Chicago: The program was rolled out under the auspices that it was all about public safety.
Paul Solman: City council member Anthony Beale represents the city's largely black 9th Ward.Anthony Beale: We've learned that it's not about public safety, that the entire system is about generating revenue.
Paul Solman: You're an alderman. The city does need money, right?Anthony Beale: The city does need money, but if we're going to generate revenue, it needs to be off the backs of the entire city of Chicago and not targeted towards the black and brown communities where the people are hurting the most. I've had residents go to the grocery store. They got a ticket going to the grocery store, and they got a ticket going home from the grocery store. Stacey Sutton, University of Illinois Chicago: Those are the same neighborhoods that are food deserts.
Paul Solman: Stacey Sutton has studied literally millions of tickets given in Chicago from 2016 to 201, who got them disproportionately?
Stacey Sutton: Majority black neighborhoods or majority Latinx neighborhoods. Those are the same neighborhoods that have less access to public transportation.
Paul Solman: And more tickets they can't afford. Daira Brooks paid the first just to unboot her car. Daira Brooks: Then when I paid that, then I had to get on a payment plan for the rest of them. Paul Solman: Because the tickets, eight or nine in total, had doubled in price due to late fees. Daira Brooks: I'm happy that we're talking about it because my payment plan is due tomorrow. So — Paul Solman: It reminds you. Daira Brooks: It reminds me. Paul Solman: That's what these interviews are useful for. Daira Brooks: So I appreciate you. Paul Solman: Please.Stacey Sutton: There was a case of a firefighter in Chicago, a black man who lived on the South Side. He had purchased a car for his son that was sitting on a lot. That car sitting on a lot accumulated. tickets.
Paul Solman: 17 of them, with late fees, $30,000.Stacey Sutton: He can file for bankruptcy or lose his job. That's when I learned that Chicago has the highest rate of personal bankruptcy cases related to fines and fees.
Paul Solman: In the country. Stacey Sutton: In the country.Paul Solman: Flat fines and fees of this sort have become a notorious way for cities to make money, as in Ferguson, Missouri, which helped trigger the uprising of 2015. The Justice Department concluded that, quote, Ferguson's strategy of revenue generation through policing has fostered practices that are themselves unconstitutional. These practices disproportionately harm African Americans.
Stacey Sutton: Ferguson is the big case, but there's so many cases. Paul Solman: There is, however, it turns out, an alternative.Matthew Schilke, Journalist: In the U.S., you pay maybe $200 for a fine. In Finland, you pay maybe 1 percent. It's in direct proportion to your income.
Paul Solman: Of your total income, says U.S. born Helsinki journalist Matt Schilke which, if your wealthy NHL hockey player Rasmus Ristolainen meant a fine of $135,000 for going 50 in a 25 miles per hour zone just a few years. ago.
Matthew Schilke: This is something that's been in Finnish society for decades and probably will be for the next decades to come.
Paul Solman: Good old Egalitarian Finland, whose policy Chicago Alderman Daniel La Spata admires. ALD. Daniel La Spata, 1st Ward, Chicago: I think that's a great idea. I honestly know colleagues who are working on ordinances geared around that very idea right now on the City Council.
Paul Solman: But La Spata recently rejected a move to switch the speed at which tickets are issued back to 10 miles over the limit from six.
Daniel La Spata: We've kept it at six because we know that is more likely to keep you alive in the case of a crash. We know that at 30 miles per hour likelihood of a pedestrian, a cyclist, even a driver dying in that crash is about 20, 30 percent. At 40 mph, that goes up to 90 percent likelihood of you dying in that crash.
Paul Solman: As some of his constituents have.Daniel La Spata: I've met with the fathers and mothers of seven and eight year olds who were killed because of the speeds that were being driven by motorists.
Paul Solman: But says Ashland garage owner Shea Sumpter. Shea Sumpter: It was three deaths last year. Paul Solman: Three deaths on right here. Shea Sumpter: Right on Ashland. Paul Solman: Don't the speed cameras discourage that kind of speed? Shea Sumpter: No, it needs to be a physical person instead of a camera. Paul Solman: So what about physical patrol cars?Stacey Sutton: Police related ticketing can lead to horrendous outcomes, and we've seen that for black and Latinx communities, especially. But especially for black communities.
Paul Solman: The real goal, says activist Oboi Reed, to make Chicago's most speed inviting streets less so, more bus lanes, pedestrian islands, crosswalks because as things stand —
Oboi Reed: We're putting a financial burden on communities that's already poor instead of the city investing in engineering to solve the problem of traffic violence here.
Paul Solman: Alderman La Spata's response. We're working on it. With millions of dollars set aside in the city budget, including, he predicts, upgrading Ashland Avenue. I've been a journalist for a very long time. I drove down Ashland, I stood at Ashland, I watched cars go by. If I'm a betting man, I'm betting that there's no significant improvement of the infrastructure on Ashland Avenue by the time I come back to Chicago in, say, five years. Am I crazy?
Daniel La Spata: I would love to take you up on that bet. I don't think you win that bet, Paul.Paul Solman: For PBS News Weekend, Paul Solman in Chicago, hoping not for the first time that mine will be a losing bet.
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Paul Solman has been a correspondent for the PBS News Hour since 1985, mainly covering business and economics.
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