Outstanding red-light camera ticket? No car registration for you!
City Council has approved MayorWhiteChiefHurtt's latest plan to get red light runners to pay their tickets:
The City Council on Wednesday approved a measure that will allow the state to deny vehicle registration to drivers who do not pay their red-light camera tickets after repeated warnings.
As many as 25 percent of those who receive the $75 citation never pay up. Until now, there was nothing the city could do about it.
Under the measure approved Wednesday, if a driver does not pay after 85 days, the city can get the Texas Department of Transportation to put a "hold'' on the vehicle owner's registration that cannot be cleared until the ticket is paid.
"It's not complex,'' Mayor Bill White said. "If you get a citation when you're running the red light, then you pay the citation. Or, if you think there's some mistaken identity, then you go and contest it. It's pretty simple. But what you don't have an option to do is just ignore the citation."
Yeah, if you want to contest a ticket, all you have to do is take time off work, arrange daycare for the kids, drive all the way to downtown, pay for parking, etc, etc. Simple.
Despite Mayor White's assertion that "it's not complex," there are concerns from other quarters:
Not so fast, said George Hammerlein, who handles local governmental affairs for Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt's office.
Because that office administers registration renewals, the city would have to reach an interlocal agreement with the county, a step for which there still were a number of hurdles, Hammerlein said.
"We had a meeting and identified a series of areas we had concerns about before we could even think about going forward, and they haven't addressed them all yet," he said.
Hammerlein said a primary concern is customer service. If 100,000 people a year fail to pay red-light tickets, he said, that would mean 100,000 people could end up waiting in long lines at county offices to get new registrations, only to be turned away.
"That has a big impact on our lines and the overall customer service level that we strive for," he said.
And Councilman Sullivan wasn't sold on the plan:
Sullivan said he was skeptical of the ordinance for a number of reasons: What if a couple goes through a divorce and the notice of a ticket goes to the wrong address? What if someone gives away a vehicle as a gift? He also cast doubt on whether the process would be fluid, given that it involves the city; a private contractor that administers the cameras; the county, which handles vehicle registration renewals; and the state, which would apply the holds.
What could possibly go wrong?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/20/08 05:38 AM | Print |
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.