Red light scofflaws can now get the boot

Drivers who rack up unpaid tickets from Rochester’s red light cameras could now find their cars booted.

Since 2010, the city has placed wheel locks on vehicles whose owners fail to pay three or more parking tickets that are at least 90 days old. In October, the city expanded its criteria to include unpaid tickets for infractions recorded by red light cameras, city spokeswoman Jessica Alaimo acknowledged Friday.

City records show that along with the change in policy came a spike in use of the yellow metal wheel clamps one might notice while walking down a city street.

When the booting program began in 2010, the city immobilized hundreds of vehicles, but the rate quickly declined after a few months. In 2011 and 2012, the city used boots an average of about 150 times a month. From January 2013 through September 2014, the city immobilized at most 208 vehicles in a single month.

But after adding red light camera tickets to the mix, the city booted vehicles 392 times in October, 281 in November and 314 in December, according to records obtained through an open records request.

Altogether, the city used boots a little more than 2,400 times last year — up from about 1,950 in 2013 — over 700 times in the first three months of this year.

Alaimo said other factors could be at play, including an increasingly proficient staff or a rise in outstanding tickets.

Adding red light tickets to the booting program is not the city’s only effort to step up collection of fines that originate with the automated cameras.

Mayor Lovely Warren’s budget proposal for next fiscal year, which begins July 1, includes a plan to begin reporting unpaid tickets to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. By the city’s account, both steps are meant to encourage safety on the road and to ensure that people pay what they owe.

Lawrence Krieger, a lawyer who filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s use of red light cameras, sees these measures as largely about money. He said the city has become more aggressive about collecting ticket fines since a judge upheld the program in late 2013.

While the city argues otherwise, objective studies show little evidence that red light cameras improve traffic safety, and the tickets disproportionately burden some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, Krieger said.

“I think they’re hitting people in the pocket that they should be protecting,” he said. “It hurts the quality of life in Rochester.”

Warren’s budget proposal anticipates collecting $4.1 million from red light camera tickets next fiscal year, up from $3.5 million in the current spending plan.

The city began using boots under Mayor Robert Duffy as part of an effort to reduce an annual $3 million subsidy to the city’s parking bureau. Before that, the city generally towed parking ticket scofflaws’ vehicles.

Ultimately, the booting program has reduced the subsidy, but not eliminated it, Alaimo said.

Boots netted the city about $2.5 million between the 2011-12 fiscal year and April, records show. That includes roughly $934,000 collected since October.

The city’s data did not distinguish between revenue collected from unpaid parking tickets and from red light tickets.

Here’s how the booting program works. The city contracts with a private company, Paylock, to provide the wheel clamps and to process payments. Paylock keeps both an $85 boot fee and 17 percent of the collected fines. The rest goes to the city.

The parking bureau uses a license plate recognition camera to spot scofflaws’ vehicles, clamp a wheel and apply a sticker to the car with a telephone number to call. Drivers have to make a payment, generally by credit or debit card, within 48 hours or Rochester police will tow the vehicle to be impounded.

Owners paid up in roughly 88 percent of cases where the city booted vehicles last year, city records show.

Those who pay off their fines will get a code from Paylock to unlock the boot and must return the boot to the parking bureau within 24 hours or a $500 fee is charged to the owner’s debit or credit card.

DRILEY@DemocratandChronicle.com