Almost half of the photo citations generated by Scottsdale, Arizona's new freeway speed cameras are tossed out because of problems with the technology used by Australian contractor Redflex. In a letter to lawmakers and city councilmen last week, local activist Michael Merrill points out this was a predictable result.

In October 2005, the Arizona Department of Transportation released a study that refused to endorse Scottsdale's plan because of problems inherent in the technology.

"At this time, however, gaps exist between the current vendor systems and the ideal system characteristics needed for the Phoenix metro area freeways," the report concluded.

"We tried telling the media and the City Council that Redflex has already shown that their systems had a nearly 50 percent failure rate," Merrill wrote. "It was all in clear black and white information still sitting in the contracts folders."

Merrill is also spearheading an effort to defeat Councilman Kevin Osterman in March 14 city council elections because of his support for the freeway speed camera system.

Arizona DOT's study is available at the source link below in a 765k PDF file.