Red Light Cameras Shuttered In Brick

O’Scanlon and Ducey Celebrate “Good Riddance” To Red Light Ripoffs

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Brick Mayor John Ducey celebrated the end of the Township’s red light camera program  yesterday by posing for one last image for American Traffic Solutions’ computers in Arizona to process.

Fulfilling a campaign promise made during his race for mayor last fall, on February 6 Ducey announced the results of his study of Brick’s RLC results showing that the cameras actually increased traffic accidents over the three year program and refused to renew the contract of ATS, the Arizona company that administered the program and kept roughly half of the fine monies collected.  The contract expired at midnight today.

O’Scanlon, New Jersey’s leading critic of the RLC program praised Ducey for protecting Brick’s motorists from the dangerous rippoffs and called on the leaders of the twenty-four New Jersey municipalities that still have the cameras to do the same thing: “One down, 24 to go!” O’Scanlon declared.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

O’Scanlon: Red Light Camera Corruption Warrants Investigations By Fishman, Wisniewski

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said today that he is asking U.S Attorney Paul Fishman to open criminal investigations into the municipal clients of Redflex Traffic Systems, an Arizona based red light camera company, due to legal claims by a former executive that the company routinely bribed municipal officials in 13 states, including New Jersey, in order to obtain the lucrative contracts to operate camera systems that issue summonses for red light infractions.

Additionally, O’Scanlon is writing to Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski to ask that the committee open an investigation into New Jersey’s red light camera program in light of the recent bribery allegations and scientific proof commissioned by O’Scanlon that red light cameras are a detriment to public safety that are rigged to cheat motorists.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Meanest red-light cameras in N.J. pumped out thousands of citations in 2013

Meanest red-light cameras in N.J. pumped out thousands of citations in 2013 (via NJ.com)

We have found the meanest red light in New Jersey. It was two years ago when Alice Henry had her first encounter with it and she still tries to avoid the intersection that made her $85 poorer. “I either try to go a different route, or I go and stop…

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

O’Scanlon Slams Rand Paul For Baseless Attack On Christie

By Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon

Yesterday Senator Rand Paul attacked NJ Governor Christie suggesting that the Governor’s landslide victory last week was the result of the federal aid package sent to NJ following superstorm Sandy.  

I occupy the unique combination of positions of Republican Assembly Budget Officer, long term fiscal conservative who has warned of New Jersey’s irresponsible spending polices for years, long-term advocate for reforms like pension benefit and collective bargaining reforms – and my District (13) covers the area of the bayshore hardest hit by the storm.

Unlike Senator Paul, I can state unequivocally – and based on first hand experience – that Governor Christie’s popularity wasn’t purchased with federal aid.  It was earned by tireless, extraordinary leadership on multiple crisis fronts from the moment Christie won election in 2009.  He inherited a state on the verge of insolvency, requiring reform solutions – pension and benefit, arbitration, property tax, budgetary – that no governor in the history of the state ever dreamed of tackling.  

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Buono would raise sale taxes

Lost in the headlines of yesterday’s special election is the fact that State Senator Barbara Buono would not rule out raising New Jersey’s 7% sales tax, if elected governor, during her debate with Governor Chris Christie on Tuesday night.

Governor Christie noted that the Democrats, with Buono as the Senate Budget Chair, shut down New Jersey’s government in 2006 when Jon Corzine was governor, because they couldn’t agree how high to raise the sales tax.

Assembly Republican Budget Officer Declarn O’Scanlon issued the following statement regarding Buono’s  taxing vision for New Jersey:

“At a time when New Jersey is in the middle of an economic recovery, she has no concept of what a public policy disaster that proposal would be to creating jobs and maintaining our momentum. Increasing the sales tax is regressive and would further impact the most heavily taxed people in the country. It effectively sends the message to consumers to shop elsewhere and keeps New Jersey from being competitive with surrounding states. I am glad she no longer chairs the Senate Budget Committee. We are still trying to recover from the damage done to our economy.

• Tweet

Storms and Fires Aren’t the Only Disasters Our Governor Has Led Us Through

By Assembly Declan O’Scanlon

While storms and fires can’t be ignored or missed as we go through the motions of our daily lives, one of the biggest threats to the well-being of our state was silently ignored – or even enhanced – by the folks supposedly in charge for the 8 years preceding Governor Christie’s election.  When Governor Christie took office our state was on the precipice of insolvency.  Governor Corzine and the folks leading the legislature – Barbara Buono amongst them – continued, either blindly or incompetently, to steer us toward utter disaster.  Some of you public workers still upset over the pension and benefits reforms that helped to dramatically turn our outlook around?  Get real.  The only alternative would have been huge, economy-strangling tax increases, or insolvency.  You don’t want to imagine the negative impact on your pensions – or our state’s economy – had that outcome become reality.

Yet that is exactly the outcome Governor Corzine and the Democrat legislative leadership were opting for.  Barbara Buono herself voted against the unquestionably necessary Christie administration reforms that have helped save our state.  She was also the Senate Budget Chairperson that authored resoundingly irresponsible budget after budget during the Corzine era – digging the hole deeper every step of the way.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

O’Scanlon Reiterates His Support Of Gay Marriage

Various news sources are reporting that Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) has “broken with Governor Christie” over the issue of same sex marriage.

The news reports are inaccurate.

O’Scanlon was never “with” Governor Christie on the same sex marriage issue. He’s been on the record as favoring the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act since February of 2012 when the bill passed both houses of the legislature and was vetoed by Christie.

O’Scanlon was absent from the February 2012 vote because he was attending Senator Jennifer Beck’s wedding in Jamaica.   Upon his return to New Jersey, he told triCityNews that he would have voted for the bill had he been present and that he would vote to override Christie’s veto if it ever comes up for a vote.

triCityNews is not published online.  Publisher Dan Jacobson verified my recollection of O’Scanlon’s quotes on the phone this evening.

The issue is in the news again because marriage equality advocates have been in Trenton this week lobbying for an override of Christie’s veto before the end of the legislative session in January.

The Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act passed the Senate with a vote of 24-16 and the Assembly by 42-33, with 5 Assembly members, including O’Scanlon and Mary Pat Angelini not voting.   An override requires a 2/3 affirmative vote.  In order for an override to succeed, the bill needs three additional yes votes in the Senate and 12 yes votes in the Assembly. O’Scanlon and Angelini represent two of the needed yes votes. Republican Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi of Bergen County also didn’t vote in 2012.  Schepisi said she would vote to override, leaving the bill needing 9 votes to pass in the Assembly.

If there is a override vote, it probably won’t occur until the “lame duck” session after the November election and before the new legislature takes office in January.

• Tweet

Booker ♥ Red Light Cameras

 O’Scanlon gathers 4,000 signatures to stop Red Light Cameras  in only two weeks

The City of Newark is ripping off motorists with Red Light Cameras and Cory Booker loves the revenue.

Newark announced yesterday that the seven intersections in the city that have RLCs have seen a 64% decline in accidents since the cameras were installed four years ago, according the a report in The Star Ledger.

But Newark did not disclose the number of accidents at the intersection before or after the installations of the RLCs, which could make the percentages meaningless.  A Newark spokesman declined to elaborate.  Additionally, Newark has 19 intersections with RLC’s.  Their news release touted the results of only 7 intersections.

Booker said,

“Since their installation four years ago, our city’s red light cameras have been an effective mechanism in significantly reducing auto accidents at busy intersections,” Booker, a candidate for U.S. Senate in next month’s special election, said in a statement. “The investment in this technology has made our residents safer and served as a strong deterrent for people who may otherwise consider breaking traffic laws.”

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth), the state’s leading advocate against the Red Light Rip-offs  called Newark’s press release disingenuous.

Upon learning of their city’s bogus report hailing the success of RLCs, a group of residents gathered under a light, looked in the camera and started chanting, “We don’t want you here, We don’t want you here!”

Just kidding. Those guys were really heckling GOP nominee for U.S. Senate Steve Lonegan yesterday outside of Booker’s former abandoned property.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

O’Scanlon is rallying public support to kill red light cameras

NJ101.5 photo

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, New Jersey’s most vocal advocate for the elimination of red light cameras, has taken to social media to rally public support for his quest to remove the devices that he has proven increase traffic accidents and are designed to rip off motorists from New Jersey intersections.

O’Scanlon has created an online petition at change.org that demands the New Jersey Department of Transportation end the red-light camera program in the State.  The petition can be found by clicking here.

On August 19, O’Scanlon provided video evidence to the press that red light camera operators shorten the required yellow light times at the intersections where the devices are installed in order to entrap motorists into running red lights and incurring fines that boost municipal revenue by upwards of $50 million dollars per year and put millions of dollars in the pockets of the companies that sell and service the red light cameras.

Backed up by Barnet Fagel, a traffic expert with the National Motorists Association and Attorney Joseph Santoli who discovered in a New York case that RLC companies were shaving yellow light times in order to entrap drivers into being caught on camera running a red, O’Scanlon said that shortened yellow lights cause more accidents and that “safety is being sacrificed” for municipal and RCL companies’ revenue.

Yellow lights are required to have either 3 or 4 second intervals, depending on the level of traffic and speed at the intersections.  Fagel conducted a study this weekend of 12 of the approximately 80 New Jersey RLC intersections.  All but “one or two” were found to have yellow lights that were between 1/10 and almost 3/10 of a second too short. Fagel presented the video evidence of his finding.

The most egregious of Fagel’s findings was in Jersey City at the intersection of Rt.1-9 and Sip Ave, a 4 second yellow light location.  Fagel’s video showed that the yellow light lasted only 3.753 seconds.

New Jersey’s Red Light Camera Program is a five year experiment that will expire in December of 2014 unless the legislature extends it.  O’Scanlon says there is already more than enough evidence to demonstrate that the program is a failure. RCL’s do not increase public safety.  On the contrary, they put lives at risk and serve no purpose other than to raise ill-gotten revenue for municipal governments and their unscrupulous vendors.

O’Scanlon has forwarded his findings to NJ DOT and hopes to enlist the support of at least 10,000 petition signers to pressure the DOT bureaucrats to end the program immediately.

• Tweet

O’Scanlon: Red Light Cameras Sacrifice Safety For Revenue

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Attorney Joseph Santoli presenting Red Light Camera findings in Tinton Falls this morning.

In a scathing indictment of Red Light Camera (RLC) operators and the New Jersey municipalities that deploy the devices, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon today revealed what he described as “irrefutable evidence” that  yellow light times at many New Jersey intersections do not meet the standards required by law, causing thousands of motorist to be hit with millions of dollars in unlawful fines.

Backed up by Barnet Fagel, a traffic expert with the National Motorists Association and Attorney Joseph Santoli who discovered in a New York case that RLC companies were shaving yellow light times in order to entrap drivers into being caught on camera running a red, O’Scanlon said that shortened yellow lights cause more accidents and that “safety is being sacrificed” for municipal and RCL company’s revenue.

Yellow lights are required to have either 3 or 4 second intervals, depending on the level of traffic and speed at the intersections.  Fagel conducted a study this weekend of 12 of the approximately 80 New Jersey RLC intersections.  All but “one or two” were found to have yellow lights that were between 1/10 and almost 3/10 of a second too short. Fagel presented the video evidence of his finding.

The most egregious of Fagel’s findings was in Jersey City at the intersection of Rt.1-9 and Sip Ave, a 4 second yellow light location.  Fagel’s video showed that the yellow light lasted only 3.753 seconds.

JERSEY CITY-SIP – 1-9 from Barnet Fagel on Vimeo.

O’Scanlon said that 80% of all RLC infractions occur during the first second of the red light. By shaving 1/10-3/10 of a second off the yellow lights, roughly 30% of the RLC generated tickets are unlawful.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet