A Favorite Scapegoat: Photo Traffic Enforcement

In February 2026, the City of Phoenix deployed 17 photo traffic enforcement systems. Nine of these systems will be rotated through corridors with histories of speed-involved crashes and rotated every six months. Another eight systems will be placed along 15 mph school zones, rotated weekly throughout the year.

If you've lived in the City of Phoenix long enough, you will recall that photo enforcement systems were used in the early 2000s—primarily focused on red light running violations—this is not the same program. This 2026 program has been developed in accordance with best practices described in a Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) report, "Automated Enforcement in a New Era".

In response to a wide variety of complaints and criticisms about these systems, we've done the homework and present to you here a comprehensive breakdown of the most common complaints, the consensus on safety data, and the financial details.

Complaint #1: Revenue Generation

News anchor John Hook recently produced a "Newsmaker" segment for Fox 10 Arizona, stating outright that he is "not a fan" of the systems. He goes on to say:

We're in a grace period right now, but beginning on March 25th, citations will start going out beginning at $250. This is not a small matter. This is always presented to the public as a tool to promote driver safety, but that ignores the insatiable appetite of cash-strapped cities to find revenue streams, and most have jumped on board.

Here's why this argument falls flat on its face: traffic fines are entirely opt-in—they are a deterrent designed to discourage risky or dangerous behavior. If drivers don't violate traffic laws, the city generates no revenue from the camera systems—effectively neutralizing the "revenue stream", as Hook describes it.

As Daniel S. Nagins discusses in his essay "Deterrence in the 21st Century", studies indicate that the effect of a deterrent is related to the certainty of being "caught". This is an important point for two reasons: first, it supports claims about automated traffic enforcement improving road safety by directly linking deterrence to the very high likelihood of being caught by automated enforcement, because automated enforcement doesn't rely on a traffic officer being in the right time at the right place to witness a violation.

Second, we think the "certainty of being caught" bit strikes directly at the heart of the issue for many vociferous critics of photo safety systems—when automated enforcement is in use, drivers can no longer rely on the low risk of being caught at the wrong place or wrong time by a live traffic officer—and the hope of receiving deference from a live officer or "talking their way out" of a citation are eliminated from the equation.

We'll break down additional financial aspects of the program further below.

Complaint #2: Road Safety

Some critics insist—despite Newton's 2nd Law of Motion—that photo enforcement systems do not improve road safety. Newton tells us that force equals mass times acceleration (F = ma)—and acceleration is defined as the change in velocity (usually described as speed in the context of motor vehicle crashes) over time. Importantly, for the purposes of vehicle crashes, acceleration and deceleration are effectively the same.

In simple terms: if you double your speed—you double the amount of deceleration that must occur during an impact—doubling the amount of force exerted on a vehicle and its occupants during an impact. (Reality is actually much worse than that—kinetic energy scales with the square of the velocity—which means that as speed doubles, the energy the vehicle must absorb in an impact increases 4x.)

Now that we've settled the basic physics argument, let's look at some of the available data.

• Evaluation of the City of Scottsdale Loop 101 Photo Enforcement Demonstration Program • ADOT • [link]

Applying the EB BA approach yields an estimated reduction in crashes ranging from 23% (rear-end injury crashes) to 67% (single-vehicle, property damage only (PDO) crashes)

• Assessing the impact of fixed speed cameras on speeding behavior and crashes: A longitudinal study in New York City • [link]

The findings suggest a decrease in speeding tickets by an average of 18.4 %, 13.3 %, and 0.6 % in the second-, third- and fourth-month post-installation, demonstrating the program’s short-term efficacy in reducing speeding behavior.

• The national safety camera programme - Three-year evaluation report June 2004 • [link]

Vehicle speeds were down – surveys showed that vehicle speeds at
speed camera sites had dropped by around 7% following the introduction
of cameras. At new sites, there was a 32% reduction in vehicles breaking
the speed limit. At fixed sites, there was a 71% reduction and at mobile
sites there was a 21% reduction. Overall, the proportion of vehicles speeding excessively (ie 15mph more than the speed limit) fell by 80% at fixed camera sites, and 28% at mobile camera sites.

• Impact of automated photo enforcement of vehicle speed in school zones: Interrupted Time Series Analysis • [link]

In our study, automated photo enforced speed camera citations in school zones decreased both the rate of speed violations and motorist speeds during school travel times compared to the warning phase. In the absence of speed enforcement citations, it was common for vehicles to travel in excess of 30 MPH, raising the risk of fatal pedestrian collisions. In the warning phase, maximum violation speeds reached 50 MPH, a speed at which most collisions would result in a child being killed if struck.

We also found that the safety benefits of automated speed enforcement citations were sustained beyond the immediate period after implementation and into subsequent years.

Financial Impacts

The City of Phoenix 2026 Photo Safety Camera program is being operated on a cost-recovery basis. Any funds generated beyond the cost of operating the program will be allocated to the City's Vision Zero Road Safety Action Plan.

Cost of the Cameras

In accordance with City of Phoenix Administrative Regulations, standard competition was waived in favor of joining a cooperative agreement between American Traffic Solutions dab Verra Mobility and the City of Scottsdale.

• The City of Scottsdale awarded contract RFP032023-075 using a competitive process consistent with the City’s procurement processes, as set forth in the Phoenix City Code, Chapter 43.
• Use of the cooperative agreement allows the City of Phoenix to streamline the procurement process to ensure pricing is equal to or better than the Contractor's most favorable pricing while complying with competitive procurement requirements.
• The contract will begin on or about June 15, 2025, and continue through March 31, 2026, with four one-year options to extend.
• The aggregate contract value will not exceed $12,000,000 for the aggregate contract term. Funding is available in the Street Transportation Department's operating budget.

Under this contract, the City of Phoenix pays $3,000 per month per camera system, plus $20 for each successful disposition (fine paid or defensive driving school taken).

Cost of Traffic Crashes

When critics argue that photo enforcement is "just a cash grab", they're creating a Straw Man—a simplified, weaker version of the city's policy to argue against (the idea that the city just wants money), rather than addressing the actual policy goal of reducing the kinetic energy of collisions.

The true argument isn't between traffic fines and no traffic fines—the true argument is between traffic fines and traffic crashes.

• According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, motor vehicle crashes in 2024 resulted in $20.89 billion in economic losses to Arizona. [link]
• In speed-related crashes* alone—417 people were killed and 20,722 people were injured in 2024.
  • *Note: These numbers represent the total number of fatalities and injuries in crashes where the violation "speed too fast for conditions" or "exceeded lawful speed" was marked on the crash report.
• In all crashes combined—1,228 people we're killed and 54,426 people were injured in 2024.