What is the opinion of the forums users about automated traffic enforcment cameras which capture a picture of the vehicle, license plate, and photo of driver which is mailed to violater w/citation? These appear to be in place already in Houston for red light running and will be soon used for speed enforcement in Marble Falls and Rhome, Tx. Would there be a requirement for a peace officer to observe the violation (operate the equipment) or will the mere automated photo and possibly video evidence be enough for prosecution? I've heard that in other states citations like this are issued under a local civil ordinace which mirrors the traffic code, but a Texas AG opinion rules that option out for Texas.

I work for Marble Falls PD. The speed enforcement system we use will have an Officer manning it at all times. The Officer must approve the violations before they are sent from the roadside and once the violations are approved by the issuing Officer they are again reviewed by Officers of our department prior to being sent out. We are still in the process of fine tuning this and plan to have it operational within 2-3 weeks I believe.

As far as the red light cameras, I too thought that based on the AG's opinion in 2002 that traffic fines could not be made civil, I was provided this in response:

http://www.hro.house.state.tx.us/focus/redlight79-15.pdf

Hope this helps.

One thing I noticed when I used to live in DC is the fact that often times these camaras were getting vandalized. All it took was a bit of spray paint or target shooting with a paint ball gun to mess it up. So the city government was left with rolls of film showing nothing but black. Not much you can do to prevent it, either. So the city lost the money from the fines and then had to pay to get the things cleaned up and running again, till the next time they got hit.