brekford corp

Baltimore's speed cameras likely charged motorists for thousands more erroneous tickets than previously disclosed, according to data from a secret audit conducted for the city last year and obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

Baltimore's speed cameras likely charged motorists for thousands more erroneous tickets than previously disclosed, according to data from a secret audit conducted for the city last year and obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

City Councilman Brandon Scott wants the city to release an independent, taxpayer-funded audit of speed camera tickets that were issued by Baltimore's former contractor, saying the public's right to know trumps the contention by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration that the findings are confidential.

Emails show that the city's former speed camera contractor approved a speeding ticket for another vehicle that couldn't possibly have been going too fast — because it was parked.

Brekford Corp. issues first public statement since Baltimore ended 5-year deal

Records released by the city last week show that problems with Baltimore's speed and red-light camera vendor persisted over a three-month testing period that continued into late October.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake pledged Wednesday to move forward with a new but smaller speed camera system despite the spate of problems that plagued Baltimore's last two speed camera vendors. She spoke after officials voted to terminate the most recent contract for running the city's system, once the largest in North America.

Baltimore plans to pay its speed camera vendor $600,000 to end a troubled relationship that has left the city's once lucrative automated enforcement program offline since April and some members of the City Council questioning whether it's time to pull the plug altogether.

The Sun fails to report fully on the improprieties of Baltimore's speed camera contract.

Baltimore's speed camera program was too large to be managed effectively; it should seek a new operator and a drastically scaled-back system.

Baltimore is moving to sever ties with its speed camera vendor amid unresolved problems — an action that could leave the city's huge speed and red-light camera system down until the middle of next year.

Six months after Baltimore pulled its speed and red light cameras offline because of mistakes, officials say the city's vendor still isn't ready to begin issuing tickets — and no one can say when the program will resume.

Baltimore's speed and red light camera contractor says it expects the city's dormant network of automated cameras to be "fully activated" by the end of September. But city officials say no restart date has been set and make clear the decision rests with them — not the contractor.

Anne Arundel County-based Brekford Corp. reported a loss in the second quarter — a period that coincided with a decision by Baltimore officials to suspend the city's speed and red light camera program, which is supported by the company.

Two months after Baltimore stopped issuing tickets from its speed and red-light cameras, city officials said Thursday they still don't know when the automated enforcement program will resume.

Rawlings-Blake says she didn't discuss city business on trip

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Friday named an executive with a disaster response company to lead Baltimore's Department of Transportation at a time when the agency continues to struggle with its beleaguered speed camera program.

A lawyer for Baltimore City says a task force appointed by the mayor to study the city's speed camera program did not hold an illegal closed-door meeting during a March visit to a contractor's headquarters. But a prominent member of the panel called the city's version of events "not true."

Baltimore issued more than 16,000 speed camera tickets in less than two months this year before shutting the troubled program down over a programming error, according to figures posted by the city.

Shutting down Baltimore's speed camera system over relatively minor errors is a strong symbolic gesture, but it needs to be followed by real reforms.

Baltimore officials announced Tuesday they have suspended the city's troubled speed camera program amid fresh reports of erroneous tickets, this time involving a new multimillion-dollar camera network. The Baltimore Sun found that one of those new cameras has been issuing invalid tickets to motorists on The Alameda, apparently because the camera was programmed with the wrong speed limit.

Baltimore's Board of Estimates on Wednesday formally approved the purchase of a new fleet of speed cameras and the replacement of a police-towing company accused of overcharging customers.

Three members of an anti-speed camera group have filed an open-meetings complaint against a task force appointed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to study Baltimore's troubled automated enforcement system.

Baltimore-bashing is nothing new in Annapolis, whether from representatives of rural counties or the Washington suburbs who believe the city gets more than its fair share of state resources. But when it comes to the city¿s well-publicized speed camera problems, some of the sharpest criticism has been meted out by Baltimore¿s own House of Delegates contingent.

Legislation that one Baltimore lawmaker said would create a "new and improved speed camera program" is headed to the House of Delegates, after a committee overwhelmingly approved a legislative package Wednesday in the waning days of the General Assembly session.

The Maryland Senate on Monday overwhelmingly passed a weakened speed camera reform bill that would bar local governments from paying vendors based on the volume of citations but wouldn't ensure motorists had the necessary information to fact-check their own citations.