City of Las Cruces Shuts Off Water, Sewer for Photo Ticket Nonpayment

Las Cruces, New Mexico is threatening to cut off water, gas and sewer service over unpaid red light and speed camera tickets.

With more and more vehicle owners simply deciding refuse to pay red light camera and speed camera tickets, private, for-profit companies and municipalities are growing increasingly desperate. America’s second-largest city shut down its photo ticketing program last year largely because residents who could not afford the $500 citations did not pay them. On Monday, Las Cruces, New Mexico announced it would shut off the utilities of city residents who refused to pay Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company that owns and operates the cameras.

“The city is notifying offenders by mail that they have until the due date stated in the letter to pay the fines or make satisfactory payment arrangements,” a Las Cruces press release warned. “Failure to comply will result in termination of utilities services.”

(Source)

These traffic tickets are obviously 0% about saftey and 100% about profit for the city itself. I think the number of laws and violations is becoming overbearing and this "business" model is literally becoming the undoing of the cities themselves.

It's just another step toward our draconic future where "your services are no longer required," literally.

nice to see democracy has failed in new mexico.

isn't cutting off water in the desert a crime against humanity.

especially when politicians are getting pressured by a company that they probably received hundreds of thousands of dollars from.

Originally posted by randomname
nice to see democracy has failed in new mexico.

isn't cutting off water in the desert a crime against humanity.

especially when politicians are getting pressured by a company that they probably received hundreds of thousands of dollars from.

This is the new "democracy." It's called shutup and go work in a sweatshop, and don't forget to pay your draconian fines or you can go die from dehydration.

now we see why collecting rain water in holding tanks is illegal... they will use the basic nessity of water to force you to comply

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


LL

hydraulic despotism out in the open

isn't shutting off utilities an arbitrary violation of a contract?
especially if when you were hooked up,
no mention was made anywhere on any docs signed
that utilities would be shut off if you don't pay speeding tickets.

i'd sue, big time

a class action suit for a couple of 10's of millions
might teach these bottom feeders the errors of their ways

At least here in my area of Missouri, the whole point for the tickets not being a big deal or why we shouldn't see it that way, was that it wasn't a traffic violation to carry points or suspend licenses over. Just an infraction..

So Las Cruces found a way to turn a mere infraction into something far more painful...without technically being what they said it wouldn't. Oh, I call foul and hope they SUE! They were forced to shut down the cameras here because they only caught the car and not the face....but I'd heard they plan to restart it with better aim of the optics to correct that problem. I have no doubt that success left to stand in New Mexico will make it's way here......

Talk about cities whining about money lost from a source they invented in a lethal game of gotcha!. Our rear end accidents seem to have dropped back down after our cameras went back off. I'll bet that raises again when/if it goes back on.

actually this is exactly how a democracy works the few intellectual elite calls all the shots and you pay

in this case if you don't no water.

You must remember that in this valley we follow some ancient cultural values. In ancient times, if you did not clean the weeds from your irrigation ditch, you would be executed. We have maintained our heavy handedness here and if you will notice, there are no homeless beggars on any of the streets. They vanish somehow. I suppose the reasoning in cutting off the water would be that we are a city of strict conformists, conform or be cast out. You are free to leave. Soon all that remain will be the wealthy, and we will prosper. Oooops, I'm poor, time to move.

well might be good business for culligan to find out who is getting their services shut up and just park a water truck in front of their house sure it will get them business gotta look for the ray of sunshine somewhere right? either way if true this seems definatly like a step outside the bounds of what they are legaly allowed to do and as another member pointed out they might face a lawsuit for breach of contract(i have no idea how contract law works)

No water and no sewage. Were it me, I would just gather up some mason jars and by the third of fourth trip to the mayor's office I would suspect that there might just be some resolution to the problem. And far be it from me to not have invited members of the press there to accurately record these discussions with the mayor as part of the public interest.

I always wondered.

How do they know who was driving the car ?

Unless the laws say the car owners are responsible ?

But then who gets the moving violations ?

Proof of violation ?

reply to post by xuenchen


from how i understand it as a friend of mine beat the ticket by having proof he was not driving the car at the time(he was ironicly in traffic school at the time) and he refused to say who else could have been driving the car and he claims to have beat it that way but as i didnt go to court with him it might just be hearsay. so i think they have to prove you were driving the car its why i drive with my sun visor down if im in areas that use cameras

voices.yahoo.com...

1) Register your vehicle to a corporation, a limited liability corporation (LLC), a limited partnership, or a family trust. Photo traffic violations can only be issued when the vehicle in question is registered to a private citizen. All other vehicles are exempt from the photo traffic enforcement law. It costs $50 to form your own personal LLC in Arizona, and the IRS will not require any special paperwork, and it will not affect your insurance. It's the most popular method used in Arizona. 2) Cross register your car with your spouse's car. If the personal description of the driver as stated on the driver's license linked to the vehicle's registration does not clearly match, a photo ticket cannot be issued. The bottom line is, that as long as you're driving somebody else's vehicle, you cannot received a photo ticket. 3) Avoid the processor. What most people don't realize is that the ticket you received in the mail is not a real ticket until you have been served with an official summons. And it must be served within 120 days. Process servers usually don't get involved till the last thirty days, and the only information they have about you is the description on your license and your home address. They almost always come in the evenings and on the weekends. So, if you're willing to play cat & mouse with the server and think you can win, you can beat the ticket. After 120 days, all photo tickets are dismissed if a summons has not been served. 4) Register your car at a P.O. Box address. A process server cannot serve a box, and as a result, photo tickets are never issued when the address on the registration is a P.O. Box.

www.ticketassassin.com...

www.businessweek.com...








and yeah if would see that arbtrairly shutting off water and sewage would be a gross over stepping of their bounds and authority and potentaly some form of constitutional violation (right to fair trial innocent until proven guilty take your pick im sure some one more smart then me can phrase it better) so hopefully they get the ever loving crap sued out of them so that they cant even pay their sewage bill

This should be illegal. This would be an appropriate thing for the feds to weigh in on, IMO.

the few intellectual elite calls all the shots and you pay

Local politicians are "intellectual elites"? I guess they are compared to republicans. And I guess you conveniently forgot about the capitalists running the system and collecting the money??

Times are tough and people are starting to only pay what "matters" food, water, rent.

Taxes, fines, debit, etc will see more and more non payment.

All this time we have seen our Credit "worthiness" as the reason to pay these things.

Now that people can't afford to, or see that "worthiness" of getting into more debt is useless you will see an increase in tactics like this.

We had the Carrot to get us to pay.

We are going to start seeing the Stick from now on.

It is strange how my little corner of the world makes so much news. Living between the most dangerous city in the world and Las Cruces is fairly normal. I have not met many of the City Government people but they have done some strange things. The police had Darth Vader type uniforms for awhile. I don't see this tactic spreading, just an odd town. We do have poor people and huge influx of Easterners. We have a spaceport full of tumbleweeds around here someplace.

Camera generated tickets are not enforceable. They are a contract and a contract must be accepted and signed.

I was born & raised an hour's drive from Las Cruces, spent a lot of time watching girls at Mesilla Valley mall on summer weekends as a teenager, and graduated from NMSU some years ago. If drivers would simply stop at the damn red lights (especially on University and Telshor) this problem wouldn't exist. Further, considering the unpaid tickets cost the taxpayers money, I think most folks who actually follow traffic laws have a right to expect those that don't are forced to pay their penalties.

I'm about as anti government as it gets, but I don't really feel sorry for those who try to eek out a free pass on their red light running.

On an unrelated note, I now live in Alaska 3,500 miles away from Las Cruces. I'd gladly pay a couple of those $100 tickets just to sit down to a big bowl of chips & salsa, a #1 combo plate, red, with and extra ground beef taco, and a basket of sopas & honey from Nellie's or Si Seniors. (Hell, I'd even settle for a plate from Roberto's... but I wouldn't pay any tickets for that slop.)

reply to post by burdman30ott6

As a guy whose been personally hit twice and watched my wife hit twice herself in FOUR different rear end accidents, I'd mention the other side of this for balance. My town is hell for traffic laws and people following them, so I know what you mean. Having been all over the nation with this, I can only compare my city here to New York or Atlanta for sheer 'he who snoozes gets run off the road' mentality. It's enough to avoid driving if I don't have to.... sad to say for a former trucker.


Having said that... Being rear ended really sucks. Coming close to slamming others is worse. 2 of the 4 accidents we had for being rear ended, came at lights where WE stopped for the red and the one behind us didn't. One was from a turn where someone didn't notice we were turning with a blinker at all...and finally an idiot made a U-turn in the middle of a 4 lane major street from the left lane..and a dead stop in traffic. Oh joy....

So many ways to be hit. I can't argue for the settlements we've gotten for stupid each time. but my wife's lingering back issues aren't worth it. Hire a few more cops....write a few more EYEBALL tickets for runners...but these automated systems are gotcha revenue collectors that cause as many accidents as they prevent by people doing very stupid things to avoid the mere idea of the Camera catching anything.

(I was 100% FOR automated traffic enforcement systems for years. The concept is GREAT! ....then I saw them in actual use around the nation....now I'm as hard against them as anyone around.)

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


As soon as someone dies of dehydration, there will most certainly be a lawsuit, if there isn't one in the makings already. Ironically, that would lead Las Cruces to a much more desperate financial situation if that would occur. Really, this is an act of coercion if I've ever seen one.

This is just silly. Not only is it wrong on many levels, like cutting off something that is not a luxury but a necessity, but this will actually do very little to get the money collected. What we will end up seeing is people changing over the utilities into another name. We see these types of practices already for people with poor credit who are forced to pay high deposits for utilities to even be turned on. So people have utilities put into the names of various family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, and even young children.

This practice will be no different. They may get some people to pay, but the average person who is struggling to make ends meet knows the shortcuts to get things done. We have to know, it is how we survive during tough times.