Texas House passes bill to ban speed cameras

The Texas House passed a bill Thursday that would ban automated speed traps. I'm interested in this because I filed an identical bill my rookie session (2005). While these autmoated cameras can be revenue producing instruments, they do present a 6th Amendment problem (not to mention the big brother element). Moreover, the private companies that contract with municipalities for this service take a pretty big percentage of the take from fines. A Google search shows that these companies may take up to 70% of the fines collected for the contracting city (that's a pretty interesting link).

There are also enforcement problems. In practice, a camera snaps a shot of the offending vehicle, and the registered owner will be mailed a ticket, regardless of whether he or she is actually driving the car at the time. Careful letting someone drive your car in the states that allow this.

Here's the article on the pending Texas legislation. The article inacurrately states that Arkansas is among the states that have enacted bans. My 2005 bill passed the House 79-6 before hitting a brick wall in Senate Transportation.