Red-Light Camera Program Ends in Suffolk County, NY

On December 1, 2024, Suffolk County's red-light camera program comes to an end. The reasons are:

1. Suffolk County lost a lawsuit over adding unlawful fees to each citation. Without the extra fees, the program is not profitable. (Nassau County also lost in the same Appellate Court decision.)

2. Unlicensed practice of engineering by the NYSDOT, Conduent and Nelson Pope. This is something Suffolk County will not publicly admit because it is a far worse transgression than extra fees.

3. Engineering malpractice of yellow light signal timing causing safe drivers to run red lights. Because of errors in the math of the yellow light, Suffolk County issued more tickets than its entire population (1.5 million). Red-light cameras exacerbated the signal timing failures causing a 55% increase in rear-end crashes with an overall 15% increase in crashes (2021 Suffolk County Red-Light Camera Safety Program Analysis Report). This is something neither Suffolk County nor traffic engineers will admit, but it is true.

The three people led the confrontations with Suffolk County:

	First and foremost, Stephen Ruth, who with a painter's rod and a pair of balls, tilted a troublesome red-light camera toward the sky. Ruth purposefully posted a YouTube video of himself doing this. This was in 2015. This act of civil disobedience is the only one of its kind in the world, the kind where he immediately turned himself into authorities. It is a tribute to Ruth's courage to do the right thing by slapping Goliath in the face. The YouTube video drew national attention as well as landed him in jail. Ruth spoke at many Suffolk County legislature meetings. He spoke against the yellow light timing. He spoke against the unlicensed practice of engineering. I prepped him on these topics. He led others, including ambulance drivers and firefighters, to speak on how red-light cameras interfere with public safety.
	I saw Ruth's video the day after he posted it to YouTube. I gave Ruth a phone call. I told him that his suspicion of the red-light camera system being rigged is absolutely true. As a licensed professional engineer, I informed him that traffic engineers introduce math failures into every yellow light. The errors eventually entrap everyone. Exposing engineering matters is more important that exposing unlawful collection fees, because the former can put red-light camera programs to death everywhere permanently, and save lives at the same time. Nonetheless, the easiest to terminate a red-light camera program is to litigate unlawful collection fees. I experienced this personally in Ceccarelli v Town of Cary (North Carolina - 2009 - 2013). Judges do not tolerate unlawful collections because apparently they have to confront it often. Judges, however, do not understand engineering malpractice as well, and many judges simply with not look at a math equation.
	Dave Raimondo is a NY attorney. Stephen Ruth put me in touch with Raimondo so that Raimondo and I could devise a strategy to terminate Suffolk County's red-light camera program. Dave Raimondo is a jewel among attorneys--a real Atticus Finch. It is rare for me to find an attorney wanting to understand the science and math behind traffic signals. Raimondo had a special interest in this because he had clients injured by the lack of science and math. Raimondo confronted Suffolk County on the engineering front as well as the unlawful collection fees front. But by doing the engineering front, together we discovered something I did not expect: the unlicensed practice of engineering. It turns out unlicensed engineering is rampant in NY. After seeing what is going in New York, I found the same unlicensed engineering in North Carolina, California, Colorado and Louisiana. Raimondo and I also discovered that there are forces at work silencing New York's, North Carolina's and Louisiana's boards of engineers. While it is normal for a board of engineers to issue a cease and desist on unlicensed engineering and firms, in these cases, all the boards were squelched. It takes a much larger law firm to tackle the national malpractice of engineering. The scope of the malpractice is vast. Hundreds of billions of dollars of fraudulent engineering, tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of physical injuries have been perpetrated on the public from government itself. One cannot expect government to chastise itself.