{"id":240889,"date":"2026-03-28T15:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/240889\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:04:11","slug":"these-tickets-are-performative-art-oakland-speed-cameras-are-online-but-will-anyone-pay-their-fines-national-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/240889\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018These tickets are performative art\u2019: Oakland speed cameras are online, but will anyone pay their fines? | National News"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 City leaders made clear earlier this month that speeding drivers clocked by dozens of new cameras<\/a> surveilling Oakland\u2019s streets would face real penalties, following a brief stretch in which those individuals received only warnings.<\/p>\n

All along, however, they have quietly acknowledged that the city currently lacks the ability to enforce those penalties in any meaningful way.<\/p>\n

In other words, drivers who ignore the fines, which begin at $50 for those going 11 to 15 miles above a posted speed limit, can avoid real consequences. The civil penalties won\u2019t be elevated to criminal charges. The Department of Motor Vehicles will not withhold the registration renewals of vehicles caught on the cameras.<\/p>\n

Lower-income residents can apply for financial relief for these fines, which top out at $500 for those driving 100 mph over the limit. But they could also simply choose not to pay their penalties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese tickets are performative art \u2014 they tend to be boondoggles,\u201d said Brian Hofer, a local privacy advocate who researches camera surveillance. \u201cYou\u2019re kind of relying on people to be honest and pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The network of 35 cameras was installed at 18 locations around town, including International Boulevard between 40th and 41st avenues in East Oakland; 7th Street between Broadway and Franklin Street downtown; 7th between Adeline and Linden streets in West Oakland and Hegenberger Road between Spencer and Hawley streets near the Oakland Coliseum.<\/p>\n

The city will pay $4.8 million to Verra Mobility to operate the camera devices over the next five years.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how much revenue city officials believe the speed enforcement program will generate. During the so-called grace period, the city said it issued 140,445 warnings to vehicle owners. Drivers caught on the cameras were traveling 14 miles per hour above the speed limit, on average.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeeding is a choice,\u201d Josh Rowan, the city\u2019s transportation director, said at a news conference when the cameras were first installed. \u201cWe make these choices every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowan and other city officials did not respond to requests for comment about the enforcement capacity of the city\u2019s new program.<\/p>\n

Even beyond the city\u2019s public messaging, its ability to more harshly enforce speed penalties is handicapped by California law.<\/p>\n

AB 645, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, does not allow speed camera violations to be anything other than civil penalties. The law has restricted cities from more forceful consequences, such as withholding DMV registration.<\/p>\n

San Francisco similarly began operating its own speed-camera system last summer with limitations that mirror Oakland\u2019s lack of enforcement. It has proven effective, with San Francisco transportation officials reporting last October that speeding had dropped by 72% at key locations<\/a> around the city.<\/p>\n

Oakland has had a sometimes contentious history with traffic enforcement, as when Stanford researchers found<\/a> in 2016 that Black men were four times as likely to be the target of traffic stops as white men in the city.<\/p>\n

Oakland police have reported a reduction in stops since 2019, recording 11,794 last year. Police leaders cite an ongoing officer shortage for the decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not have \u2014 and will never have \u2014 enough police officers to flag everyone who is driving recklessly,\u201d said Henry Gardner, a former city manager, in reference to Oakland\u2019s ever-declining police staffing.<\/p>\n

Flock cameras, which have gained notoriety around the Bay Area<\/a> for the company\u2019s potential ties to ICE, utilizes technology that reads license plate information and can analyze other footage it captures.<\/p>\n

The speed cameras installed throughout Oakland last December do not use such technology. That may put concerns about surveillance to rest at a time when ICE has ramped up aggressive enforcement efforts<\/a>, but it could also hamper the city\u2019s attempt to deter egregious driving speeds.<\/p>\n

Oakland has long struggled with unsafe streets, a problem that appeared to get worse during the pandemic, according to police data.<\/p>\n

The segment of 7th Street in West Oakland where a camera is now mounted sees 14.6% of drivers travel above the 30 mph speed limit, a city Department of Transportation report stated last year.<\/p>\n

At the newly surveilled Hegenberger corridor near the Coliseum, the 40 mph limit is topped by over 10,000 vehicles a day, or 43% of the total number of drivers, per the same report.<\/p>\n

When previously questioned about the new speed cameras, city officials \u2014 including Rowan, the transportation director \u2014 have maintained they want to take an educational approach to deter reckless driving.<\/p>\n

Those wary of traffic fatalities hope the mere presence of cameras can remind drivers to slow down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this program can prevent even one 6-year-old from being killed on the street due to reckless driving,\u201d Gardner said, \u201cit\u2019s worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 City leaders made clear earlier this month that speeding drivers clocked by dozens of new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[974,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-240889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-national","9":"tag-oakland","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}