It’s been awhile now since Ohio passed Senate Bill 342, which effectively ended the scourge of traffic cameras throughout the Buckeye state. The battle isn’t completely over though, as Cleveland.com notes in this retrospective piece on the bill and its aftermath. Specifically, five cities have current lawsuits and two cities — East Cleveland, home to nonworking websites and inept leadership, and Toledo — are still using theirs.

Otherwise, 16 cities ended their programs after the bill’s passage. It allowed for traffic cameras to continue if they were manned by an actual human (or if there were a human in the general vicinity) and the costs associated with that tidbit led those 16 cities to decide the traffic camera hustle and its resulting influx of cash wasn’t worth it.

A couple of cities have forged on, however, and they are the sorts of municipalities that stand to lose large slices of operating budget if they can’t ding you for going 68 in a 65. Linndale has built a shack — essentially a house with all the comforts of home — so that it can reap the benefits of traffic cameras while some Linndale officer watches TV (we assume). 

And then there’s Newburgh Heights, tucked over off I-77. It too has continued issuing tickets but the tiny hamlet is doing so with hand-held devices that don’t require officers to pull anyone over to issue a citation. Plenty of folks aren’t happy about it but Newburgh Heights doesn’t care. Via Cleveland.com:

Newburgh Heights Mayor Trevor Elkins said his village issues about 300 speeding tickets per week from using its one hand-held camera. He said the system is safer than when officers pull over speeding drivers, and he disagreed with critics who might say the camera is a cash grab.

“The people who are speeding are not victims,” Elkins said. “They were breaking the law, and they got caught.”

300 speeding tickets per week x 52 weeks is 15,600 tickets, and that’s just the citations from hand-held devices.

It’s also a number 7.35 times larger than Newburgh Heights’ population: 2,122 as of the 2013 census.

This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2015.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

13 replies on “Newburgh Heights Issues 300 Speeding Tickets a Week Via Hand-Held Device”

  3. If I ever get any of these, I think I will learn what it takes to file a constitutional countersuit…if speed limits on freeways in this state’s cities weren’t so ridiculously low, and if speeding were such a crime, then these would be enforced like laws against violent crime and not in a way that generates profit. If there were a lot of daytime home robberies in Newburgh Heights, they’d find ways to PREVENT them from ever happening, not hide with a camera and then mail the robber a bill for restitution along with a fine to cash in.

    But these cities are doing NOTHING to prevent speeding and “improve safety”…they are just sending a bill, because speeding has never been about safety on the freeways! It’s just like the banks when they were allowed to dock you with loads of overdraft fees without warning and when you complained, you’d get a lecture on how overdrawing your account was a federal crime!

  4. Speed cameras produce profits ONLY where the posted limits are set at least 10 mph lower than the safest levels – the 85th percentile speeds of free flowing traffic under good conditions. Speed and red light cameras are government run money grab rackets that should be illegal in every state – as they are in some states already.
    The rackets will continue until enough Ohio residents contact their state Representatives, Senators and Governor to politely but clearly and firmly demand a new law outlawing all ticket cameras. Contact:
    https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/
    http://www.governor.ohio.gov/Contact/Conta…

    ACT if you want the money grab ticket camera scams to end.
    James C. Walker, Life Member – National Motorists Association

  5. it’s always interesting to see adult exurban commuters complain about being caught breaking the law…and then admonish urban children (!) when a police officer kills them for breaking the law.

  6. 1.) The section of I-77 in Newburgh Heights is Urban. A similar section after Fairlawn but just before AKRON is posted at 50 MPH. 2.) Newburgh Heights are only ticketing drivers going OVER 74 MPH. 3.) The Posted speed is 60 MPH. I love how folks try to rationalize breaking the Law. Newburgh is NOT citing folks for going 26 MPH in a 25 MPH zone, like Northfield and Walton Hills do. They are allowing drivers more than 23% above the posted speed before ticketing. Slow down it is I-77. And NOT the INDY 500!

  7. The speed limit should be 70 MPH. To make the Indy 500 comparison is false. On a personal note, I question you on a personal level. Please move out of the state of Ohio. It will help improve the state if the idiotic portion of society leaves.

  8. In addition, the Newburgh mayor is lying to taxpayers’ faces when he says his city’s program is not a revenue generating tax grab. It has not improved citizen safety, nor is the program doing anything but swelling his city’s coffers. Lying politicians need to be removed from “public service” if we as society actually want to improve our communities.

  9. When the minimum ticket price is $150, and the max is $300….you can’t convince many people that this is NOT a cash crab. We weren’t born yesterday, and I would argue that it’s a CRIME to charge citizens such astronomical prices for a speeding ticket. It’s one thing if you were over the limit, it’s another to be price gouged to excess. It’s immoral, and unconstitutional.

  10. received one of those tickets, not pulled over, not listed on tkt where camera located, several violations of OHIO Law regarding this . Easter Sunday dropping off foster kids…. wth

  11. I received 3 of these tickets in less than 1 month! I understand being pulled over by a real human police officer so when he/she asks why I was speeding I can give a reason or use an FOP card, or maybe the officer would even let me go with a warning. The 3 speeding tickets I received also were during rush hour. How does one “speed” during rush hour, there are way too many cars on the road to speed? I hope these cameras in Newburgh Hts becomes unconstitutional just like the ones in Parma. This whole thing is for sure a “cash grab”. All 3 tickets fines combined are more than I make in a week.

  12. I am a business owner in the area and have received many of these photo tickets in the mail over the years as my employees commonly pass through Newburgh Heights to get to the highway. My business owns almost 30 vehicles and I dont keep a record of who is in a vehicle at any certain time to pass the liability on to the driver. These citations just get thrown in the trash and I look forward to the day when this money grabbing municipality grows a pair of balls and tries to collect rather than lazily sitting behind their cameras.

  13. I work near Newburgh Heights and I got a ticket in the mail a couple of weeks ago for going 36 in a 25. I drove all around the next day looking for the camera to try my best to make sure I’m not going to break the law again. The problem is I’m not sure where all of the 25 mph zones are. Today I got 2 more tickets for $175 each for going 36 and 37 mph. The tickets were given within 30 minutes of each other, probably from driving past the same exact spot to and from lunch. Do you know how hard it is to actually go 25 mph or less without a good reason? It’s crawling. The areas that I do see with 25 mph signs are not school zones nor do they have busy side streets. There is absolutely no reason for them to be 25 mph zones other than to vacuum out the pockets of people ZOOMING around at 36 mph. Newburgh Heights has shaken me down for $500 now this month. I will never again patronize any businesses in that rotten village until they stop this practice.

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