ARIZONA - The new Department of Public Safety director is on the side of critics when it comes to speed cameras.
Robert Halliday says the system should be restructured if it is not thrown out altogether. Instead of using the cameras, he says he prefers to put more officers on Arizona highways.
Halliday says the photo radars are too expensive to keep in place and that people only pay the tickets 30 percent of the time. The DPS director says he would much rather have patrol officers stopping speeders and talking to them.
A DPS spokesperson tells us the director feels tougher penalties need to be in place in order to force people to pay the fines. He also says he would rather have actual officers on the roads than the cameras.
It is estimated it could take some 2,000 officers to cover the ground the cameras do and that is just not in the budget.
Halliday spoke to Sen. Linda Gray on Wednesday. She has been against the photo radar cameras since the program began.
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