11/17/04-The debate over using cameras to catch stoplight scofflaws will continue in the state’s 2005 legislative session.
Sen. Jeannemarie Davis, R-Fairfax, has withdrawn a bill carried over from the session that ended in March to allow every Virginia locality to use “photo red” systems. She pulled the measure after determining she didn’t have the votes to get it through the House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee.
Davis, however, said she would introduce a new bill before the General Assembly reconvenes in January.
The House panel met Nov. 15 to consider more than a dozen bills left over from the previous session. The committee, dominated by rural lawmakers, has traditionally been hostile to photo red bills.
The monitoring systems are in use in Virginia Beach and six northern Virginia communities: Alexandria, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Vienna and Arlington and Fairfax counties. The law that allows such programs has a sunset provision to expire July 1, 2005.
Davis said she plans to introduce a new proposal that would lift the sunset and let localities with cameras continue to use them.