COLUMBUS – The Ohio Supreme Court Wednesday morning cleared the way for cities to resume using red-light cameras.
The court struck down three provisions of a 2015 state law regulating the use of red-light and speed cameras, saying they infringe upon municipal authority without serving an overriding state interest.
Citing Ohio’s 1912 home rule amendment, Dayton and other cities asked the high court to strike down some requirements in the new law, including a rule that a police officer be present at the location of each traffic camera.
In the lead opinion written by Justice Patrick Fischer, the court found the regulations were not “general laws” that apply evenly throughout the state but instead were regulations that improperly “limit legislative power of a municipal corporation” to set police and similar regulations.
In separate dissenting opinions, Justices R. Patrick DeWine and William O’Neill questioned the validity of an accepted test of whether a law violates the home rule provision and argued the court’s ruling on the test is so inconsistent that it does not provide any clear guidance to local officials.
Dayton filed a lawsuit in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court challenging the state law because it interfered with a local ordinance, which is is an exercise of police power.
The justices ruled the officer’s presence at the traffic camera contradicts the camera’s purpose, which is to conserve police resources, and it noted the law does not require the officer to witness the violation, meaning the camera is the primary enforcement tool, not a secondary tool as the state had argued.
The court also struck down a provision of the law prohibiting tickets that relied on a traffic camera unless the driver was caught in excess of 6 mph in a school or park zone or 10 mph elsewhere, and another requiring the city to conduct a safety study and public-information campaign before the device is installed and to observe a 30-day warning period before issuing any violations.