NJ towns tackle parking violations with bizarre camera poles

☑️ New Jersey towns are using "Safety Sticks" to monitor no-parking zones

☑️ Tickets will be sent to parking violators after images are reviewed

☑️ How similar are they to red light cameras, which were banned in NJ

Many New Jersey towns are trying automated traffic enforcement again with their use of devices called the SafetyStick to monitor no-parking spots.

The solar-powered poles made by a company called Municipal Parking Services have built-in radar that detects when a vehicle arrives and departs a no-parking zone. It takes a picture with an HD quality camera showing the citation time, date and image of the vehicle, which is sent to law enforcement for review. If a violation is approved, the car owner is sent a ticket.

According to MPS, the company takes care of the maintenance of the device and sends the ticket. The municipality only pays a "small software licensing fee."

The device is being used by a handful of New Jersey towns, including Dover, Garfield, Hasbrouck Heights, Little Falls, North Arlington and Wood-Ridge.

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Towns says safety is the goal

Wood-Ridge says vehicles parked illegally for over 60 seconds will receive a ticket from police. Their purpose is safety, not revenue raising, the town says.

"We will consider this effort to be 100% successful if illegal parking stops and we never have to issue a ticket. We will also be monitoring the business districts to take enforcement action against motorists who perform U-Turns, speed, or engage in other unsafe driving practices," the municipality said.

North Arlington police Chief Michael Horton made a similar argument when his town started using them in January. Parking safety is a "vital quality of life issue," according to Horton.

"Yellow street paint and bright orange traffic cones just aren’t significant enough deterrents for some motorists to park where they shouldn’t," Horton told RLS Metro Breaking News.

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Red light camera deja vu

This may sound familiar as 24 New Jersey communities installed red light cameras beforet they were ordered to shut them off in 2014.

Republican state Sen. Declan O'Scanlan, R-Monmouth, led the charge against them, denouncing them as a revenue-raising scheme. Then-Gov. Chris Christie said there was concern about whether the program was "fairly and uniformly administered."

O'Scanlan told New Jersey 101.5 he only recently became aware of the parking cameras and is keeping an open mind.

"The first thing that leaps to mind is that it appears as if these municipalities that are using them have no uniform way of alerting people that they're being used," O'Scanlon said. "Like so many automated enforcement schemes, someone's making money here, so they need a certain number of tickets to be generated, probably to pay for them."

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