Arizona’s speeding and red light cameras violate the right to confront one’s accuser in order to generate revenue for the state and cities, critics of photo radar say.

Bonnie Sesolak, a spokeswoman for the National Motorists Association — a group that lobbies for changes in traffic laws — said photo cameras do not give adequate due process to recipients of tickets. The cameras are used as a revenue generator, Sesolak said, and safety is not the main priority.

“We’re very adamantly opposed to photo enforcement,” Sesolak said. “If it’s not about the money, then what’s it about?”

Arizona was the first state to implement photo radar statewide and will likely have more than 100 traffic cameras deployed across the state by November, Redflex Traffic Systems spokeswoman Shoba Vaitheeswaran said in an e-mail.

The statewide contract was awarded to Scottsdale-based Redflex last year.

Photo radar is estimated to bring $90 million to the state in fiscal year 2009, according to a state budget summary.

But Lt. James Warriner, a DPS spokesman, said safety is the prominent concern in the state’s photo-enforcement program.

“This is a tremendous tool for us,” said Warriner. “It does lessen and decrease the number of fatal and serious injury collisions.”

Warriner said the cameras are proven to reduce speeds and increase traffic safety, according to several studies, including one by an ASU researcher.

And the cameras free up law enforcement to enforce more important laws than speeding, such as DUI laws, Warriner said.

Between May 2007 and July 2008, DPS issued more than 86,000 citations using photo radar, about 48 percent of the approximately 180,600 incidents recorded, according to department statistics.

But Sesolak said that instead of providing safety, traffic cameras are revenue generators for the camera companies and local and state governments.

Warriner said DPS did not yet have numbers available for how much revenue had come in through the state’s traffic-camera program.

Redflex and American Traffic Systems, which operates traffic cameras in Phoenix and Mesa, also said they could not release financial figures because they needed permission from cities to release the data.

To enhance safety, intersections and roads need to have better engineering to accommodate drivers, Sesolak said.

“If it was really about the safety, they would make these simple engineering changes to these intersections,” she said.

She added that the process also denies motorists their legal rights.

“In most cases really, you’re presumed guilty,” Sesolak said of the traffic cameras.

Those accused of receiving a ticket cannot confront their accuser in court, since the accuser is technically a machine, she said.

But a spokesman for Scottsdale-based American Traffic Solutions, Josh Weiss, said there was more than enough evidence from red-light and speed cameras to issue citations.

Weiss said American Traffic Solutions has three separate employees review the video evidence for each traffic violation before sending the information to a police department. Because of the checks and balances within the process, he said, tickets are issued fairly.

The evidence against traffic violators caught on cameras can be more substantial than a human witness, Weiss said.

“In my opinion, there’s more than just an eyewitness,” Weiss said of the cameras.

But Susan Kayler, a Scottsdale-based attorney, said in an e-mail that traffic cameras deny the right of a defendant to cross-examine the evidence.

“The question boils down to due process,” Kayler said. “Does photo radar afford a person cited with due process? I say no.”

Kayler, who wrote the 2004 book “Smile for the Speed Camera! Photo Radar Exposed!” has represented clients who received photo-radar tickets. But she said that because the U.S. Constitution guarantees those accused of a crime — but not necessarily those facing civil violations — a right to confront their accuser, there is a lower standard of proof required for traffic camera tickets.

But even with that lower standard, cross-examining employees of a photo radar company is not enough, she said.

“How can you cross-examine a machine? You can’t,” Kayler said.

Reach the reporter at matt.culbertson@asu.edu.