> Xerox collects $13 from Suffolk County for each ticket, which increases to $33 per ticket when a camera generates more than 90 tickets in a month.
Wow, talk about a misalignment of incentives.
Even though I lean libertarian I despise most of these public/private partnerships for this reason. Profit seeking combined with governments use of force (for monopoly or as part of the business model) is almost always worse than pure public services or markets.
Private prisons are a classic example of that, but there are countless less obvious ones in every local government. And it sucks because people blame capitalism for these failures, despite the arrangement looking nothing like a traditional market.
Government is great at borrowing money at good rates for capital purposes, while the cost of capital for a private entity is always higher.
99% of libertarians are for minimal government use of force, not zero government.
Private prisons can be seen as a byproduct of over-criminalization and over-enforcement. These red light cameras are in the same world where government sees the tightening of enforcement as a valid revenue model.
If over 90 tickets/month, is it $33 for all tickets, or each over 90?