One of Albany’s traffic cameras last month. This one is on Santiam Road at Geary Street, pointing east.
Every time I have driven past the traffic cameras on North Albany Road in the last few months, and I do this twice a day, it has been impossible to get a ticket. Yet more than 300 drivers get speeding tickets there every month. How come?
Going through the 20 mph school zone in the mornings and afternoons on school days, I usually end up behind a string of cars slowing down to 17 or 18 miles an hour before speeding up to 23 or 24.
You don’t get a ticket there unless you go 31 mph or faster. Which makes me think most of those 300-plus monthly citations originate during parts of the day when traffic is so light that no one thinks of the school zone. These are times when going between 30 and 40 mph is natural and safe because school kids are nowhere to be seen.
The Police Department has just sent me a summary of “photo red light and speed enforcement” for January 2026. Here is part of it. (The whole table is unreadable when I try to reproduce it, but the full dashboard will soon be available on the police department website.)
Disregard the “over 65 mph” phrase. It does not apply here.
Once again, it shows more than 300 speed violations on North Albany Road, with an average speed of just under 34 miles an hour. Except for the school zone on school days, North Albany Road has a designated speed limit of 40 mph.
In January, the maximum speed recorded by the North Albany cameras was 56 mph. Chances are that was outside the school zone time period, when tickets may be issued for hitting 51 mph or more.
Santiam Road at Geary Street is the other top performer among the four Albany intersections with speed cameras. It also generates more than 300 tickets a month. The posted speed there is 25 mph, and camera tickets may be issued for going 36 mph or faster. The average speed of the January tickets was just above 37 mph.
Monthly dollar totals of fines collected are are not available.
But on Jan. 28, Municipal Court Judge Jessica Meyer told the city council that the speed enforcement cameras more than doubled the number of violations filed in her court, from 4,069 in 2024 to 10,063 last year.
Revenue taken in by the court increased to about $1.57 million in 2026, up from over $1 million the year before. The revenue increase to the city was reported as $347,000.
I’d like to be able to report that the additional money the city got from Albany motorists went along with some measurable increase in traffic safety. But there are no data to make that point. Collisions at the four intersections happened rarely before the cameras — or in the case of N.A. Road and Thornton Lake Drive, never — and that’s still the case.
The city’s cameras go off between two and three thousand times a month. After being reviewed by officers, most of those “events” don’t result in citations being issued. (Why not? That’s a question for another day.)
The North Albany cameras went live last April, and the others in October. Police Chief Marcia Harnden points out that the number of events caught by the cameras spiked in October and has begun to taper off since then.
But the number of tickets issued has been stable: 889 in November, 875 in December, and 886 last month. (hh)
How many fewer accidents? Or was this just possibly a SCAM?
Mr. Hering reported in a Dec. 13, 2023 that Police Chief Marcia Harnden “told the council Wednesday night that speeding is by far the biggest problem the Albany police get complaints about.” (https://hh-today.com/council-oks-red-light-and-speed-cameras/)
Stopping speeding – not accidents – was Chief Harnden’s main concern. And raising revenue for city coffers was the reason the City Council agreed to the cameras.
So, no, not a scam.
I wonder how many have been repeat offenders… If any, those folks deserve every dime of fine(s) they get! 1st-timers? I’ll suggest that after all the “PR” this issue has garnered, and folks still don’t get the message, they too deserve the fine. Over time, the speeding will slow down. Sometimes folks need a two-by-four across the forehead to get their attention. Multiple and/or higher fines will eventually do that.
I wonder how many of these “speeders” are fire trucks/ ambulance or some other type of law enforcement? I can’t wait for the flashers to be installed. 7am-5pm is ridiculous. It should be in my opinion when lights are flashing or children are present.
So no children are out and about before 7 am or after 5 pm correct?
Lmfao
I reviewed your earlier writing on this topic (so many articles!) and came across this line:
“Actually, though, any worry about this is probably overdone. Even without the threat of photo radar, when there’s traffic in the school zone on North Albany, it’s hard to earn a speeding ticket because traffic is usually slow.” (Sep 19, 2024: https://hh-today.com/more-details-about-traffic-camera-timeline/)
Albany residents have proved you wrong :)
Just a money grab! Yet another tax without vote! Oregon at its finest!
Of course. Safety of the kids and the residents along this road are not important.
Good grief
My past experience about tickets and accidents is that when one of these happen, and the driver will admit to it, their attention is on something else, cell phone, financial problems, momentary distraction by children or pets in vehicle, illness, etc. It is seldom intentional.
When driving we should be more attuned to our surroundings and watch out for the other guy
How is going through a school zone at 30 to 40 mpg ‘natural and safe’?
These schools are not close to the road, they are not open campuses, there should not be kids out near the road during school hours. How is it unsafe?
Oh good grief.
Sorry to infringe upon you for safety issues in school zones.
How come drivers still getting caught?
Drivers still breaking law!
The irony of many infractions in school zone; was learning at these schools failure? drivers cant read a street sign or tell time!
There’s probably more people driving out that way than you’d imagine. So probably a lot of people are first time offenders getting hit. Although, probably just as many are people who just don’t care. They feel that their time is more important than anyone else’s.
As an example: We’re retired, but my husband occasionally changes the clock in my car so that I’m not late to monthly Dr appts. (It sometimes works). One day when going home on NA Rd I received a ticket for doing 35 mph at 4:57 pm. I was thinking it was past 5 pm… this has been my only ticket in the past 10+ years.