Unpaid camera fines hurt credit

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Citations issued by the District's traffic-enforcement cameras don't count as points against drivers' records, but they can damage credit reports if the fines aren't paid.

Unpaid fines, which the D.C. government seeks to acquire through a private collection agency, can register as delinquencies in credit reports even if the drivers do not receive citations in the mail.

Under the red-light and speeding camera programs, a citation is mailed to the registered owner of a vehicle photographed committing a violation.

If the owner is a car-rental company, the firm is responsible for returning the notice to the District with information about who was driving the vehicle when the ticket was issued. The District then mails the notice to the driver.

Notices, however, sometimes get lost in the mail or are sent to the wrong addresses.

Metropolitan Police Department officials say the District sends five notices to delinquent drivers over eight months, based on records in a city database, before turning over the matter to a collection agency.

But the database could contain old information, said department spokesman Kevin Morison.

For example, if an out-of state-driver changes addresses after the city updates the database, the notices might never reach the driver, the spokesman said.

"If the District's database was out of date, that could be a serious problem," Mr. Morison said.

He said 15,532 of the 316,341 camera-generated citations issued, or slightly less than 5 percent, were returned to the District from October to last month.