District Department of Transportation
DC Department of Motor Vehicles
Mayor’s Office of Racial Equity
Speed and red-light cameras curb risky driving behavior and crashes,1 making DC’s roads safer for everyone. At the same time, the cameras issue flat fines, which can be more burdensome for drivers with low incomes. The District Government is piloting reduced fines for income-eligible vehicle owners. We will evaluate the pilot’s impact on having the fine sent to collections and on getting citations in the future. The findings will inform how DC's traffic fines are structured in the future.
A stop sign camera DC
Photo Credit: District Department of Transportation
Why is this issue important in DC?
The District’s Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) system takes photos and videos of traffic violations, reviews them, and issues fines to vehicle owners. The goal is to deter risky driving behavior. The amount of the fine—ranging from $100 to $500—is determined by the severity of the violation. Tickets not paid or contested within 30 days double in amount and then are sent to collections, where another fee is added. Every driver is expected to follow the traffic laws, but these fines pose a greater burden for drivers with the lowest incomes.
What are we doing?
In 2023, Mayor Bowser established a task force to address ATE equity and safety, and one of the task force recommendations is to pilot and evaluate income-based fines. The resulting ATEquity Fine Reduction Pilot—ATEquity Pilot for short—will reduce certain fines for low-income vehicle owners who receive SNAP—commonly known as food stamps. Only minor, photo-enforced violations with fines of $100 or less that are issued to vehicles with DC tags will be eligible for the pilot.
Evidence from other states suggests that income-based fines for minor offenses can improve payment rates without increasing future violations. 2 While this research is promising, we don’t know whether income-based fines have an effect for traffic violations specifically. Through a randomized evaluation , we’ll look at how the fine reduction impacts whether fines are sent to collections and whether drivers get citations in the future.
What have we learned?
We expect results by early 2025.
What comes next?
The pilot results will inform the follow-up from the Mayor’s Task Force on ATE Equity and Safety.
“There are rightly questions about how ticket enforcement or ATE (Automated Ticket Enforcement) affects behavior and also how flat fees affect people of different incomes differently and, quite candidly, if they affect Black and Brown communities more dramatically than other communities. And so we want that task force to address those issues so that we have the most effective policies possible.”