New Orleans is owed $135 million in traffic cam tickets and is struggling to collect

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NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) -- The City of New Orleans is owed $135,002,518.56 in traffic camera ticket fees, money that could go to addressing the city’s needs.

A Fox 8 investigation found that money is spread across 994,323 collectable tickets dating back to late 2010.

The city uses traffic cameras to enforce speed limits in school zones and catch drivers running red lights. The license plates of alleged violators are caught on camera, then used to issue traffic tickets and fees.

The fees, if paid, flow into the city’s general fund. That money could be used for any number of issues facing the city.

New Orleans’ Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño told Fox 8 the city is limited in its ability to collect the ticket fees. He said the city relies on booting the offending vehicles when citations are not paid and sending the tickets to collections.

If drivers can dodge both, he said there’s not much more to be done.

“I can’t anticipate money coming from these people that have chosen a whole different path in life and in their financial world,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever see that money and that’s called a sunk cost.”

A Fox 8 analysis of city records shows only 63 percent of the traffic tickets issued from 2019-23 have been paid. That’s just over a million tickets.

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