Red-light camera program ends, but do I still have to pay my ticket?

Hate to break this to all you bad drivers out there, but you've never had to pay your ticket. That's because of the city's nonsensical enforcement policy - actually, it was a non-enforcement policy that allowed motorists to ignore the citation without facing additional fines. No wonder the program was being operated at a loss. So now that the cameras have been turned off, there are still 186,000 unpaid tickets - plus another 56,000 tickets still being processed. From the Daily News:

Councilman Dennis Zine, who led the successful bid to end the ticket program that outraged Los Angeles drivers, said Monday he was trying to set up a meeting with Superior Court officials to figure out how to spare motorists. "It's up to the court to decide," Zine said Monday. "There are about 186,000 tickets that weren't paid. I'm going to meet with the judges to see if there's a way to wipe them clean. "I recognize it is not fair to the people who have paid their tickets, so I want to meet with the judges to find out what they think can be done."

Not fair? Guess you can say that. By the way, I've been reading about other cities around the country that have somehow managed to operate their red-light camera programs at a profit. From the LAT:

In Beverly Hills, where the red-light camera program has been in place since 1996, Lt. Mark Rosen of the traffic bureau said the city is also looking at expanding the operation. The program brings in gross revenues of more than $150,000 a month -– of which $53,000 goes to the vendor -– and red-light violations have declined at the intersections where it has been put in place, he said. "The whole idea behind the program is public safety, so you can't just look at revenues," he said. "... We feel that we are experiencing a reduction in accidents, a reduction in citations, and we are experiencing a positive revenue flow."