If you were one of the 3,145 drivers caught speeding by the speed camera at the 4500 block of Wabash Avenue between December and April, you probably received the $40 citation in the mail without noticing anything out of the ordinary. And in fact hardly anything was, just that the site of your misdeed was incorrectly listed as the 5400 block.
I find it hard to believe that the city would give up $125,800 in ticket revenue over an address that’s nine blocks off. I mean, no one believes the drivers were not speeding.
Not all drivers cited had paid the fine by the time the city discovered the error, so it’s not $125,000 in cash that the city is paying out, and the camera vendor will “absorb” 25 percent of the refunds besides, but still!
I wish I could generate some sort of conspiratorial angle on this one, but I can’t. If you’ve got a paranoid, cynical explanation for the city’s unusual forthrightness, leave it in the comments section.
