4511.094 Signs required for photo-monitoring devices. - Ohio Statutes

4511.094 Signs required for photo-monitoring devices.

(A) As used in this section:

(1) “Local authority” means a municipal corporation, county, or township.

(2) “Traffic law photo-monitoring device” means an electronic system consisting of a photographic, video, or electronic camera and a means of sensing the presence of a motor vehicle that automatically produces photographs, videotape, or digital images of the vehicle or its license plate.

(B)(1) No local authority shall use traffic law photo-monitoring devices to enforce any traffic law until after it has erected signs on every highway that is not a freeway that is part of the state highway system and that enters that local authority. The signs shall inform inbound traffic that the local authority utilizes traffic law photo-monitoring devices to enforce traffic laws. The signs shall be erected within the first three hundred feet of the boundary of the local authority or, if the signs cannot be located within the first three hundred feet of the boundary of the local authority, as close to that distance as possible, provided that if a particular highway enters and exits the territory of a local authority multiple times, the local authority shall erect the signs as required by this division at the locations in each direction of travel where inbound traffic on the highway first enters the territory of the local authority and is not required to erect additional signs along such highway each time the highway reenters the territory of the local authority. The local authority is responsible for all costs associated with the erection, maintenance, and replacement, if necessary, of the signs. All signs erected under this division shall conform in size, color, location, and content to standards contained in the manual adopted by the department of transportation pursuant to section 4511.09 of the Revised Code and shall remain in place for as long as the local authority utilizes traffic law photo-monitoring devices to enforce any traffic law. Any ticket, citation, or summons issued by or on behalf of the local authority for any traffic law violation based upon evidence gathered by a traffic law photo-monitoring device after the effective date of this section, but before the signs have been erected is invalid; provided that no ticket, citation, or summons is invalid if the local authority is in substantial compliance with the requirement of this division to erect the signs.

(2) A local authority is deemed to be in substantial compliance with the requirement of division (B)(1) of this section to erect the advisory signs if the authority does both of the following:

(a) First erects all signs as required by division (B)(1) of this section and subsequently maintains and replaces the signs as needed so that at all times at least ninety per cent of the required signs are in place and functional;

(b) Annually documents and upon request certifies its compliance with division (B)(2)(a) of this section.

(C) A local authority that uses traffic law photo-monitoring devices to enforce any traffic law at an intersection where traffic is controlled by traffic control signals that exhibit different colored lights or colored lighted arrows shall time the operation of the yellow lights and yellow arrows of those traffic control signals so that the steady yellow indication exceeds by one second the minimum duration for yellow indicators at similar intersections as established by the provisions of the manual adopted by the department of transportation under section 4511.09 of the Revised Code.

Effective Date: 2008 HB30 09-12-2008