A resident is suing the Village of Saddle Rock over the legality of its stop sign cameras that ticket drivers for not making complete stops. The suit claims the village is not legally authorized to do so.
“You gotta follow the rules and you gotta follow the law,” the resident’s attorney Jonathon Silver said. “And you would think the village, among all other concerns, would follow the law and not do something that they probably know is improper.”
The main plaintiff in the suit is Faith Luper, who Silver is representing and said had been ticketed three times – once every year since 2022.
The suit was filed in the Nassau County Supreme Court and is being overseen by Judge Francis Ricigliano.
Efforts to solicit comment from Saddle Rock Mayor Dan Levy were unavailing.
The suit calls the village’s ticketing system “an illegal and unauthorized camera system.”
Silver says the camera system violates an individual’s civil rights.
Silver said a resident at a community meeting had brought up the issue to him and advised him to take legal action. He said he had also heard grievances from residents at other gatherings.
Silver said he was not aware of how much money the village had collected through the stop sign violations. He estimated that upwards of thousands of violations have been issued over the past couple of years at $60 each.
“But here we are,” Silver said. “All these people have paid and there’s really no basis for the village doing it.”
He said the hope of the suit’s outcome is to stop using the cameras and issuing violations, as well as refunds to prior violators.
The cameras are installed by Stop For Kids, a local organization that installs 24/7 AI-powered cameras at stop signs to cite drivers who fail to stop.
The organization was founded by Kamran Barelli, a former Saddle Rock trustee, whose wife and young child were struck by a car that had failed to stop at a stop sign.
The New York State DMV grants Stop For Kids access to license plates in order to run them and issue violations captured by their cameras, with the option to issue warnings.
The village then directly collects the money from citations. The village pays fees to Stop For Kids.
Silver said he has not been able to find any legal authority for the village to enact such a ticketing program in state law. He said the law would permit New York City and other cities and counties to do so, but not a village like Saddle Rock.
State Sen. Jack Martins proposed a law in 2023 to legalize the use of stop sign camera by a few villages in Nassau and Suffolk counties, but the bill did not make it past the Senate floor. On May 20, the amended bill was recommended to the Transportation Committee.
“So there’s no legal basis for them doing this,” Silver said.
The state bill, Protect Our Pedestrians Act, includes the villages of Upper Brookville, Flower Hill, East Hampton, Westbury, Saddle Rock, and Southampton. It would limit stop sign tickets to a maximum of $50.
Conversations about the stop sign cameras washed over the North Shore last year, with multiple villages like Roslyn Estates and Port Washington North entertaining the program. The two villages also conducted trials with the cameras to evaluate the necessity.
Ultimately, no other village opted to proceed with the program, though, with many citing concern over its legality. This included Roslyn Estates Mayor Paul Peters, who last year said they opted against the program because their village attorney considered it illegal.
The case will be heard again in court on Nov. 25.
