The D.C. Department of Transportation is on the verge of changing the language in its traffic camera policies after a local lawyer beat a speeding camera ticket by discovering that camera readings may not be as precise as the citations claim.
On July 8, the Bowser administration proposed altering the $100 ticketing threshold from 11-15 mph over the speed limit to “more than 10 mph” over the limit. The public comment period on the updated ticketing schedule ended Sunday, and the new language is headed to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s desk for her signature.
The change was made after the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in May for Matt Ricciardi, who argued that the District could not justify the triple-digit fine because DDOT acknowledged a 1 mph margin of error in the cameras.
“The government has to prove the charge, and what the Court of Appeals found here is that the District could not meet its burden of proof,” Mr. Ricciardi told The Washington Times. “I don’t consider that a loophole or technicality. It’s just fundamentally the District couldn’t prove its charge, so it was dismissed.”
It all started when a speed camera on D.C. Route 295 captured Mr. Ricciardi driving 11 mph over the limit in 2023.
After receiving notice of his $100 fine in the mail, Mr. Ricciardi, a lawyer with a background in computer programming, suspected a margin of error was built into the camera readings.
He entered the web address provided at the bottom of the citation and looked up the specific camera’s deployment log, which said that on the date he was flagged, the camera was accurate to within 1 mph.
Mr. Ricciardi said he first contested the ticket with the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles. He then took it to the D.C. Superior Court and eventually to the Court of Appeals, where he gave oral arguments in November 2025.
The high court ruled that the District did not prove Mr. Ricciardi’s offense was supported by “clear and convincing evidence.” Mr. Ricciardi had checked the camera’s calibration accuracy to build his case against the citation.
“The District is not free to simply regulate around that statutory requirement and ’deem’ that some modicum of evidence that is less than clear and convincing nonetheless satisfies that standard,” Associate Judge Joshua Deahl, a Trump appointee, wrote in the court’s May 7 opinion.
“The District can no more pass a regulation that counterfactually deems its speed measurement devices to be perfectly accurate than it could pass a regulation deeming everybody on the District’s roadways to be guilty of whatever they happen to be charged with,” Judge Deahl wrote.
The Bowser administration submitted the updated ticketing language on behalf of DDOT, saying the action was taken on an emergency basis to “preserve public safety and welfare.”
DDOT said the proposed schedule aligns with updated technology that can more accurately pinpoint a driver’s speed.
“The Ricciardi case centers on regulatory requirements that have not kept pace with technology and current standards, rather than the accuracy or effectiveness of the program,” DDOT said in a statement to The Times. “DDOT is reviewing regulatory and administrative changes to accurately reflect the current state of operations and standards.”
How much more precise the technology can be remains unclear, given that DDOT acknowledges that technicians check the cameras’ accuracy every four days. The DDOT website says an independent contractor evaluates and certifies the cameras’ readings each year.
Verra Mobility, which provides the cameras to the District, said in a statement that its 3D radar and high-resolution digital imaging technology “is operated in compliance with all applicable laws and regulatory requirements” and delivers “a high level of accuracy.”
The accuracy of speed cameras has been debated in other parts of the country. Chicago ABC affiliate WLS-TV reported in 2025 that the city’s automated cameras had a 0.62 mph margin of error.
Although that number may seem insignificant, motorists traveling 11 mph over the speed limit receive a $100 fine — rather than a $35 citation for going 6-10 mph over the limit — even though a 1 mph margin of error means the camera cannot confirm they exceeded the $100 threshold.
In his court challenge, neither Mr. Ricciardi nor city attorneys disputed that he was speeding. He could have been fined $35 for driving 6 to 10 mph over the limit. Yet DDOT levied the heftier fine against him, and presumably hundreds of other drivers, despite acknowledging a margin of error in the cameras’ performance.
“I don’t know that it was really a bad regulation so much as the District’s decision makers being aggressive in how they charged these infractions, and I think people can draw their own conclusions as to what the motivation for being aggressive was,” Mr. Ricciardi said. “I’ll just observe that the fine amount doubles when you go up to the next speeding range.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill have made up their minds that the cameras are designed primarily to generate revenue from residents, tourists and commuters rather than to improve safety.
On March 18, the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced a bill, the Stop DC CAMERA Act, to shut down the roughly 550 speed, red light and stop sign cameras scattered across the nation’s capital.
The cameras have generated $600 million in revenue for the city over the past three years, though lawmakers have argued the cameras have an inconsistent impact on traffic safety.
Metropolitan Police crash data shows 27 road fatalities in the city this year — including pedestrians, cyclists and motorists — a 145% increase from the 11 recorded at this point last year.
Further, the 52 traffic fatalities documented in 2023 and 2024 were the most the city had recorded since 2007, when 54 were recorded.
The Stop DC CAMERA Act has yet to be taken up by the full House.
Politico reported that the federal government could try to dismantle the District’s network of traffic cameras by including a provision in a surface transportation bill. The federal bill would need to be put to a vote before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
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