Camera and AutoExpreso fines

It is Article 23.08 of Act 22-2000: the one that authorises traffic cameras, sets what the equipment may and may not photograph, and builds the whole notification, review and administrative-hearing procedure for the fines it produces, AutoExpreso ones included.

It applies to administrative fines issued by automatic traffic-control systems installed at motorway toll stations and at public-road intersections designated high risk. Movement infractions are adjudicated to the identity records of the vehicle’s owner or of the AutoExpreso user in whose name the electronic tag is held, if the owner can reliably identify them, or of the certified driver where the vehicle is under a financial-lease or retail-instalment contract.

• To request a review: doing so within thirty (30) days of the fine notice, by certified mail, fax or e-mail, through the specific contacts provided for that purpose, stating the grounds of the challenge. After thirty days the fine becomes final and firm and cannot be questioned.Verified against the official source
• To request an administrative hearing after an adverse review: filing it in writing within twenty (20) days of the notice of the decision upholding the fine.Verified against the official source
• Keeping the vehicle’s registration information current, contact information included: the Act expressly makes it the titleholder’s responsibility, and that is where the notices go.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Where a camera may be

   Subsection (a) empowers the Secretary to use and operate automatic traffic-control systems “at motorway toll stations and at public-road intersections that statistically represent ‘high risk’ for drivers and pedestrians”, with electronic or mechanised devices “of proven accuracy”, to issue administrative fine tickets for the violations detectable that way. Two places: tolls and high-risk intersections. Not any corner.

2. 2

   Step 2: The regulation and the public hearings

   Before installing a camera at an intersection, the Secretary has homework. “Prior to installing any automatic traffic-control system at public-road intersections in Puerto Rico, the Secretary shall prepare a regulation designating those ‘High Risk’ intersections, which shall include the method of evaluating statistics and information such as, but not limited to: traffic flow in that zone, interventions for breaking the law, the number of accidents reported from those breaches in those areas and the duration of the amber light.” That last one — the amber light’s duration — is what usually decides whether a red-light camera is fair. And the regulation “shall be published, circulated and submitted to public hearings before becoming official”.

3. 3

   Step 3: The photo may show only the plate and the car

   Subsection (b) sets an explicit and little-known limit: “The image captured by that equipment must be limited to the plate and the vehicle. At no time may an image showing the characteristic features of the vehicle’s occupants be used.” It is a privacy rule written inside the traffic Act itself, not in a separate regulation.

4. 4

   Step 4: The sworn certification and your right to see the image

   Once the violation is detected, a sworn certification is issued by a representative of the Secretary, of the Highways and Transportation Authority, of the contract operator or of whoever is in charge of the system, to the effect that a given vehicle committed the infraction. That certification rests on photos, microphotographs, video or any other image record, “which shall constitute prima facie evidence in any proceeding”. But with a condition that gives you a right: those images are admitted in evidence “provided they are made available to the affected party, at any stage of the process of imposing and collecting the fine and toll, if the affected party requests it in writing and in time”. In writing and in time: that is how you ask.

5. 5

   Step 5: Twenty-four hours to warn you, a hundred and twenty to pay

   Subsection (c)(1) sets the first part of the AutoExpreso clock. An initial notice goes by e-mail, text message or automated call “within twenty-four (24) hours of the infraction being committed”, telling the tag’s owner, per its registration, that there has been an infraction of the electronic payment system for lack of balance, stating the amount owed, “and setting a term of one hundred twenty (120) hours from the infraction to make payment of the toll, failing which a fine of fifteen (15) dollars shall be issued”. A hundred and twenty hours is five days. And the same subsection recalls that keeping registration information current, contact information included, is the titleholder’s responsibility.

6. 6

   Step 6: The ninety days that can wipe your fine

   This is the part more people should know. If the toll goes unpaid within the term, the fine is notified to the vehicle’s owner — or the certified driver where the vehicle is under a financial lease or instalment sale — by postal mail to their last address and by e-mail, per DTOP records. And then: “That fine notice must be deposited in the post no later than ninety (90) days, counted after one hundred twenty (120) hours from the imputed infraction have run. Failure to comply with the ninety (90) day term for making this notification shall entail the elimination of the imputed fine, except the charge corresponding to the cost of the toll.” If they miss the term, the fine disappears; the toll does not.

7. 7

   Step 7: The seven things the notice must carry

   Subsection (c)(4) sets the minimum content. (i) Your name and address per DTOP records — or the certified driver’s where the vehicle is financed or on instalments. (ii) The plate number per the images used to identify the vehicle, the registration number per DTOP records, “the Auto Expreso card balance and the speed at which it passed the automated station”. (iii) The date, place and time of the violation. (iv) The identification number of the unit or equipment that took the images. (v) The case number assigned by DTOP, the Highways and Transportation Authority or the contracted entity. (vi) A warning of your right to request review within the following thirty days, “failing which the fine shall become final and firm and cannot be questioned”. (vii) That whoever challenges the fine bears the burden of proof to show the imputed violation was not committed.

8. 8

   Step 8: Thirty days to request a review, and it is free

   Subsection (d) opens like this: if the affected vehicle owner or certified driver considers the imputed violation was not committed, “they may request a review of it within the thirty (30) days following the notification, which shall be free of cost”. The request is made by certified mail, fax or e-mail, “provided the request is submitted through the specific contacts provided for those purposes” by DTOP, the Highways and Transportation Authority or the entity contracted to operate AutoExpreso. And it must state the grounds of the challenge.

9. 9

   Step 9: If they stay silent sixty days, you win

   Subsection (d)(2) is the one most worth remembering. Once the request is filed, DTOP, the Authority or the contracted entity “shall have sixty (60) days not only to conduct an investigation and determine the fine’s validity or merit, but to notify the vehicle owner or certified driver of the investigation’s result and the final determination on the fine”. And if they do not: “If… the determination is not issued within the sixty (60) day term, the review request shall be decided in favour of the vehicle owner or certified driver, the imputed fine being eliminated.” Silence, here, plays in your favour. On notifying the result they must also inform you of your right to request an administrative hearing within twenty days.

10. 10

    Step 10: The administrative hearing, and the evidence you are owed

    If you are not satisfied with the investigation’s result, subsection (d)(3) requires you to request an administrative hearing in writing “within the twenty (20) day term counted from the notification of the decision upholding the challenged fine”. It also carries no cost, and is filed by certified mail, fax or e-mail through the same specific contacts. And (d)(4) imposes a duty before the hearing: DTOP, the Authority or the contracted entity “must provide the vehicle owner or certified driver any evidence relating to the AutoExpreso account, as it appears in the system’s records”.

11. 11

    Step 11: The lien is cancelled, or it stays

    Subsection (d)(5) closes the cycle. If the fine is eliminated or the administrative hearing is decided in your favour, “the Secretary shall immediately cancel the lien or annotation created by the administrative fine under review and shall also give written notice of it to the interested party”. If the result is adverse, “the lien or annotation shall survive, and may only be cancelled by paying the corresponding fine or fines”. That lien is what later blocks your transactions, so the written cancellation matters.

12. 12

    Step 12: And after that, the court

    The last three subsections close the frame. (e) lets the Secretary delegate to other officials, Department employees or government agencies, or contract private firms to operate the systems and send the notices. (f) says the Secretary’s decisions under this article “shall be judicially reviewable in accordance with the ‘Uniform Administrative Procedure Act of the Government of Puerto Rico’, Act 38-2017, as amended” — an Act we did not read. And (g) orders the whole review-and-hearing process regulated, providing further that the regulation require the AutoExpreso account evidence to be handed over and allow whoever presides to authorise discretionary use of discovery mechanisms.

The review request and the administrative-hearing request are filed by certified mail, fax or e-mail, “provided the request is submitted through the specific contacts provided for those purposes” by the Department of Transportation and Public Works, the Highways and Transportation Authority or the entity they contracted to operate the AutoExpreso system. The Act does not publish what those contacts are and we read none, so we do not invent them: the fine notice itself must carry the case number and the information of the entity that issued it. Once the administrative route is exhausted, the Secretary’s decisions are judicially reviewable under Act 38-2017.

• Letting the thirty days from notification pass: after that term the fine becomes final and firm and cannot be questioned.
• Believing the review costs money: the Act expressly says it is free of cost, and the administrative hearing carries no cost either.
• Not counting the ninety days: if the fine notice was not deposited in the post within that term, the fine is eliminated and only the toll charge remains.
• Thinking the hundred and twenty hours run from the notice: they run from the infraction, and the initial notice goes within the first twenty-four.
• Asking for the image verbally: the Act conditions admission of the photos on their being made available if the affected party requests it in writing and in time.
• Not checking the notice carries the seven items in subsection (c)(4), among them the card balance, the speed and the number of the equipment that took the image.
• Ignoring that whoever challenges bears the burden of proving the violation was not committed: the notice itself must warn you of it.
• Letting the twenty days to request an administrative hearing pass after an adverse review.
• Assuming the lien is cancelled without the written notice: the Act requires the Secretary to give it when the fine is eliminated.
• Having an out-of-date postal address or e-mail at DTOP: both the initial notice and the fine notice go there.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP)

  DTOP

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov