HOUSTON -- By now, you know the cameras are out there. The secret is if you get caught running a red light, the cameras can't do much about it. 

"Nobody thought that people would start ignoring them," said Toni Lawrence, Houston City Council.

The $75 ticket for running a red light is a civil penalty. But besides handing it over to a collection agency, if a driver doesn't pay it, the city can't do anything.

The numbers of outstanding bills are adding up fast. There are now 70 intersections in Houston equipped with red light cameras. So many people are running the lights and not paying the fines, it's now costing taxpayers approximately $16,000 every day.

City records show that one in three people who get a red light ticket never pay. In two years, the missing money has added up to nearly $9 million.

Now the City Council is considering adding some road blocks such as refusing car registrations renewals for people with outstanding fines.

"For the people who want to gamble and ignore these citations, we're going to make sure this is a losing gamble," said Bill White, Houston Mayor.

But with this solution comes a big problem. The city's municipal court is already overcrowded, and if a hundred thousand people suddenly lose their car registrations and start paying their fines, it could cause a giant backlog.

"If four thousand people go to two windows at municipal court, how long is that going take?" said Lawrence.

It'll be at least a week before anything happens, and another $100,000 worth of tickets issued, that are not being paid.