Courts: Not So Fast With Those Red-Light Camera Tickets

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Besides being an obvious revenue generator for the city and state, why do they even red-light camera systems any more? Everywhere they are installed, this ends up happening. Thanks to railhaus for the link.

In Florida, only law enforcement officers and traffic enforcement officers have the legal authority to issue citations for traffic infractions, which means only law enforcement officers and traffic enforcement officers are entitled to determine who gets prosecuted for a red light violation.
 
So one of two things will happen

1) They'll amend the law to allow private companies to do so by being "deputized" by LEOs
or
2) They'll hand over all the pictures to the local law enforcement, in which case they'll review the photos and send tickets but at the expense of the company getting less money... or they raise fines to deal with more "administrative" costs.
 
well america already uses private companies to run prisons and that always turns out great...

this is just one more thing for the private sector to take care of.
 
I've got a better solution. Everyone in the county needs to march up to all the cameras and smash shit up.
 
The could just replace them with a box in your car that like records speed, movement, location and so on and automatically fines you by withdrawing money directly from your bank accounts or informing your employer to dock your pay. They could also remotely revoke drivers licenses and prevent cars from operating for people who don't pay fines. Of course, you'd totally need to have like a transmitter running so people could detect you weren't driving legally if you tamper with the device and random vehicle searches or inspections to verify it's still working.
 
The biggest problem with them is that in most jurisdictions they can't be challenged. It's pay the fine now or pay a bigger fine. You don't even get the chance to go to trial until it has already gotten so out of hand that it's totally nuts.

In addition, many operators of those hidden speed camera vehicles take advantage of certain malfunctions in school zones. There is a school zone near my old apartment in Denver where one of the lights goes out at 3:20 while the other one goes out at 3:30, leaving the school zone enforced, but drivers entering from one side don't know it. They get 10 to 20 people per day on that thing. It's been all over local discussions, but the local media won't touch it. (Our local media would never do anything to offend the Denver city politicians. They just adore them and their political lean. Also, the owner of the speed camera company is a close friend of several city politicians as well as the former mayor and now governor, Hickenlooper.) There's been attempts to sue the city over it, but the suits keep getting thrown out. Basically, the only way to challenge it at all is to simply shred any form you get in the mail and don't answer your door for strangers. Then you can claim you never got anything until a cop shows up to deliver it. Only then can you invoke your rights to a jury trial, but by then, they've added fees and penalties on to make it extremely expensive to lose. If you just pay it up front, you lose $75. If you try to fight and lose, you lose over $1000. All this while a regular speeding ticket from a cop would only cost $150.

What ever happened to our right to defend ourselves in court?
 
The systems I have read about all have LEO look at set of frames collected and have to approve the ticket. The red light camera companies normally operate like this:

Red light company installs systems and computer for no cost to public
Police hire another officer to look at the violations and make final decision (they spread the duty around, but need to hire another officer for coverage)
Red light company takes a percentage of tickets

The police officers I have talked to who did this tell me tt's not even close when it comes to issuing tickets, they issue a boat load of tickets for people who just blow through red lights (they don't even care about the people who didn't come to complete stop). The red light company installs cameras to watch lanes that will generate the most revenue instead of where the safety issues are. For example, all the right lanes have the cameras, but the middle lanes are less likely.

If they are skipping the LEO review step, then that's a huge problem. I didn't even know they had automated systems like this or why they thought it would be legal.
 
I've got a better solution. Everyone in the county needs to march up to all the cameras and smash shit up.

There was a group in my area that went around and put a film over the cameras that made it appear that nothing was wrong until the flash went off. That momentary burst of light caused the film to bend the light in a way that made the picture unreadable.

Smart little bastards. I don't know if they ever got caught or not. But it seemed like I would see contractors out there cleaning the camera housings off all the time.
 
A city near me had them for a while and at first it made them a lot of extra money. Then people stopped going to that city because of all the bogus tickets. Which made most of the business shut down or move. Which made the city lose tons more money in taxes then they made with the traffic light cameras. Which made the city start to like a ghost town. So the city finally removed the cameras.

It reminds me of IRobot where he talks about how a person has better judgment than a robot that just uses logic and statistics. One night coming home from work I got pulled over for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. It was 1:00AM in the morning and no one was around. The police officer said he knows no ones around and that I wasn't doing anything reckless or dangerous. Then sent me on my way home. An automated camera would have just given me a ticket. My dad got a ticket from a camera for running a red light because he was in the intersection when the light turned red.
 
or stop running red lights and wait your 30-45 seconds?

Gotta be one in every crowd. If you're good with having your freedoms devalued, good on you. Don't push it on others. Red light cameras are an affront to the justice system because they rarely are installed for safety reasons.
 
Gotta be one in every crowd. If you're good with having your freedoms devalued, good on you. Don't push it on others. Red light cameras are an affront to the justice system because they rarely are installed for safety reasons.

Um, how again is it a freedom to not have consequences for running red lights? You know, like people get killed at intersections when someone does that. I'm pretty sure "yer daggum freedums" don't include putting other peoples' lives at risk.
 
It reminds me of IRobot where he talks about how a person has better judgment than a robot that just uses logic and statistics. One night coming home from work I got pulled over for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. It was 1:00AM in the morning and no one was around. The police officer said he knows no ones around and that I wasn't doing anything reckless or dangerous. Then sent me on my way home. An automated camera would have just given me a ticket. My dad got a ticket from a camera for running a red light because he was in the intersection when the light turned red.

Yet, he stopped you anyway? Seems redundant, although not always. I got stopped for driving in the left hand lane heading out to West Texas from Dallas late one night. I was going exactly the speed limit (speed limit on highways out there is 75 :) )so I was surprised I was stopped. Anyhow, he does a complete walk around of my car, makes sure to look at my tags real hard and then tells me the left hand lane is for passing only. I get it, there are signs posted everyone once in a while for that, but really? There wasn't a soul around out there in BFE. He just did that to see what other ticky tack thing he could come up with. Seeing absolutely everything else was in order, he let me go.
 
Um, how again is it a freedom to not have consequences for running red lights? You know, like people get killed at intersections when someone does that. I'm pretty sure "yer daggum freedums" don't include putting other peoples' lives at risk.

Because, as someone else and I, pointed out previously, they are not installed for safety all the time. They are seen as revenue generating schemes in a lot of places and provide no logic to them. I got one a long time ago making a right hand turn where I slowed down to just about, but yes not quite, a complete stop, where I had plenty enough time to see if anyone was coming, went through and got a ticket. That's not a safety concern. Blowing through a busy intersection by trying to beat a yellow light (which are very frequently trimmed down timing wise on red light camera intersections) is the safety concern.
 
or stop running red lights and wait your 30-45 seconds?

Supposedly they make intersections more dangerous.

http://www.local10.com/news/study-r...ome-fla-intersections-more-dangerous/24225712

I didn't care about them initially until I had my first run in with one in Aurora. It wasn't for a ticket though. It was because the fucking thing flashed an extremely bright light in my face at 4:30am on my way to work while the roads were slick. I was a good 100 ft away from the intersection, but since I was blinded for a couple of seconds (that bright of a light that early in the morning really fucks with you), I instinctively hit the brakes a little harder. Next thing I know I'm in the middle of the intersection. Thankfully at 4:30am there aren't a whole lot of cars on the road. That and I learned how shitty Crown Vics handle in the winter without any weight or decent tires.

Once you know they're there it's a little easier to contend with, but that first time is a bitch. Fuck anyone who thinks a bright, flashing light at face level is a good thing for drivers.
 
One night coming home from work I got pulled over for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. It was 1:00AM in the morning and no one was around. The police officer said he knows no ones around and that I wasn't doing anything reckless or dangerous. Then sent me on my way home.

He probably stopped you to see if you smelled like alcohol.
 
Yet, he stopped you anyway? Seems redundant, although not always.

Not really. A warning can be plenty without enforcing punishment. I've been pulled over a few times with warnings. Some times the officer will remember someone from a previous stop and then enforce it. Not all cops are pricks looking for something else wrong or trying to write you a ticket. If you lie or get a tone or bitchy with them, then you're almost guaranteeing a ticket.
 
I say keep private companies out of it. Then, it becomes a for-profit style business. They will do things to keep in business, be it lower the timing for yellow lights, false positives, etc..
 
What I don't understand is how anyone could claim that a red light camera would increase safety. Because of the delay between when one light goes red and another goes green, someone would have to enter the intersection seconds after the light went red for it to be an issue. People not coming to a complete 2 second stop to turn right when side street has a left turn is not a safety issue. The same applies to people half way through the intersection when the light turns red.

What is a safety issue are the people that blow through a red light long after it changed. Those people are either drunk, old and confused, or just don't care and those are the same people who would not be deterred by the of a ticket in the first place.

The people that are getting tickets by these cameras are the same people that cops see every day and ignore because it isn't a safety issue.
 
Many times the intersection where the red light camera is installed they purposefully shorten the yellow light so they generate more revenue. The intersection will actually have more accidents before the cameras were installed because people jam the brakes on not anticipating such a short yellow light and get rear ended.
 
Many times the intersection where the red light camera is installed they purposefully shorten the yellow light so they generate more revenue. The intersection will actually have more accidents before the cameras were installed because people jam the brakes on not anticipating such a short yellow light and get rear ended.

I will stop faster when they are used. Usually, if I can't stop without slamming on the brakes, I just go through the yellow (sometimes see it turn red when I'm almost through). If it's 45MPH and a stop light with a short yellow? Lots of people are going through. With the camera, I'll hit the brakes harder for a stop. Don't like doing it, but I don't want the ticket...
 
Did you know that many people who get caught by these started out going through a green light, but due to the people in front of them, they couldn't get through the whole intersection before the light changed. That is specifically why running a red light was defined as passing the stop line at the beginning of the intersection after the light changed to red. So, many of these people getting hit with these red light cameras are innocent of actually running the light. There is an intersection near my old apartment, in Greenwood Village, Colorado, at Quebec and Belleview that is very bad about this. Traffic on east bound Belleview can come to a stop seemingly out of nowhere during rush hour, catching people in the middle of the intersection constantly. Of course they installed a red light camera there.

Because the cameras don't capture full motion video, it is really impossible to tell if they actually passed that line after it was red or if they were caught in the intersection because people in front of them slowed down or stopped. Therefore, they are not really valid proof that anyone violated anything. This has been challenged repeatedly in court, but judges keep siding with the red light camera companies instead of the people. In this election, I have voted against every single judge specifically because of the condition of the system itself. I suggest to everyone to do the same. Keep booting judges until the system starts serving the people instead of itself.
 
Besides being an obvious revenue generator for the city and state, why do they even red-light camera systems any more? Everywhere they are installed, this ends up happening. Thanks to railhaus for the link.

Its a revenue generator, so they disregard the legality just like every other state/county/town/government does. Whats right and wrong when you make the rules? Everything is right, until someone challenges it, but you dont get punished for it to the point of eliminating the practice all together. A small fine maybe, and the revenue generated prior to the case is kept. Next step, do it again with something else, it makes good business sense to fuck people over and not be held responsible.
 
Did you know that many people who get caught by these started out going through a green light, but due to the people in front of them, they couldn't get through the whole intersection before the light changed. That is specifically why running a red light was defined as passing the stop line at the beginning of the intersection after the light changed to red. So, many of these people getting hit with these red light cameras are innocent of actually running the light. There is an intersection near my old apartment, in Greenwood Village, Colorado, at Quebec and Belleview that is very bad about this. Traffic on east bound Belleview can come to a stop seemingly out of nowhere during rush hour, catching people in the middle of the intersection constantly. Of course they installed a red light camera there.

Because the cameras don't capture full motion video, it is really impossible to tell if they actually passed that line after it was red or if they were caught in the intersection because people in front of them slowed down or stopped. Therefore, they are not really valid proof that anyone violated anything. This has been challenged repeatedly in court, but judges keep siding with the red light camera companies instead of the people. In this election, I have voted against every single judge specifically because of the condition of the system itself. I suggest to everyone to do the same. Keep booting judges until the system starts serving the people instead of itself.

I really do love those people that move into the intersection when it is clear that it is not moving any further, thus jamming the entire intersection. They should get tickets. So irritating when they go through a yellow to an obviously stopped car, just to be stopped behind him and not have to wait, now the other lane cannot go through the intersection.
 
I really do love those people that move into the intersection when it is clear that it is not moving any further, thus jamming the entire intersection. They should get tickets. So irritating when they go through a yellow to an obviously stopped car, just to be stopped behind him and not have to wait, now the other lane cannot go through the intersection.

Just to make sure, you do realize he was saying the traffic would be moving along and all of a sudden stop thus stranding a car or two in the intersection, right? I do understand what you are talking about though and I do agree. I see trucks do it a lot too where I work at rush hour. They start pulling through the turn light when it's yellow and hold up the straight through traffic getting their green on the other side.
 
A warning can be plenty without enforcing punishment. I've been pulled over a few times with warnings..
Warnings don't seem to be "plenty" for you if you've been given "a few" already.

Did you know that many people who get caught by these started out going through a green light, but due to the people in front of them, they couldn't get through the whole intersection before the light changed. That is specifically why running a red light was defined as passing the stop line at the beginning of the intersection after the light changed to red. So, many of these people getting hit with these red light cameras are innocent of actually running the light. There is an intersection near my old apartment, in Greenwood Village, Colorado, at Quebec and Belleview that is very bad about this. Traffic on east bound Belleview can come to a stop seemingly out of nowhere during rush hour, catching people in the middle of the intersection constantly. Of course they installed a red light camera there.

Because the cameras don't capture full motion video, it is really impossible to tell if they actually passed that line after it was red or if they were caught in the intersection because people in front of them slowed down or stopped. Therefore, they are not really valid proof that anyone violated anything. This has been challenged repeatedly in court, but judges keep siding with the red light camera companies instead of the people. In this election, I have voted against every single judge specifically because of the condition of the system itself. I suggest to everyone to do the same. Keep booting judges until the system starts serving the people instead of itself.
Entering an intersection before or during a yellow changing to red is different depending on the state. If you're caught in an intersection in some states, you can be cited for it whereas others you're fine so long as you enter before it turns red.

The second issue is that you don't seem to know how these cameras actually work. It sounds like you haven't received an automated ticket because if you had you would know that they take multiple photos of your car as it enters, is in, and exits the intersection with time sync so the agency can review whether you entered before, during, or after a red.
 
or stop running red lights and wait your 30-45 seconds?

Where I live out here in California, over 90% of the red light tickets are for people not coming to a complete stop before turning right on a red light. Doesn't mater if it's late at night, and you can see there are no cars coming, you have to stop before the crosswalk (at least 2-3 seconds), then pull up closer to the intersection and then stop again before turning right. Otherwise you will likely be getting a $400+ ticket for running a red light.

We also had some cities shorten the yellow lights so they could send out more tickets. Some even shorten the light to less what was required by law. Luckily some people went through the expense to fight these tickets and they all got thrown out.

I've had people almost rear end my car or blast their horns at me because I came to a complete stop before turning right at the red light where there are cameras.

It's all about the money, not safety. There have been several studies done that show adjusting the timing on the lights (longer yellow, or slight delay before turning the light green) does way more to reduce accidents than red light cameras.
The number of people who actually run red lights (not turning on a red light) is too small to pay for the cameras and overhead, so in order to make money, they have to ticket a lot more people.

Still, most of the cameras have now been turned off or removed, since even with all the extra tickets they where sending out, they still where still operating at a loss.
 
Where I live out here in California, over 90% of the red light tickets are for people not coming to a complete stop before turning right on a red light. Doesn't mater if it's late at night, and you can see there are no cars coming, you have to stop before the crosswalk (at least 2-3 seconds), then pull up closer to the intersection and then stop again before turning right.

It's all about the money, not safety.
When you make this kind of claim (that it's not about safety) and then describe a situation where you completely miss the point of what stopping before turning right is supposed to be safeguarding it really undermines your argument.
 
A city near me had them for a while and at first it made them a lot of extra money. Then people stopped going to that city because of all the bogus tickets. Which made most of the business shut down or move. Which made the city lose tons more money in taxes then they made with the traffic light cameras. Which made the city start to like a ghost town. So the city finally removed the cameras.

Same here. There were a couple red light cameras (recently shut down) about 1/2 mile from my office. I always avoided those 2 intersections when I went to lunch or to/from work. Since I work close to the boarder between 3 cities, this also meant that I rarely shopped in the city with the cameras, since I would pass the same type of stores on the way home in the other cities.
 
When you make this kind of claim (that it's not about safety) and then describe a situation where you completely miss the point of what stopping before turning right is supposed to be safeguarding it really undermines your argument.

The problem is that they are giving out tickets, where a cop would likely not, such as stopping slightly over the crosswalk, not stopping long enough it to register, or getting stuck in the intersection because traffic comes to a sudden stop.

My main point was that they sold the red light cameras as ticketing people who go flying through the intersection after the light has turned red, yet almost none of the tickets given out are for that type of violation.
 
Yes, and my point is that when you claim that it's not about safety at all and then go on to describe a situation you engage in where you think the danger is from other cars that you claim you can see clearly at night, but completely disregard the fact that stopping and looking prevents you from hitting pedestrians (who have full right of way) stepping off the curb and not intended to protect you from cars t-boning you (which actually puts you in danger more-so than the other drivers) then it becomes clear that you aren't particularly cognizant of what dangers you present to the public or what dangers are presented to you. that undermines your argument that these devices aren't about safety at all...when in fact you aren't particularly knowledgeable about the safety issues involved.
 
What ever happened to our right to defend ourselves in court?

It was consumed by the drug war, like the rest of our civil rights. The courts are overburdened by the prosecution of hundreds of thousands of low level non violent cases. They courts no longer have time to properly manage justice, it's mass production now, and over 98% of criminal trials end in plea bargains because of a stacked deck in a blind and unholistic system.

The remaining balance of your rights are being consumed by the war on terror.

Innocent people seldom care, but what goes around eventually comes around.


"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? ...We want them broken... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt." Quote from "Atlas Shrugged".
 
I live in Pensacola, FL. Across the bay in Gulf Breeze, there has been an increasing amount of opposition to the red light cameras there. Going through Gulf Breeze to get to Pensacola Beach, lots of people are/were getting popped by them. Of course the city/police there love them, they are basically $$$ printing machines for them, esp. during the summer (aka height of beach season).
 
The could just replace them with a box in your car that like records speed, movement, location and so on and automatically fines you by withdrawing money directly from your bank accounts or informing your employer to dock your pay. They could also remotely revoke drivers licenses and prevent cars from operating for people who don't pay fines. Of course, you'd totally need to have like a transmitter running so people could detect you weren't driving legally if you tamper with the device and random vehicle searches or inspections to verify it's still working.

That's where we're headed I'm afraid.
 
In my county:

Red Light Camera Violation - $70

Written Citation for running a light - $185

Under State law :

Red Light Camera - $70 max.; not conviction or record offense; no points; not moving violation; not used by insurers

Disobedience of any traffic-control device as ticketed by an Officer: 3 points

Seems like a cash grab to me.
 
Locally they won't prosecute red light camera tickets all you have to do is request a court date.

6 months later they inform you that case against you is dropped. They know they can't win so they never take them to trail.
 
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