Red Light Camera Ticket

But social media is where losers go to feel important >:-} ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Jim Thompson
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Depends on how you view the purpose of fines and penalties - are they to deter bad behavior or as a government revenue-stream? IMO they should _not_ be a government revenue-stream.

A government that wanted them to be the later though would deffo not be interested in an income-dependent scale because they'd prefer a fine structure where the wealthy "wrote it off" as a "business expense", i.e. you get to break the law if you can pay the fee.

Reply to
bitrex

That is even in a "night watchman" libertarian state there are definitely behaviors which most sensible people would agree pose extreme risk to other's life and property, such as reckless/drunk driving. If that state actually wants to deter behaviors that put other's liberty in severe jeopardy then the punishment must act as a deterrent to everyone, not just the poor.

Reply to
bitrex

Facebook is for grandmas now, the cool kids stopped using it a while ago.

Reply to
bitrex

My GPS warns me of red-light cameras and other (permanent) revenue enhancement devices.

Reply to
krw

A Big Mac is different for someone making $20K or $200K, too. So what? Should we sentence 20YO perps to longer terms than 60YO perps?

Reply to
krw

Oh, come on. Did the subject line really make you think it was going to be a electronics thread?

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

time and money are different kinds of resources

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

So is an aardvark. So?

Reply to
krw

Traffic cameras are sometimes additionally used to gather statistics to forward to repo agencies/bounty hunters on hot-spot areas have high levels of vehicles in default on their loans. Then cars with side-mount cameras can be sent out to cruise around scanning hundreds of plates an hour in residential neighborhoods/parking lots to pinpoint locations

Reply to
bitrex

amdx wrote on 9/20/2017 11:55 AM:

I'm not opposed to red light cameras philosophically, but they and the speed cameras are often not operated by the jurisdiction, rather by contractors. In particular, there is no one to subpoena to find out if the camera was operated properly and the evidence reviewed accurately. In some jurisdictions courts have ruled that the tickets are not valid as only the police have authority to issue such tickets.

I don't know if you care about this particular issue or not.

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Rick C 

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rickman

I'm afraid this *is* social media Jim...

:)

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John Devereux
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John Devereux

They close that loop-hole: paying the ticket costs $100, bringing it to court costs $200 (typically).

Also, some nonsense about it being a mix of criminal and civil law, so you have to file ($) to get it in court. Even though it's issued by a criminal body. Except not really.

And yes, this means your case is that much more sound: not only is there no accuser to cross-examine, as such, but the patchwork of laws will make any judge shake their head at it.

But judges rule on cases, not laws. So the bad laws stick around.

Tim

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Tim Williams

On Wednesday, September 20, 2017 at 11:56:11 AM UTC-4, amdx wrote: ... When I looked at the photos, my first thought, I got this beat

Respectfully, "No", you don't have that "beat". Not even close.

The reason is you will waste more time, effort, energy and money trying to "win" than it is worth. You will never get any of that back.

The real penalty is having to prove your innocence. So, you're screwed either way.

Just pay the ticket. It's the lesser of two evils.

Reply to
mpm

As I said after further review. My problem was I didn't see the light way over to the left, they aren't like that in Florida. I was following the 3 light on the left not the the 4th light over the median. I tried to pay the ticket online yesterday, but the website says that it was not found, try later. Mikek

Reply to
amdx

I don't like big brother expanding it's power, but I'm not going to try taking it to a state court. It needs an organization or someone more well heeled then me.

Mikek

Some article quotes:

Phoenix, Arizona-based Redflex is second after ATS, Inc. as a provider of red light cameras, with more than 2,000 of the devices placed in cities across the United States and Canada. Their revenues totalled more than $92 million in 2011. The company keeps up to 88 percent of the proceeds from traffic violations caught using its equipment.

It was recently at the center of a controversy in the town of Cary, North Carolina, where it was discovered that in one intersection alone,

31 false violations were reported. The city has since cancelled its contract with Redflex.

Instead of cameras, some advocate longer yellow lights, which would give drivers more time to slow down and not have to make a snap decision... The Florida Department of Transportation will lengthen yellow light times at all intersections with red light cameras by the end of the year and at all intersections by June 2015, said Fred Heery, deputy state traffic operations engineer. Yellow light times will be increased from 3 seconds to 3.4 seconds on roads with speed limits of 25 miles per hour and increased from 5 to 5.5 seconds on roads with speed limits of 55 miles per hour.

A 2012 audit in St. Petersburg showed the number of dangerous side-impact collisions did decrease at intersections where the red-light cameras had been installed. However, rear-end collisions actually increased at those intersections, as more drivers stopped short to avoid violations.

Meanwhile, at intersections where red-light violations were infrequent, installing cameras just increased rear-end collisions, without reducing the number of other kinds of accidents.

Reply to
amdx

I was one of the last contesters called at the hearing for my ticket, so I got to watch several dozen red light cam videos of people in front of me in court up on the display screen. Doesn't cost anything to challenge a citation you just have to check a box on the ticket, mail it in and show up.

My overwhelming impression was the large majority of the violators there absolutely deserved their fine; plenty of shockingly bad driving on display by motorists who probably shouldn't be. And a good 10% of the people there were habitual offenders - 4, 5, 6 violations over the span of a month or two.

The judge was pretty accommodating in edge cases that looked to be just the result of confusion or technical BS like hanging over the line a little too far and either dismissed the fine completely or knocked it down from $90 to $30. There weren't many of us in that bin, it was mostly just people hauling ass through red lights at full speed - serious T-bone collisions waiting to happen that only didn't through luck.

Reply to
bitrex

If you get three rear end collisions a month doing $X in property damage to avoid a single T-bone collision doing $Y in property damage where Y >> X and possibly a serious injury or fatality in the latter case I consider that a win. For a municipality that actually cares about reducing crashes accidents with personal injury rather than pulling in $$$ it should be easy enough to run the statistics and figure out which intersections need cameras and which don't, not exactly rocket science.

Reply to
bitrex

I clipped the research showing that lights that are run often, it causes less accidents. For infrequently run red lights, they cause more accidents. Seems like a ready made lawsuit if they install a red light camera and it increases accidents. Mikek

Reply to
amdx

The actual research says lengthen the yellow light timing... red light running goes down, rear end collisions go down... and revenue goes down.

We've had so many suits here in Arizona (Redflex is in Scottsdale, making it a state suit rather than having to go Federal) that demonstrated yellow light timing had been shortened after installation of red light cameras. Thus there are only a few cities left that use them. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Jim Thompson

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