Red Light Camera Ticket

It's all about income, not about safety. Quite a few years ago I "ran" a red light because the truck was fully loaded up with furniture and, while I applied brakes upon yellow, I couldn't stop in time.

Got the photo ticket.

Went to the site (Phoenix, Pecos Road) with a stopwatch and took a day's worth of data.

I was able to demonstrate that the timing on the yellow was purposefully short to guarantee revenue.

Since then a number of major cities have dropped red light cameras due to law suits against them and Redflex Traffic Systems of Scottsdale (the camera maker, installer and skimmer ;-) ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

On 9/20/2017 11:05 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:

Ya, I don't know the timimg of this light, but I was just confused by what Light I was following. The intersection has 5 lanes 3 straight through and two left turn. The three straight through lights have X spacing, the left turn light is spaced 2.875 times X to the left of the nearest straight through light. The medians are offset also making it seem even farther. The mayor says it not about revenue.

I sent him a letter.

Dear Mayor Strange, I watched your video regarding Red light Cameras, I believe you are sincere in your quest for safety and not revenue. I am an out of state driver that got a red light camera ticket. I haven't had a ticket over 20 years and did question whether I really did it. After reviewing the pictures and video, "yes, I did it". When I first looked at the pictures, I thought, "I have this beat" because I only saw the Green lights in my lane. After further review, I saw the RED light way over in the middle of the median. So, I want to tell you, my opinion of the intersection, I think the lights are very poorly positioned. There are three straight through lights, they have a certain spacing, I can't measure the distance. But, I can say the left turn signal is spaced 2.875 times further away than each straight through light. It is way over to the center of the median and even the median at the intersection is not lined up, making it seem even farther over. I did not run the light on purpose, it was confusion over what light I was following, as I pulled into the intersection the light I was watching turned green and I kept going. I suspect Alabama drivers may be used to this lighting arrangement, so this light probably gets a lot more out of state drivers, (Please Verify that) because they are not used to this arrangement for the lights. But as you say, your quest is for safety and I'm sure that is for all drivers not just Alabama drivers. Could you please have someone look at this intersection and see if changes can or need to be made. NB Eastern BLVD @ Vaughn RD.

I clearly could have hit or been hit by someone because of my confusion by this intersection. Yes, I will be aware of this light situation next time I visit Alabama.

My Violation Notice #xxxxxxxxxx Pin# yyyyy to get better pictures.

If you need me to attach the pictures email me back, but I wondered if you would open an attachment from just anyone, I don't!

I would appreciate any feedback you have,

Count yourself lucky. Here in the Netherlands that would be 230 euro plus 9 euro admin fee when you are the owner of the car, additional fees from others not counted. That would be 287 US dollars.

Last week I speeded 4 km/h on a 80 km/h freeway, cost me 33 euro, or about 40 US dollars including admin fee.

The traffic fines are part of the state budget here, when the income decreases they just increase the tariff.

I got a red light cam violation notice from Providence last fall (I'm from Boston) and drove back down to challenge it - 90 bucks. Same as you I just had a moment of confusion in an unfamiliar, complex city intersection at night.

It was a Monday morning and the courtroom was standing-room only. About

80 other traffic related issues and a couple drunk/disorderly cases with lawyers who had clearly been sitting in jail for the weekend.

Judge spent on average about 30 seconds with each case with the video of the incident on a screen. 90% of them were flagrant with people just blasting through the red at full speed or making rights without stopping. Challenger would look sheepish or try to go into a poor-me story, judge would just smile and shrug and say "Sorry for that, thanks for coming please pay online or in person within 30 days." Some folks got a bit longer because they had multiple unpaid fines and needed "special attention."

"You looked confused but slowed down like you wanted to follow the signals correctly. OK 30 bucks thank you." About 15 seconds in front of the bench. There wasn't much mercy to be had in general; I think out of the ~80 challengers in court that morning two got off totally on technicalities and three including myself got reduced fines.

The defendant was sitting in jail, rather, not the lawyers. Unfortunately

IDK, most of the videos I saw up on the screen of people running lights when I went to challenge my ticket were of the type of driving that makes you think the defendant probably shouldn't be allowed to operate a motor vehicle ever again - where you think the operator must be legally blind, drunk to oblivion, or both. I was kind of glad the city of Providence was taking their money, particularly the dozen or so drivers who'd received five or six red light violations in one month.

There's a man at the door with a mustache. Tell him I already have a mustache. :-)

I just got a speeding ticket, driving 63km in a 50km zone. It ran up in 240 USD. I was lucky, just 3 more km would have to pay 400 USD

I have a monitor coupled up to my smartphone that signals when I drive close to a cop with a speeding camera, but that morning I forgot the phone, so no warning

Cheers

Klaus

How does it know where a cop with a speeding camera is? The Waze navigation app has a feature like that but it relies on crowdsourced info from other drivers who spotted him. It also reports the position of all known traffic cams in an area which given that they're static and inanimate is easier

The way traffic ticket fines are set up in the US is they punish the low-income too harshly and the high-income too leniently. As many laws do

The speed limit on the Phoenix freeways is 65MPH. Everyone drives

80MPH... no tickets. "Weave" or "thread" or HOV lane with only driver... no passengers, boom, big fines. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

The app links to this homepage:

It's crowd sourced like the one you mention. In Denmark they have 300.000 users, so that is pretty much 15% of the total number of cars i Denmark, so it's quite reliable. (I have never seen an un-reported speed trap

Cheers

Klaus

In Denmark they are aggressive. It's just another tax

Cheers

Klaus

Why should punishment for a crime be different according to your income? ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

the punishment should be equal

is $100 fine for a person worth $10,000 the same punishment as $100 fine for a person worth $1,000,000

no.

Clearly a $250 dollar punishment is different between someone earning $20k and some one earning $200k. It's food or rent at $20k, and If I were earning $200k it would only be 0.3% of what I would save each year. Or, only 18.5% of what I would save out of each weekly check. It wouldn't be noticed. Mikek

For many offenses it's the same here... just a source of revenue.

I think our freeway policy is they want to keep the traffic moving... if they slowed it down, it's be a nightmare. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

Clearly, Bitrex and Rickman should have a "mouthing" surcharge... maybe double or triple the normal fine >:-} ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

If you must post stuff completely irrelevant to this electronics design group, at least mark it OT.

But how about posting it to something like Facebook, where your friends might see it and commiserate.

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Regards, 

Adrian Jansen