I would like to go out of my way to avoid these red light cameras. A friend of mine got a ticket and she went through the light when it was still yellow. the timing of some of these cameras are off and I don’t want to get caught and have to contest this in court. I’m not slamming red light cameras in general. I think they help with accidents and red light runners and if I have to use an intersection with one I will, but I would like to know what streets have them installed. I’m in the Los Angeles area.
Yellow means “stop if reasonably possible” not “speed up.” Most probably your friend broke this.
Following the actual yellow rule will get you where you want to go faster, safer, and cheaper everyday to everywhere you go than going around it.
For about a 3 mile stretch of road around my work we have this asshole cop. Last summer we’d actually see him pull over 10-15 people per day just in front of our building (and we have no idea how many other people he was pulling over when he wasn’t in front of the building). He was known for hiding in pretty tough to notice spots, and he would routinely hide and pull people over outside of his jurisdiction. And to top if off, his average time with a person pulled off (and his car nicely blocking off the right lane of traffic on a major road attacting all kinds of attention) was about 30 minutes. Everytime he had someone on the side of the road, I’d hear all the employees bitching and moaning about him and what a jerk he is, and he can’t do this anymore etc etc etc (I should mention that even other cops from other jurisdictions were saying the same things about him, but I digress). Anyways, everytime I hear someone talking about him, I give them this piece of advice…the speed limit on all the roads he hides on is 35mph. If you just don’t speed for these few miles, you don’t even have to be on the lookout for him. I would suggest you translate this advice to your situation.
If you’re still worried about these cameras take the side roads to work and don’t worry about it. Or call the DMV or DOT and complain about it. Call some of your news stations or news papers and mention it, they might even do a story on it.
I don’t know about LA cameras but I would hope they are at least as sophisticated as ours. You can’t win a case by claiming “timing” errors on NSW red light cameras because if the light isn’t red the camera isn’t operating. They only take photos of cars that enter the intersection after the light turns red. If you enter while the light is amber you are out of the intersection and out of shot when the camera comes on.
They had a study recently that shows that red light cameras don’t make intersections safer, in fact they cause an increase in rear-end collisions due to people slamming on their brakes to avoid getting caught in the camera trap. Law of unintended consequences, and all that.
The Commonwealth of Virginia, as a result, turned the damn things off. Good for them!
That’s exactly what I would do, either slam on my brakes before entering the intersection or tailgate the person in front of me to get through the intersection as fast as I could probably resulting in an accident.
I see more harm then good with red light cameras because what if there’s another person driving your car? Do you pay the ticket fro their fault?
What if you’re in a car with someone you don’t want your spouse/S.O. to see if they open the ticket? Aren’t there privacy issues with these cameras? It’s like Big Brother watching you.
How good to these camera sprays work that block your license plate from view of the camera? Or how about those plastic deflector shields you could put over your plate that block a few numbers? How legal are these?
The shields are illegal and the spray doesn’t work, IIRC.
I have no idea of LA does this, but Washington DC tells everyone where its red light and speed camera traps are located. Perhaps LA County has a similar website you could google for.
Red light cams do indeed increase the number of rear end collisions, but drastically
reduce the number of injury accidents. Whether you always get a citation depends on
the way the law is written in the jurisdiction. In Oregon they only send a citation if the
picture matches your drivers license photo on file, but it Washington (state) they
ticket the vehicle and it’s up to the owner to resolve it in court. There is one brand of
CLEAR plate cover that defeats the camera by reflecting the flash, but the brand
name is apparently a close kept secret.
I think the biggest problem w/ these is that they are almost always administered by a
private company, which I believe leaves a lot of room for abuse, not to mention that
it’s more expensive, over the long haul, than if the systems were administered by
public employees.
I’m not sure about legal terminology, but I’ve often heard about the “reasonable expectation of privacy”. Basically, you’re in a car with big, transparent windows that anyone can look into at any time. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy under those circumstances, so if anyone - the state or the paparazzi or anybody else - sees you or takes your picture, then it’s your problem for having put yourself in that compromising position. That’s not meant to sound preachy, but if you go out into public view with that “other someone”, it’s not unreasonable to think that others might see you.
I admit, it’s a bit of a slippery slope, privacy-wise. But as they say, the innocent have nothing to fear in the truth.
I believe the cameras around here include the trafic signal in the photo, so there’s no possibility of saying “It was yellow!”
Besides, it’s not like the cameras are on a separate timer from the signals.
You’d be AMAZED at what I found when I googled “Red Light Camera Locations Los Angeles”. This was the FIRST link. There are also another 1,870,000 hits to choose from! 
Thanks Missy! I googled “Los Angeles area red light cameras” and didn’t find anything except newspaper articles.
I have no site, but I understand that a British company makes a neat sort of device. It is a GPS map thingee. Each morning you plug it into your computer and it downloads the locations of all the cameras in the UK. When you get near one, the thing gives a warning.
After all, the idea is to prevent and reduce traffic accidents, the cameras are not a revenue-collection device, right?
Are the citations from these cameras typically full-fledged moving violations? I seem to remember Chicago downgrading the citation level (to what I don’t remember) as a compromise with RLC opponents.
How legal is it to take steps to hide your identity so the cops can’t ID you as you set out to break the law?
I’m guessing it’s pretty darned illegal.
He’s an asshole for ticketing people who are speeding? 
Yeah, it’s just a sign of The Man keeping us down.
:rolleyes:
It is, and the camera sprays do not work. There was a thread on this a long time ago that covered the science involved, that I cant find right now.
I have heard so many people around here claiming they were awesome that I was planning on relabeling cans of flat-clear and selling them for $10 a pop. Considering they would have to admit to a crime (modifying the plates) to pursue any legal action against me, I probably would have few if any customers filing suit.
My personal feeling is they should remove the cameras…
and replace them with heat seeking missiles. 
People who run red lights can kill other people. A red light does not mean just one more.