I got a camera ticket in Arizona. By law they had to actually serve you within 30 days. What usually happened was you would get a nasty threatening letter telling you to sign and give up your right to that 30 day notice RFN otherwise the state WILL send a scary sheriff’s deputy TO YOUR HOME and you WILL be served IN PERSON.
I got the letter, refused to sign, never got served and later confirmed the ticket was wiped out of the system. BTW, I never heard of anyone that refused to give up their right that eventually got served.
My roommate got one a few months later and I told him what to do, but he was scared of what would happen (read what I wrote as to what exactly would happen) and he just wrote the check.
Hypothetically it would be trivial to determine if someone is speeding using automated toll transponders like EZ-Pass. EZ-Pass is so ubiquitous in the Northeast that it is used on non-toll roads to monitor travel times to post on informational signs. However, if they started using the toll transponders to issue citations, people would stop using them and the authorities would have to increase manned toll booths. Nobody wants that.
Maybe when “toll by plate” is rolled out then issuing citations would be more feasible - there would be no “opt-out” as there is with the toll transponders.
I don’t think you can fight the math involved. It will prove that you were speeding. you might be able to demand proof it was your license plate on the car which is something easily duplicated and stuck on a car to fool a camera. But if you’re ticketed at destination then an officer can verify who the driver is with camera support of the time involved.
Here fines have gone away for these sorts of things. Now they are called expiation fees. Basically, pay this and it will go away. If you don’t pay by the due date, the fee escalates markedly, and the clock starts ticking for a summons and a court appearance. If you do end up in court, the courts can and usually will impose a fine. If you want to fight it in court, you simply don’t pay the expiation fee.
I was thinking of Chris Huhne, who was our local MP when I lived in the UK, and a high flyer in the Liberal Democrat party. He had collected a speeding ticket in 2003 and persuaded his wife to say she was driving (when she wasn’t even in the car at the time), to avoid a ban. Some time later, he had an affair with one of his aides, and left his wife. She promptly went to the papers with the story and evidence of her whereabouts at the time, they were both charged with perverting the course of justice, and served short jail sentences.
Needless to say, his political career was destroyed.
I seem to remember my brother getting such a ticket on the Florida Turnpike in the 1980’s.
I’m not buying that people would just stop and stay at rest stops to lower the average speed. What would be the point of speeding if it still took the same amount of time to get to your destination that it would have taken you if you just drove the speed limit?
I’m pretty sure at least some people speed just because they like to drive fast – be the one passing people instead of the one being passed. The actual time taken to get places is immaterial.
Say that, when driving fast, I’ve sometimes arrived not only ‘on time’, but ‘with time to spare’ — and that, when driving slow, I’ve sometimes been late. Would you then buy that I’d (a) drive fast enough to be ahead of schedule, and then (b) kill some time at a rest stop?
We used to drive from Québec to Florida in the 1990s. On one of the thruways or turnpikes or parkways along the way, the attendant handed you a cardboard ticket when entering, which you’d give back at the exit toll booth. On the back there was a table showing the toll you’d have to pay at various exit points, based on how little time it would take you. It wasn’t a ticket, just a higher toll (maybe 20% higher).
Maybe they aren’t stopping at rest stops to lower the average speed. Maybe they are going to stop at rest stops no matter what and they are speeding to raise the average speed.
I lived in New York and used to drive quite frequently on the New York State thruway going back to the 1960s, and I do not remember this ever being the case. You got a time stamped ticket all right, but the only reason was to measure your entrance and exit point. Having an average speed faster than the posted limit never caused a ticket, or any kind of surcharge in my experience, and I drove it during the 55 mph speed limit days. Possibly it may have happened in the 1950s or before, but I’d have to see evidence of that, because no one living there ever told me about it happening.
Agreed. Speeding is like anything else. It can be proven based on circumstantial evidence like the timing between toll plazas.
Yeah. In states that do this, they get around the Fifth Amendment and proof beyond reasonable doubt by designating this as a civil infraction in which your vehicle was causing a nuisance on the public roadways, much like if your dog escaped and attacked someone or if your sewer line busted and flooded your neighbor’s house.
Even though you personally didn’t do anything criminal, a chattel of yours (your car) was causing societal problems so you, the owner, will pay a civil penalty. I don’t like it, but it seems to have been upheld anywhere it has been challenged.
Yes that’s how it was in my state. We had red light cameras. The way they got around proving who was the driver was to make it a civil penalty. A monetary fine to the registered owner with no points. Thankfully we got rid of those.
True. But there isn’t just the element of needing to prove the crime occurred (which can be proven by the toll plaza tickets). There’s also the necessary element of proving that the defendant is the individual who committed the crime.
The civil infraction route that others have mentioned seems to be a means to bypass this requirement.