one other funny thing about this. When I agree to appeal , I have to write the reason for my appeal on the form. And then I cannot bring up any other reason for appeal other than what I tell them in advance. So again, it’s a long way from a real court hearing.
Do you know that for a fact? Just because it’s not “court” doesn’t mean you won’t get some sort of court costs.
there is no mention anywhere about costs for the appeal. So I have to believe they would disclose that.
So, what will be your reason for appeal?
pretty sure there was a case in Greensboro where a judge ruled the cameras are illegal so hopefully I can find that .
I’m curious what your response will be, if the judge, as I did, asks you directly, if you did it?
I’m sure you have a plan for this and I’d love to hear it!
I assume the 5th ammendment applies right? 
It does. Or at least ought to. And in the absence of you saying anything the judge will not conclude anything from your silence. Or at least he/she shouldn’t.
But for sure the rest of the evidence against you will not be rebutted by your silence.
Seriously, if you have a problem with automated traffic enforcement, as many of us do, the solution is 100% in your legislature changing the law and 0% in arguing specific summonses in non-record courts or kangaroo sub-contracted tribunals.
well the politicians are very unlikely to turn off the gravy train of free money for the cities.
I got nailed by a traffic camera for running a red-light in my city. Because of the circumstances: light just turned red as I made a right hand turn, I decided to fight it (I was given the option to either appear or submit a written appeal). So I wrote up this whole “defense” about why, though I did run the red light, that it was “safe” and therefore I shouldn’t be fined.
I ran the draft by a lawyer friend, and he recommended that I yank all the verbiage I had about adhering to the “intent of the law” (safety) - he said that judges/lawyers hate to be lectured on the “intent of the law”. So I did.
I wasn’t expecting much, but when I received the reply, they indicated that though they did not acquit, they did reduce the fine (by about half). So though it is still a ding on my record (I think), the fine wasn’t as bad.
Depending on the circumstances of your running the light, you might try fighting it. (although if you ran it to cross the intersection or make a left turn, I think you’re screwed).
Greensboro shut down their cameras when a judge ruled 90% of money must go to the government. I assume it’s possible for other NC judges to rule the same way. The Raleigh system now has 80% going to to a private business.
Them changing the law is about 1000x more likely than you beating the ticket on some argument that amounts to “Jus’ tain’t right!”
Get to work on a grassroots effort to stop this nonsense. Or hush up and pay your fine. Anything else is tilting at windmills.
You may be as well off just to ignore it as fight it. All the usual I am not your lawyer stuff applies, YMMV, CYA, etc.
I received a red light camera ticket for not stopping as I made a right on red.
In Texas a red light camera ticket is a civil violation, not criminal. You have none of the normal criminal protections such as right to remain silent or to not incriminate yourself. On the other hand, no warrant can be issued for your arrest and the ticket cannot be reported to credit reporting agencies.
The county tax office may refuse to renew your vehicle license and registration. In practice, I only had difficulty renewing by mail through the state. Going in person to the county office, the clerk would ask me if I knew I had a red light ticket. I would say yes, she would say okay, and issue me a new tag. This went on about 3 years before I could renew online again.
In effect, other than threatening letters from collection attorneys, there was no real consequence to ignoring the citation.
The best part is that Arlington, TX, which issued the ticket, just voted to get rid of the damn cameras.
On the nose!
The biggest groups lobbying against and funding lobbying groups against red-light cameras are criminal defense attorneys. In jurisdictions where red light cameras are in force, defense attorneys have seen a dramatic decline in income, because such infractions are harder to fight. They have photographic evidence of you driving through the red light.
I would proffer to Oddball_92 that they are a deterrent in a lot of jurisdictions, because almost everyone has gotten a red light ticket at least once, but very seldom do you get two.
the vast majority of local intersections don’t have these cameras so there should be plenty of cases for lawyers left.
speaking of ambulance chasers, there was a case where a lawyer sent a letter to a person asking that person to sue the driver of the car he was in during an accident. They did not notice that the person was a kid and they wanted him to sue his mother.
The Fifth Amendment says:
I have emphasized a phrase which is applicable to this proceeding. § 160A-300.2, the North Carolina law authorizing red light cameras, clearly identifies the fine and the proceeding as civil, not criminal. Therefore, the Fifth Amendment does not apply. If you believe an honest answer would expose you to criminal liability for some other reason, the Fifth Amendment still protects your right not to answer, but for the purposes of a civil hearing the fact-finder is permitted to hold your failure to answer against you: to assume, in other words, that you refused to answer because you were liable.
Bijou Drains, I’m still not quite clear on what grounds you intend to contest the ticket. Presumably the citation includes a photo in which your car can be clearly identified as outside the intersection while the light is red, and then inside the intersection when the light was red. If not, then you can certainly find some ground to argue that you didn’t run a red light. But if the photo does show that, what do you believe is invalid about the citation, specifically?
That’s not unusual. I have very little civil practice experience, but in my state a civil defendant can demand from the plaintiff a “bill of particulars” that lays out the specific details of why the debt is owed, and the plaintiff in turn gets from the defendant an “answer and grounds of defense,” both documents to be filed in advance of the trial date. As a general rule, the defendant is not permitted to add additional grounds of defense at trial, because this would prejudice the plaintiff, who won’t have time to investigate the claim.
The same kinds of rules exist on the criminal law side. Again in my state, an accused who wishes to offer an alibi defense must advise the Commonwealth at least ten days before trial. A criminal defendant cannot simply spring an alibi at trial and catch the prosecution by surprise.
While I am not advocating not paying your ticket, I just wanted to mention that after a lengthy legal battle, Kansas City finally did away with their red light cameras. People who paid their tickets were eligible for a 20% refund. People who never bothered to pay had their tickets waived.
As I understand, every dollar the government collects from these red-light camera companies is a dollar other folks don’t have to pay in taxes. As long as the ticket is for a reasonable amount for the infraction, it seems to me like a win-win situation. I win by being safer on the roads, and I win by paying less in taxes.
Oh, sorry, did you think I meant you’d win somewhere in equation? Okay, I guess you do, too: you win because you’ll be encouraged to drive more safely.
If you were arguing that the yellow light at that intersection is far too short to allow for a safe stopping distance, I’d be sympathetic. But it sounds like there’s an efficient way to catch people driving unsafely and to penalize them for unsafe driving, and you don’t like that. I’m not so sympathetic :).
Presumably, that the procedures are a violation of his due process, right?
I’m not sure that’s a good argument, but I wouldn’t be as cocksure as most of the posters here in immediately rejecting it. I’m certain lots of people have had that thought, but it wouldn’t shock me to learn that none of them were (1) lawyers capable of making such a challenge intelligently or (2) willing to pay such a lawyer.
As you might imagine, red light camera laws are not exactly at the top of the ACLU agenda. So an improper law like this could easily slip by for a decade or two.
actually some studies have shown there are more wrecks because people slam on brakes to avoid a ticket. Then they get rear ended .
BTW 5th ammendent does apply to civil cases but it’s not exactly the same.
I’m also kind of curious to see what kind of flunkies they send to these appeal hearings. Clearly it’s not going to be anybody with a law degree or anything close to that.