He doesn’t exactly have the reputation for pro bono fighting for the little guy work.
Rumor has it Mr. Edwards likes to hang out in local bars trolling for women these days. but I guess this time around he will use trojans or maybe he got himself fixed.
Jesus probably had left the building.
When they put up a new casino near the Iowa/South Dakota border, the state of Iowa installed red-light cameras to catch the out-of-staters (ie South Dakotans). The governor of SD decided SDans should not have to pay such tickets. Here’s how they took care of it.
I believe the owner of the car is responsible to pay the ticket unless another driver can be identified. So if we have a positive ID then John pays, otherwise the owner pays. Either way, the government gets paid.
You know what the easiest way is to avoid paying red-light camera tickets?
Don’t run red lights.
When the people of my city voted out the cameras, the language of the charter amendment forbade the city from doing anything to enforce the ordinance allowing the program. I think the money is still set aside six years later because they’re afraid that spending the money might also be prohibited.
Wasn’t there a case about requesting the source code of such a ticketing camera that the company was not so willing to go along with.
Red light running is not a victimless crime. One such person almost killed my wife. So I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the OP.
This is purely anecdotal, but there is a red light camera near me, and since they put it in about five years ago the incidence of red light running at that intersection is way down. I don’t know about the number of accidents there. San Jose does not have red light cameras, and many intersections have at least one person running the light per cycle.
If the camera is owned and operated by the company, which is likely, 80% of the revenue going to them sounds reasonable, since city expenses are minimal. Another issue is that revenue declines over time since most drivers learn not to run the light.
he’ll be back…
Except that often they’ll shorten the yellow time to get more fines. Cite.
The problem is that this ends up as a conflict of interest-safety vs. revenue collecting, where the desired ends most definitely are guaranteed not to dovetail.
If you want to collect revenue, do it above the board and honestly.
Well for one thing it isn’t a crime it’s a motor vehicle violation. In the case of camera tickets it’s not even that, it’s a civil offense. And if there is no accident there is no victim.
I have stood behind someone and watched them go through video after video approving tickets. I would have no problem if it were only people who blow through red lights. That is dangerous and the should be caught. However, the vast majority of the tickets given were right turn on red tickets where the person clearly ensured that it was safe to proceed although technically their tires never quite stopped turning. Around 90% were right on red tickets. Any discretion the approving officer had was gone because they kept track of your approval rate and you got in trouble if it went below a certain percentage. The camera company would rat on you if you were costing them money.
But at least here you had your day in court. The situation in NC sounds bizarre. Here if you pled not guilty you went to regular traffic court in front of a judge. By law every ticket and video had to be approved by a police officer. The camera company was left out of the loop.
Red light cameras are a money grab. Enforcement should not be used mainly as a revenue stream. It becomes just another tax on the working class.
in a funny twist, last night I went to a meeting. In the same building was the local office of the ACLU 
Are you suggesting that the ACLU might be interested in fighting this on civil liberties grounds? I doubt it, but you might be right.
No, I am sure the ACLU has far more requests than they can handle and this would be very low priority for them.
It sounds to me, then, like it’s a problem with the way the law is written. If the law improperly penalizes someone who engages in a safe behavior (like coming to an almost-complete stop, ensuring there’s no oncoming traffic, then turning right), shouldn’t the law itself be changed?
I do see what folks are saying, about the conflict of interest. Not sure what the right solution to that is.
Are you suggesting that it’s okay to not abide the law should you feel it’s perfectly safe not to?
I thought part of why there was rules of the road was because letting people decide for themselves what’s safe doesn’t really work out so well.
I’m in the camp that feels if red light camera income helps reduce city tax increases I’m all for them. If you don’t want to follow all the rules, all the time, then you should suck it up and pay when you do get caught. Without a fight. Just my opinion.
Some might say they are “stopping to obey a traffic signal”.
Wait, what? You think it’s wrong to change the law? Maybe you need to re-read LHoD’s post.
I think it’s fair to say that traffic laws are by far the most frequently ignored laws.
For speed limits cops in most cases won’t give you a ticket unless you are doing 10+ over the limit. And even then they give out tons of speeding tickets.