There are radar cameras in California? Since when?
But they’ll need calibrated lines on the road (or somewhere) to determine what the speed was. If, as the OP states, this was a van, and not a permanent installation, this is unlikely. I don’t think they can ticket you based on the claim that you were moving faster than another car, absent some other evidence. Which is another reason I think she won’t get the ticket.
And how much do I get, and when, if she doesn’t?
Awww, nothing, of course. I like win-win bets, but you caught on too fast. Oh, well…
Even without calibrated lines, if the radar is tripped by a car traveling x miles per hour, and there are several cars in the field of view, it tends to follow that the one traveling fastest would get the ticket.
Yes, if they take several pictures and can determine that one is moving faster than the others, it might be logical that it is the one generating the fastest speed on the radar.
However, radar is notoriously unreliable in cases where more than one vehicle is in the beam, and as a general rule, I don’t think that tickets are issued where it can’t be unambiguously shown that a specific car was doing a specific speed. It would just invite legal challenges.
However, I have no idea how the “radar vans” that the OP mentions work. Here in the MD/DC/VA area I’ve seen:
[ul][li]Fixed red light cameras (typically triggered by laser)[/li][li]Fixed speed cameras (I don’t know if they’re triggered by radar or laser, but they take at least three pictures of the car traveling over a series of lines on the street) [/li][li]Officer-operated radar or laser speed traps (no van, just a patrol car by the side of the road)[/li][li]Officer-operated VASCAR, a stealthy system that captures speed by timing your passage over a distance measured by the patrol car. VASCAR-equipped patrol cars can capture the speed of cars they are approaching, following, or being followed by, and the patrol car can be moving or stationary. It’s undetectable by radar or laser detectors and quite annoyingly effective. [/ul]At one time or another, I’ve been nabbed by all but the first of these. [/li]
I’m not quite as dumb as I look! 
For decades. Generally, you will see a sign announcing that photo radar is in use in an area.
Van-mounted radars work the same way as fixed ones, generally. For example, National City, CA, had their speed cameras mounted in the back of black & white SUVs (standard police paint scheme), so they could be moved to problem areas. Riverside, CA, did the same thing, although at that time theirs were primarily deployed in school zones when children were present. As stated earlier, only truly unambiguous shots resulted in tickets- if I couldn’t tell which car had tripped the camera, I didn’t issue the ticket.
Oh, and about that- while I, a civilian with awesome DMV access 
, was the one who processed your ticket, the radar was manned by a sworn officer, who had to keep a log of each car “ticketed” and the log had to match the photograph. So if the cop logged a speeding blue Ford Taurus at 14:30, the vehicle in that frame had better be a blue Ford Taurus.
It was in everyone’s best interest (well, our company, the city and the PD’s, anyway) to only ticket in clear, unambiguous situations. A bunch of iffy calls could easily have resulted in the cancellation of the contract and a big headache for judges.
I did some research on this and I will be forced to call bullshit.
California Vehicle Code Section 21455.6 explicitly prohibits photo radar everywhere in California.
I wouldn’t be bragging about ‘awesome DMV access’, looking up a person’s record for anything other than a specific job-related activity is a felony, and the computer system logs every record pull and leaves an audit trail a mile long.
You might want to do some more research before you call “bullshit” on someone. :rolleyes:
The language in §21455.6 (c) was added by the legislature in 2000. This was because several jurisdictions were using photo radar to assess speed limit violation tickets. For example, San Jose had done so in partnership with Redflex since 1996 (story). Indeed, San Jose continued to operate the program until March of this year, despite the language in the Vehicle Code. Other jurisdictions in the state were doing much the same thing, though I’m not sure that all of them hung as tough as San Jose, or even that all have stopped doing it.
So it is quite likely that EJsGirl was doing exactly as she said (probably as an employee for Redflex).
By the way, I figured this out admittedly partially from memory (having lived in California for a long time), but confirmed it all with about 5 min. of web searching. You might have tried the same thing before making the “bullshit” assertion. 
I asked (and I’ll quote myself here for your convenience, and even add some bolding for good measure), “There are radar cameras in California? Since when?”
To which the reply was, “for decades.”
Even by your cite, the contract with San Jose and Redflex started in 1996.
Last time I checked, 4 years (or even 11, if we count San Jose’s illegal enforcement) is not “decades.”
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect one to search for individual jurisdictions that blatantly violate the law.
You know, I didn’t know about the law but I’ve gotten taken shots of speeding a bunch of times in the area (you know, big roadside box, flash goes off a couple of times) and never gotten a ticket. I called their bluff and didn’t even know they were bluffing! 
You don’t get the point. The “law” in question wasn’t the “law” until 2001. Prior to that, there was no law prohibiting it.
Just because San Jose didn’t start until 1996 doesn’t mean that the jurisdictions she cited didn’t have them prior to that point. So, you still are not in possession of information that allows you to call her a liar (which is what your “bullshit” declaration really is).
To be fair, while “bullshit” was too harsh, the part that stood out to me was
Notice that while EJsGirl states that she no longer does this as a job, at least in California, the rest of the thread in general deals with present day and present tense. Now I have not seen a single photo radar thing in California in the past ten years except for a couple in Cupertino area that are either dummies or illegal (as it turns out). This is a valid question to which an incorrect answer was given. I am not saying it was malicious, quite the opposite, it was most likely an honest mistake consisting of being unaware of a law that I wasn’t aware of either. It does not change the fact that “There are radar cameras in California.” is a bullshit statement.
The company I worked for in 1993-94 operated photo radar cameras and red light cameras in San Diego, Los Angeles and Riverside counties. The use of the cameras was established prior to my employment over 14 years ago.
There are a number of cities currently employing photo radar, including Cupertino, National City, and San Jose. Still more use red light cameras, including Culver City, El Cajon, Oxnard, Poway, Costa Mesa and San Diego.
And I actually worked for USPT!
Whoops- all of the above cities may be suspect- San Jose stopped their program in March of this year. My cites may be out of date for the photo radar portion.
I will try and update them, but I’m going on vacation tomorrow…
Um, I suppose this has become a bit of a hijack, but the person who made the “bullshit” statement cites two factors: lack of present authorization to legally have such cameras, and the use of the word “decades.” Now, we’ve established that “decades” is actually applicable, and that was discoverable without too much effort, nor was there ever evidence upon which to state that EJsGirl was a liar in that part. As for the current situation, given that the city of San Jose was using them up until just four months ago, which I am willing to believe IAmNotSpartacus did not know, and given that there is no evidence that use of them has been stopped by all jurisdictions (if San Jose used them until recently, who’s to say that, e.g., Cupertino isn’t still using them illegally?
A somewhat more appropriate response would have been: are you certain they are still in use, given the following code section [citation]? Don’t you agree?
Does the accused ever get to SEE the photo? Or, simply a letter in the mail with a written accusation and no photo? if no photo, can the photo be requested by the accused (without getting a lawyer to subpoena the evidence)?
I believe that standard practice is to include copies of the photos taken. This helps avoid people wanting to assert it “wasn’t them.”
The citation I got in Washington, DC, for speeding (not running a red light, which I never do!) included three timestamped color photos (laser printed) of my car, with the rear license plate visible, traveling over a series of lines painted on the ground. The ticket gave the distance between the lines. I did the calculations and (assuming the clock and lines weren’t rigged) I really was doing the speed they claimed.
In my defense, the speed trap was on a non-residential section of New York Avenue in North East DC, and the speed limit (35 mph, IIRC) was ludicrously low for that area. It’s safe to say that the only people who do the limit there are the ones who know about the camera. The city must be raking in millions from that thing.
Or perhaps the City hopes to make the point that the speed limit isn’t as “ludicrously low” as you think it is?
Me and everyone else entering or leaving the city on this six-lane major artery. This is almost precisely where I got the ticket. No one does 35 mph there, in either direction.