I remember I drove around NJ every time we visited my parents. For a few years, we used their GPS device off and on. It was usually siilent unless we were going for somewhere unfamiliar. One night in the middle of nowhere on Hwy1 we’re driving down the road and suddenly it pipes up “Red Light camera ahead!”. It never said anything like that before or since.
Am I misunderstanding your post?
Your “get outta jail free” card is that somebody else who’s not on your insurance was driving your vehicle?
If that’s what you meant, then … I don’t think that’s gonna work.
It would work where I am. You only have to swear to is that it was not yourself. You aren’t compelled to name who it was. (Not that I’m advocating lying.)
I don’t understand how that would work, but maybe it’s done differently there. Here in AZ, they send you high quality pictures of you in the car. Unless you have an identical twin, it’s hard to claim it wasn’t you driving.
Yes, you’re right, it wouldn’t work if you’re shown clearly. When my daughter’s boyfriend earned a red-light ticket while driving her car, it was at night and his face wasn’t very visible.
I don’t know about where you live - but around here, only members of your household need to be listed on the insurance policy. My insurance will cover my neighbor if I lend him my car even though he isn’t named on the policy.
That’s another loophole here. If your face (or part of it) is obscured in the photo, they don’t even bother sending a notice. They’ve caught me a few times when I was riding a little too fast but with a full face helmet. Never ticketed.
Based on my extensive research (10 minutes with Google), both California and Virginia will let you off of a photo ticket if you 1) swear that it isn’t you driving and 2) provide the name of the driver. No name, no getting off (unless you can prove the car was stolen at the time).
The prosecution has to prove the elements of the offense. The elements in a speeding ticket are that you were operating a motor vehicle and that you were over the posted speed limit. In court it’s up to the prosecution to prove that, not the defendant to disprove it. That’s for a regular speeding ticket that are observed by an officer. Camera ticket statutes are usually written differently. As has been mentioned a few times many states make them civil penalties and not criminal fines which changes how it can be enforced.
In some places, as mentioned, it’s like a parking ticket. Doesn’t matter who was driving, it’s the car and hence the owner on the hook. But like a parking ticket, it’s not a demerit on the license.
Also, the time that Ontario had speed cameras, there was also the proviso that to guarantee the photo matched the speed reading, there had to be only the one car in the photo. The taxi drivers learned this, and so they would tailgate in convoys at high speed to and from the airport where the cameras were.
The police did try to convict someone (red sports car doing 120mph or more) by getting the other car in the picture to testify it wasn’t him, that this red blur went zipping by. I believe he was convicted.
@MikeF , I live in Suffolk. Out of curiosity, was your speeding ticket issued on 58 near the bypass?
Germany had speed cameras decades before I heard of them in the states. When it was a US military plated civilian car the notice was sent to the unit. Someone in my unit had his violation posted on the bulletin board. It was clearly him in the driver’s seat. It was also clearly not his wife in the passenger seat.
Where she lives they have red light cameras. I’m amazed at how many times I’m either pulling up to a light or stopped at one when I see the flash go off. There’s either no one in the intersection or 10 cars, because they’re all driving thru a mid-cycle steady green to the point where the vast majority of the time I see a flash I think ‘defective or scam’ rather than ‘caught’. I swear if I ever get nailed for one I’m going to take a GoPro & aim it towards the intersection for 20-30 mins & then edit it down to just the flashes going off & show that to the judge as evidence that the camera isn’t working properly.
I’m guessing proof would just be a copy of the police report showing that you had reported, prior to the infraction, that the car had been stolen.
I think the general requirement is that you can’t say something like “Oh, it was stolen at the time, but we got it back, so no need to worry, but please void the ticket.” 
It’s the people who are hardest to see that they need to protect the most.
Because it’s cheaper to have the people in Baltimore process the fines than people locally.
Probably true but I guarantee you that you can find out if you care enough. If you find out, is it likely to change anything for you?
They don’t find out who the operator is for parking tickets either. Whether they discourage you from speeding or discourage you from lending your car to people who speed in it, they have accomplished the same objective.
This is an interesting concept that I haven’t heard of in America. Makes a lot of sense for things like a company car that might be owned by one person but used by another.
Is this true about Virginia law? The photo isn’t the only way they could show workers were present. Something like a logbook or schedule showing that workers were working at the site would probably be enough. If you believe they don’t have sufficient evidence to sustain the ticket, you can appeal.
With the internet, we are all part of the media. I’m creating media content at this moment. If you don’t think that would work, find someone in Virginia to do it.
One minute of Googling reveals that the vendor is Altumint.
https://www.suffolkva.us/1711/Traffic-Enforcement-Cameras
You live in New Jersey right? E-Z Pass fines are processed in New Jersey…even if your violation is in Maryland or Delaware. This is not that unusual.
Hmm. You are uneasy about government using traffic laws to raise revenue notwithstanding that was literally your job. Color me surprised you don’t like it when the government effectively removes you from the process of extracting money from drivers.
I know from when we had red light cameras just because the lights flash doesn’t mean there was a violation reported. Your proposed defense won’t work. When you get your violation there is a link to a video of just how guilty you were. It’s very hard to dispute it. Unless it read your plate incorrectly your only defense is if find out how long the yellow is supposed to be for that light and see if its changing too quickly.
When we had them I didn’t have a problem with the red light violation. Almost always the violation was obvious and egregious. Just someone trying to beat the light and blowing through it.
The issue I had was with the right turn on red. There were violations that I wouldn’t write if I was directly behind them and witnessed it myself. If you come up to a red light and ease forward to make sure no one was coming and then proceed to make your turn I have no problem with that. Way too many were being generated for people who were doing everything they needed to in order to make a safe turn. I’m glad it’s gone.
They take a picture of the intersection when the light changes to see if anyone had passed the limit line but not yet cleared the intersection.
Company cars, leased cars, and trucks.
There is a time allowance for an RK to identify the driver. The cops or Local Authority send a letter to the RK, demanding that they identify the driver. The RK has 30 days to complete the form saying that Tired and Cranky was the culprit. They then have six months to send Tired and Cranky a NIP (Notice of Intended Prosecution) T&C then has 30 days to respond,
For minor offences, the NIP may offer a choice between paying a fixed penalty, attending a speed awareness course or pleading their case to a magistrate. More serious cases may offer a fixed penalty or a visit to the magistrates’ court.
The big advantage of accepting a speed awareness course (which takes half a day) is that, although you still have to pay a “fee” about the same as the fine would be, you avoid having points on your licence.
Cameras I’ve heard of use a pair of loops embedded in the lane just before the intersection. If a magnetic mass triggers the loops in sequence exceeding the speed limit, or rapidly enough that they cannot stop in time for light turning red, or when the light is already red - then the flash goes off.
One community I was reading about, processing the film (old tech) and then verifying there’s a ticket is expensive, so they have far more cameras mounted than actually loaded with film - only the more lucrative intersections. They apparently still flash, but no ticket. News article complained about that so many of the tickets were for 62kph (in a 50) suggesting to me that there was a 12kph (8mph) allowance.
I recall an article years ago suggesting the New Zealand government was contemplating lowering the allowance from 10kph to 5kph (3mph) because revenues were down. I recall another article during covid saying they were contemplating a zero allowance approach due to budget problems.
The laws in some places require a human to be in the car monitoring for those mobile cameras in places like construction zones (which is why convoying was easy in Toronto way back when - the cameras were obvious, parked on the shoulder of a busy expressway. The engine was running to power the radar equipment. the need for human has appently been waived for pole-mounted red light cameras.
However, one process for fighting tickets involved demanding to see the calibration logs for mobile car-mounted radar. How do we know the camera is accurate? Also, evidence disclosure means you can ask to see the manual for the camera system. A while ago, if this happened the ticket would be dropped so the person would not be able to gather details of how the camera operated.
IMHO if the government wants to catch you doing something wrong, there should be a human there and they should tell you. Otherwise, why not just have a computer with face recognition monitor a network of security cameras all over, and send you a bill for all littering and Jaywalking on Dec 31 each year? The argument with traffic cameras in Toronto was that they were a substitute for traffic patrol, so instead of random police driving the freeways and looking for all unsafe driving, there were no police out there enforcing more dangerous things like stupid lane changes and tailgating. (fortunately, this was in the days before texting-and-driving)