I am not sure if anyone has brought this up before but they have been implementing speeding/red light cameras down here for some time now and unfortunately I have been nabbed several times

Every time I get one I am always tempted to go fight it but seeing as it doesnt hit your record or you insurance it is usually just easier to log on to the website and pay the darn thing.

I have always heard of people getting out of them by sending letters saying that there is no violation of contract between you and the ticketing company (in my case photonotice.com) and siting that the company itself is not a legal entity and the ticket was never issued correctly by a ticketing officer. I also always want to question the most recent calibration records for said camera.

Anyways, has anyone ever had luck with this? I am not against paying the price of breaking the law and I dont normally speed excessively but I hate speed traps in little towns designed just to do that, trap you. Also, if I am going to pay something I would like to speak with an officer and at least ask to see his radar gun and check his calibration sticker.

Common in OK rural small towns too, & locals will tell you where to look out.

Oddly enough, Wash DC is one of the worst using those BS traffic cams, as I found out on a biz trip in Oct. on what looked like a freeway/parkway, which reduced from 65 mph to 50 at the district border & the sign was obscured by trees/brush!

Unfortunately, being in a rental car I didn't get notice until 2 months later & had no way to object to the ticket & obscured sign, but I was nailed at 65 - which I thought was still the correct speed limit.

Frankly, those cameras are just a govt. sponsored revenue enhancement scam, as I found out in researching that one in DC online, and from our local SoCal cities' experiences.

Several legal challenges & the cities not making the promised revenue from these private traffic cam companies has caused several SoCal cities to drop theirs & remove them.

A friend of mine sent me a letter to send but I guess Im just nervous about getting pulled over in this town again and ending up paying even more. I have also heard that if you contest the tickets they usually tack on the late payment because it takes them past the due date to reject your request.

Had a friend who received a red light ticket for $285. They mailed a picture of his car in the intersection.

He took a picture of the cash and mailed that in...

Idiot ended up paying almost $500 when it was time to renew registration...

The Lawyer that got me out of my last Speeding Ticket (Regular Laser Gun, not a Camera) said that he doesn't take cases against the Red Light Cameras (we don't have Speeding Cameras yet) because he can't win them.

Maybe someone should start making the James Bond revolving License Plates

what if someone else is driving the car? is owner responsible? how do they prove who was driving?

...it was my twin brother officer.

Owner is responsible

as i recall, a bunch of san jose camera issued speeding tickets had to be thrown out because something in the city charter states they have to be issued by an officer.

might be worth looking into your local city charter.

there's also some sort of coating for license plates that supposedly renders your plate too reflective to be visible to most cameras, yet isn't noticible to the naked eye.

That is not true in Colorado. My daughter got a camera ticket and since the car was registered in my name, they sent the violation notice to me in NY. Since I was not driving the car, I had to send a copy of my license and after they compared the photo to the camera image of the driver, I was released from the ticket. Though they asked if I knew who was driving, I was not required to answer that question ... so I didn't!

Mine actually has a section that you can fill out saying you were not the driver and it has a spot to put their name/address into.

Mythbusters did a show on beating the speed camera.
Nothing worked. Expensive reflective coatings, hair spray, ......
The only thing that could beat the camera was a jetcar doing 200+ mph.

Charlotte NC had to ditch the red lights cams because the company operating them was being
paid a % of fines collected. Conflict of interest !

The Escort 9500ix can download the locations of the cams and alert you.

We had photo radar, government party that brought it in got tossed under the bus in the next election.
We don't have photo radar anymore.

My GPS shows and buzzes location of red light camera's. Its a $120 Garmin from Costco.

....Exactly, if the city cheats?....cheat back(your only recourse!)

The Operating Companies here collect a Big % (as a Cost of doing Business) & the Cities are raking in the $$ that they don't have the manpower to do

It's not cheating, just being properly informed so I can obey the law.

The State of Florida is about to issue new plates that are easier for the camera to see.

I kinda like the "has to be issued by an officer" angle. No doubt some pimple faced kid is going through these and mailing out tickets.

In LA there are selling electronic transponders for use in the carpool lanes.

One day soon, cars will be giving their own owners speeding tickets.

I totally agree and as much as I want to fight it I just know it will come back to bite me in the

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Yopu...

First of all, usually the first thing you get is something called a psuedo-summons. It looks official but in reality it is a letter from the camera company and they are looking for you to fill it out and send it back. It is an admission of guilt. Don't do it. You are not required to respond to a letter from a private company.

There are three ways to get out of it. One, if you are the registered owner but you were not driving, go to court. Show them that the person in the picture is not you. Hopefully it isn't your twin because in that case you're screwed. Second, if the picture doesn't clearly show your face, for instance from the nose down is obscured by your visor or rear view mirror, just ignore it because without you admitting guilt by sending the psuedo-summons back, they will just toss it because they cannot clearly identify the driver. The third way, and this is how Ms. Yopu got out of this particular one, is that I was the registered owner of the car. While the picture clearly shows her, the registered owner is most probably a male as his name is Robert... If you don't respond to the psuedo-summons they will see the gender/unclear picture problem and throw it out. If you weren't driving and hopefully it doesn't look like you, go to court. You aren't required to identify the driver.

Ha Great thread - I have a fantastic red light camera picture of my wife running th light, cell phone attached to her ear, sun glasses on and her mouth wide open, gabbing away.

I wanted it to be our Christmas card a couple years back ...

Its funny that in mine they actually blur out the driver. I guess maybe they were getting too many complaints. "But honey, her and I are just friends! We were going to lunch"

Nope. Not complaints. You need a code which is on the psuedo-summons to access the picture. When they blur it, they are increasing their chance that you will just fill it out and send it to them. They only get paid if a ticket is issued and paid. If you don't know if you're recognizable you are more likely to cave. Remember, you are not required to respond to this private company. You only need to respond if you get an actual ticket from an actual municipality. If they think you're recognizable and your name lines up gender wise with the registered owner, they'll send it on to the municipality on their own.

My favorite is the photo showing a man driving over the speed limit on a highway in Sichuan Province on July 29. He appeared in his 40s and was holding the wheel with one hand and his other hand was touching the breast of a young woman sitting next to him. I wonder how his wife will react when she sees this photo. I think his speeding ticket will be least of his problems!

http://belogkiter.blogspot.com/2011/08/man...e-touching.html

I'll bet she loved that idea!

$490. red light ticket in Culver City (plus $10. service fee ! ... or adjustment to a nice round number fee.) I own the car but was not the driver.
Wish I knew then that you are not required by law to reveal the identity of the driver.
The driver (who will remain unidentified) paid.
Still, a massive rip off.

This is big news in Cincinnati right now because a couple of the podunk municipalities have installed these, and they are citing people for 1 over in a 25, etc. There are others who were cited that can prove using GPS logging on their work vehicle that they were not going the specified speed. Most of them are getting thrown out now, and there is a bill in the state legislature to outlaw them. Hope if passes.

Recently had a car stopped at a light in Baltimore get nabbed for speeding! They got out of it easily. The camera contractor wrote it off as a glitch, not a problem with the unit.

What bothers me is contracting out police enforcement to profit-oriented companies. Since the companies get a cut, it is in their best interest to do as much as they can to generate profit.

And to think, in the last year or so I have heard of two federal proposals to mandidate GPS tracking devices in new cars - data would be saved for 30 days.

Another one I dislike are license plate scanners on police cruisers. Even out here in the sticks our police department is buying them. They store the date for several years - Big Brother is watching!

That's funny. Not smart, but funny.

I've been told those cameras have a particular aversion to .30-06 rounds from 50 yards...

My lawyer neighbor won this stop light case which ended up refunding a bunch more because of a technical timing problem. Probably won't help you, but still interesting. He knew he didn't run the light because he always times the lights on his route through downtown. The camera timing failure was tripping if you entered the intersection just as it turned green.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.s...oves_red-l.html

Many have contested these with the claim that they never received the ticket. These are not sent out by certified letter (due to cost) so there is no way to track that it was actually sent. "What ticket? Show me when it was sent and confirmation of delivery."

Call me a mean heartless bastard but I think every one of you guys or the drivers of your cars deserves to pay every ticket you guys get.
I mean come on, You guys want to violate traffic laws (red light running being the worst)
then when you get busted on camera you want to try to use some technicality to wiggle your way out of it.
Seems pretty shameless to me.

Why not just drive without violating the traffic laws?
Millions do it every day.....

--- bill

GPS tracking devices? Sure, why not. Between the "war on drugs" and now the "war on terror", you can pretty much throw the Constitution out the window. And before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, this is a post about the law. Not politics.

Bill, I like your style.

I firmly believe that I deserve every ticket I receive, weather it was for the act that got me the ticket, or something I got away with another time, but ask any traffic cop, they can find some sort of infraction almost any time fairly easily... Millions not violating traffic laws? More like millions not getting caught at that instant.

I detest the speed cameras, but the red light cameras are a useful generator of revenue and a deterrent to unlawful driving...if they are set up fairly (i.e., not snapping a pic halfway through the yellow).

Or we could just shoot the fuckers out with our .30-06!

We can debate this all day long, but we must admit that part of the problem is a due to complete and total inconsistency to law enforcement. There are some states, counties, towns where you can drive 20 over, and you will never be cited, but there are others where you will get nabbed every time. Unfortunately, in these times, it is all dependent on the economy, and the state of the finances of the government of the area that you happen to be driving through.

We had a judge get out of his ticket i Washington because there was a ruling some were the interior of your vehicle is not public domain so taking a picture was an act of voyeurism and illegal. The sate cant use a pic if it was obtained illegally and had no other evidence.
If a judge can get away with it ??

FYI if the tickets are issued on a regestered company rig most companys dont even get sent a notice.(i have heard)

I would think out teeners would have the plates mounted to low to get a pic?

jcl

I'm pretty much with you on this regarding stop light cams, but speed limits in this country are ridiculous. Drivers are on their phones, because the fun of driving has been completely smothered and penalized. My commute to work is less than 3 miles and I make a game out of counting the number of violations every day I see on my way to work. It's pretty rare if I see zero. There is one 35mph hwy that the cops use like a cash machine. I avoid that route since I have seen up to 7 bike cops running that trap and they always set up their cam van which goes off like a strobe machine. Pretty soon we are all going to be monitored by some GPS system and you can say goodbye to any fun driving on the road. Log in your destination and your car drives you there at some granny speed limit while you play GTA on your ipad.

Because the cameras are a nuisance to public safety! This is a fact with many studies to back up that fact. the teener brake lights are even lower than most ,so stopping sudden puts us at an even greater risk of rearender.

one company gets 50 percent of the income from the tickets.(AZ privet company) And again up here they got in trouble for buying our local council members. Think of the cash you could make just by sending out PAY ME letters.

Right or wrong you are innocent until proven otherwise

Several years ago, I received a photo ticket in the mail for not stopping at a red light while making a right hand turn at a freeway offramp. Oncoming traffic headed eastbound in the direction I was heading (after my turn) was stopped with a red light, as opposing westbound traffic had a left turn arrow to enter the freeway onramp, so I was NOT pulling out in front of any oncoming traffic.

The ticket stated "Failure to stop for a red light", which sounds serious on the surface, but in this case, it was not the same as running a red light through an intersection with active opposing traffic. I think the ticket stated I was traveling at 7 mph.

The 'ticket' was sent from a traffic camera company in Arizona, asking me to verify the vehicle driver's identity. It also asked for driver information if the picture was not me.

In doing some research, I found that if you receive a photo 'ticket', it must include a date and time to appear and include the address of the courthouse in that jurisdiction for it to be a valid citation.

This ticket (actually only a notice) did not include the required appearance information, hence, I did not sent the notice back to the traffic camera company. I have registered the offending vehicle for four years since the incident without any repercussions from the DMV.

I've received several 'real' bullshit tickets issued by local P.D.s over the 50+ years (including a recent 'burned-out brake light' ticket that ended up costing me nearly $40.), so not paying this one photo ticket didn't bother my conscience at all

Topic said "speeding cameras." I get the debate. But when it comes to red light cameras I have to side with "you suck and you were caught red handed." Anyone who runs a red light needs more than a fine. Who does that? Most likely a dangerous drunk who needs to be kept off the road before he kills someone. I mean, really, who thinks they should be excused from running a red light???

I agree to a point. Running a red light and not coming to a full stop at a signal or sign and continuing to make a right hand turn if it's safe to do so are quite different ... and I'll bet almost everybody out here has done that more times than they'd actually admit here.

As for the serious gross violators, a couple of days ago, my wife was walking one of our dogs across a signal controlled intersection and had just passed from #2 lane into #1 lane when a car sped through the red light in lane #1 right behind her

She said it happened so fast, she wasn't able get the plate # or even the make of vehicle ... all she said was it was white Asian sedan

In our area the police speed religiously whether on duty or not. I have several sheriff deputies and state troopers who live in our neighborhood. It's 2 miles down a 30 MPH road to the main road. They typically drive 40-45 to get to the main road, but the same officers will cite us for doing 35. In general you can always find officers in this area doing 10-20 over. It's common for them to turn their lights on and go through red lights so the don't have to stop - many times they do this to head into fast food joints! If they can break the law so can I!

One my sons was hit in a crosswalk in our neighborhood a few years back - bad accident. At traffice court they reduced the charges of the driver who hit him though she had multiple violations and was on probation - 0 points and $75 from a potential 6 points $1,0000 and loss of license. Other drivers involved in accidents received similar light fines. From the 15 or so cases we saw before his case, speeders were not so fortunate. So in an area where speeding is a way of life for the police, they penalize us heavily if we do it, but if you cause an accident, that's no big deal.

I have a serious problem with municipalities using the police force as fundraisers, speeding cameras are pretty much the same concept. I've paid more to the local governments than most people around here, but they still try to get as much as they can when they see me. I recently got pulled over for speeding and after a chat with the officer he added an inoperable speedo citation, that incident now totals $385.

Then I saw the same cops at the same spot yesterday, I threw up my finger and moved on only to nearly be sideswiped by another officer. If they are going to enforce these insipid traffic laws they should learn how to F'n drive!

Cause I don't drive like your Mom!

Thats parts of the reason I drive a 914, to go fast!