Red Light Camera

[tommyg]

I have a red light camera ticket if I don't pay it will it cause me to loose my chl ???

[daniel2002p]

Nope it will not. I think what they do is prevent you from renewing your registration if this is not paid... someone correct me if I am wrong here.

--Daniel

[jmra]

Idk, but why don't you just pay it?

[RoyGBiv]

Idk, but why don't you just pay it?

The Sixth Amendment.?
http://www.mddriversalliance.org/2011/0 ... ht-to.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Abraham]

What's the address of the red light camera?

[K.Mooneyham]

Red light cameras are a scam, IMPO. The City of Dallas issued a red-light ticket to me. I was making a right-hand turn. The yellow was EXTREMELY short (it turned yellow as I entered the turn). I was NOT speeding, and had slowed even further so as to safely make my turn. The red light camera caught the very back of my truck as I completed the turn. I'm sorry, but human reaction time (minus race car drivers, perhaps) cannot compete with these computer-controlled lights. I attempted to dispute this ticket and they played a phone tag game with me and emails went unanswered. I guarantee that if an LEO had witnessed the exact same turn, they would NOT have thought anything unusual about it, nor ticketed me for it. Here is an older article (there are many out there) that talks about the shortening of yellows to increase city revenue.

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/20/2068.asp

[The Annoyed Man]

Idk, but why don't you just pay it?

The Sixth Amendment.?
http://www.mddriversalliance.org/2011/0 ... ht-to.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm with you on the 6th Amendment, but I confess to mixed feelings. I am personally aware of one intersection in Pasadena, California in which red-light cameras had a direct and almost immediate effect of reducing traffic fatalities. On the far side of this intersection as one approaches it going northbound on a heavily traveled 1-way street, that street becomes a freeway onramp onto a busy northbound freeway on the other side of the signal. What happens is that as northbound traffic approaches the signal, drivers tend to accelerate toward it, trying to make it onto the onramp before the signal changes, and to accelerate to merging speed by the time they are on the onramp. The cross street is a major 2-way thoroughfare which people use for getting across town during rush hour. To make matters worse, the intersection is an almost blind approach from a couple of directions.

Accidents caused by people running red lights happened with greater frequency in this intersection than in others in town, and a several of these accidents had resulted in fatalities over a period of perhaps 10 years. When the city first posted red-light cameras, they started at this intersection. Yes, it is a revenue generator for the city, but when word got out that there was a red-light camera there and that they would stick you with a sizable fine for running a red light, the accident rate diminished almost to zero, and the fatalities did diminish to zero. Without the threat of municiple revenue generation, the red-light camera would have had no teeth, and nothing would have happened to diminish accidents and deaths.

For me, this becomes one of those issues where public safety gets balanced against constitutional interests. I honestly don't know how to resolve these things. But we accept these issues in terms of guns, for instance. We acquiesce to laws which forbid us to shoot our guns within city limits unless it is in self-defense or defense of property. Why? Because even the most militantly pro-gun 2nd Amendment activist recognizes that there is a legitimate public safety issue here, and that placing a restriction on when (not if) we can discharge our firearms within city limits is a reasonable response to a reasonable concern for public safety. We even have the often inappropriately applied free speech meme of shouting fire in a theater. It's illegal most of the time.....unless there actually is a fire.....but in principle it is a reasonable recognition that the exercise of a constitutionally guaranteed right in an irresponsible manner which will place others at risk may be forbidden by law.

So in the case of the red-light cameras at the intersection in Pasadena that I mentioned, the right to confront one's accuser is being balanced against the legitimate public safety concern. I'm not going to claim that I know this is right. I only know that—in THIS case—the suspension of full access to the protections of the 6th Amendment did result in a quantifiable reduction in accidents and fatalities.

Similarly, I have seen people on this board complain that the fines they pay for speeding is nothing more than revenue generation. Go work in an ER, on the PM shift for a few months, and then come back and tell me if you still feel the same way. Fines don't prevent all speeding, but surely they reduce it; and in reducing speeding, it reduces damage to private property, traumatic injuries, and fatalities. In any case, if one doesn't want to get fined for speeding, one shouldn't speed. It's just not that hard not to do. Just ease up on the gas a little bit. Don't want to get caught by red-light cameras and get fined for running lights? Don't run red lights.

Sometimes, it is unfair. Yellow lights are supposed to be a caution to drivers to slow down and prepare to stop, not to speed up and try to beat the red light. Literally NOBODY who has a drivers license has been uninformed about the purpose of a yellow light. It's in the educational handbooks. It's taught in drivers ed classes. It's in the law. The law is not to blame when an individual's feckless lack of attention leaves him "uninformed" in the face of all the attempts to inform him. When someone is legitimately caught out by a short yellow, that IS unfair. However, the length of a yellow signal can be adjusted if enough motorists complain that the yellow is too short to serve its intended purpose. But when someone gets caught running a light because they used the yellow as an excuse to speed up and try to beat the red, I don't have much sympathy.

To the OP, man up and pay your fine. If you don't want to pay it, then man up and ask for your day in court, which is your right as a citizen. That is your car the camera took a picture of, isn't it? If it's not you driving it, you're still ultimately responsible for how it is used....unless it was stolen. Assuming it wasn't stolen, then your car, with presumably you driving it did run a red light. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, that comes with consequences. It may not be a disqualifier to get your CHL, but if you don't pay it, sooner or later it will catch up with you, and it will be a lot worse then than it would be to just pay the fine now.

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant, but you guys know me.......

[sookandy]

So my wife's name is on my truck and my name is on her car. Guess who got a ticket for a right turn on red. I wasn't the one driving. I'm all for safety but come on. All they do is stop at the red light camera intersections then just run through the next one.

[n5wd]

Idk, but why don't you just pay it?

The Sixth Amendment.?
http://www.mddriversalliance.org/2011/0 ... ht-to.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your problem with claiming that the 6th amendment to the Constitution prevents you from being prosecuted is that you're in Texas, and the legislature in Texas specifically made red-light cameras a CIVIL complaint, and not a criminal complaint, which is where the 6th amendment would come in to play. Maryland sounds like they do as a low-grade criminal offense, just like Texas, when they issue you a traffic ticket from a cop.

In Texas, they will come after you civily - by preventing your re-registration of your vehicle, in some counties of the state (Tarrant county, where I live, is one of those - got to watch a young 20-ish guy be told he couldn't re-register his car because of an outstanding red-light ticket, then cause a ruckuss in the northwest sub-courthouse, and then get himself hauled away by the Tarrant County Sherrif's Office for disorderly conduct and assault by contact - now THAT would get your CHL cancelled). They can also do things that will wind up on your credit report, since it is a civil fine, and not a criminal offense.

See this page to learn how to contest it: http://fortworthtexas.gov/tpw/info/?id=50258

[RoyGBiv]

Idk, but why don't you just pay it?

The Sixth Amendment.?
http://www.mddriversalliance.org/2011/0 ... ht-to.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your problem with claiming that the 6th amendment to the Constitution prevents you from being prosecuted is that you're in Texas, and the legislature in Texas specifically made red-light cameras a CIVIL complaint, and not a criminal complaint, which is where the 6th amendment would come in to play. Maryland sounds like they do as a low-grade criminal offense, just like Texas, when they issue you a traffic ticket from a cop.

In Texas, they will come after you civily - by preventing your re-registration of your vehicle, in some counties of the state (Tarrant county, where I live, is one of those - got to watch a young 20-ish guy be told he couldn't re-register his car because of an outstanding red-light ticket, then cause a ruckuss in the northwest sub-courthouse, and then get himself hauled away by the Tarrant County Sherrif's Office for disorderly conduct and assault by contact - now THAT would get your CHL cancelled). They can also do things that will wind up on your credit report, since it is a civil fine, and not a criminal offense.

See this page to learn how to contest it: http://fortworthtexas.gov/tpw/info/?id=50258

The Seventh Amendment would still apply to Civil matters tried in any court.
Once in court, you have the right (6thA) to face your accuser.

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

[bagman45]

If you get a ticket for a red light violation that was caught on camera, you are presumed to be the driver of the offending vehicle because you own it, but since nobody stopped you, the state has no way to verify if you were really behind the wheel at the time. Therefore, red light tickets from an intersection camera are treated as civil violations only. You are still responsible for paying the Texas red light ticket, whether you were actually the one driving the vehicle or not. However, the ticket won't appear on your driving record, won't create points against your license, and your insurance company can't use it as an excuse to raise rates. So, won't affect a CHL application, as it is, once again, a civil violation, not criminal.

Depending on your county, your registrar's office may or may not block a registration renewal. My wife has rung up a couple of these "turning right on red without stopping" camera tickets. She hasn't paid them, and Collin county has not blocked her renewals. I personally find them to be a revenue grab by the municipalities which we should all refuse to pay - if they get no revenue from them, the companies that run the cameras and send out the tickets will stop running them. Just my view.....

[jimlongley]

As an engineer I was deeply involved in building the wireless network to support the red light cameras in Dallas. As such I can attest that the network and its components went through extreme amounts of testing to verify proper timing on triggering the cameras and flashes. If Dallas shortened the intervals, they did it without the knowledge and participation of the companies involved in providing and placing the cameras and ensuring that they would operate with a high degree of accuracy, and one of those companies is the one that "monitors" the cameras. (Actually everything is post processed. video and pictures as well as time stamps are downloaded to a central location, with flags indicating "possible" violations.)

That said, we often speculated among ourselves as to who was watching Dallas and ensuring that they didn't make the kind of changes that have been suggested would result in an excess of ticket revenue. Misadjustment of the detectors and their timing could result in erronous tickets, but good luck proving that there is any sort of error on their part. You might sit at the intersection and time the lights and cameras, but with the computerized systems in place these days, there is no guarantee that the timing will be the same from day to day much less hour to hour or minute to minute.

But I would love for someone to do so. I was out doing a field survey for a new site and in loading the lift back onto the trailer I fell and broke my finger. I apparently did the unforgivable by claiming it as an on the job injury and taking Workman's Comp. The day Workman's Comp released me, they fired me. Of course they didn't call it a firing, it was a force reduction of one and they gave me a real nice letter to avoid the obvious legal complications of firing me due to the claim. BTW, they were not covered for sending engineers into the field to do site surveys with lifts, so they got in trouble with their insurance company.

[Chris]

I've met the engineer who got Dallas' program running. She doesn't care anything about the red light cameras. She sets the timing based on MUTCD. They put one up that had no crashes, but the police wanted it because they wrote for tons of violations there. She had mixed emotions about that one. She genuinely wants to see crashes go down.

I was an administrator over a red light camera system for a large city in DFW, and know most of the people who run these things. I also know some of the vendors. The vendors are pretty cut throat with each other, but they operate legitimately. Every violation that goes out has someone review it that works for the issuing agency. Most of them use police officers to review and issue. Where I worked, we used the traffic division of the PD to review them. We had some that were losing money, and others that were making tons of money, but the intersections that got them had some serious wrecks. I had several videos of rollover accidents in the camera intersections from people running lights. I'll have to see if I can find one of the photos from a red light ticket. It caught this ridiculous crash in mid impact.

If you don't pay them, you will likely not see any repercussions, but I know when I left I was working with the city attorney to file suit against people with multiple violations. I was also getting things finalized to have registration holds placed.

[Jumping Frog]

On a related topic, let me express how I think the infraction works and then someone can either confirm or correct.

I believe the red light infraction happens when you ENTER the intersection and it is red. If you are past the intersection white stop line so that you are partially or fully in the intersection before the light turns red, then you lawfully exit and clear the intersection.

One example would be sitting in the middle of the intersection while the light is green waiting to make a left turn. If you are waiting for a long line of oncoming traffic to clear, I have often had the light turn red while I was sitting there and was only able to turn left and clear the intersection when the oncoming traffic stopped for the red light.

At the other extreme, I believe that if your car enters the intersection on yellow, even if the front bumper is just a foot past the white stop line before the light turns red, then you can legally clear that intersection and it is not a red light infraction. However, if the light turns red BEFORE you cross that line into the intersection, then that is a legitimate red light infraction.

Now, if we are talking about a human being, an LEO, observing the vehicle enter the intersection and testifying the exact position when the light turned red, there is room for human variation and honest differences in perception. However, a red light camera should be able to remove that ambiguity. There should be a photo of the light already red before the vehicle crossed the line to enter the intersection.

[Chris]

I believe the red light infraction happens when you ENTER the intersection and it is red. If you are past the intersection white stop line so that you are partially or fully in the intersection before the light turns red, then you lawfully exit and clear the intersection.

I'll tell you exactly how it works, from the red light camera, to writing my fair share of tickets. You know how when you pull up to an intersection, they used to have the old loop detectors in the ground? Well, the new technology now is that camera you see pointing at you on the light pole. It is a camera with a digital box drawn over each lane. When the pixels change, it signals the camera that a car is present, and to change the light. The red light cameras work the same way. Instead of one box, they draw two boxes for each lane. The cameras can only get up to four lanes, though, so if it's a five lane road, you get to pick the one you can't monitor. For each lane is two boxes. The red light camera uses the same type of signal camera. You draw two boxes for each lane immediately prior to the stop lines, then you set a speed for each lane. For lanes where you must stop and remain stopped. These are usually set at 1-2 mph. The software will calculate your vehicle's speed as it breaks the two boxes. If your speed is calculated to be above that threshold, it triggers the camera. For areas where you can make a right turn, these are usually set with speeds of 3-5 mph. If you cross the boxes going more than the allotted speed, the camera trips. I often heard the argument that someone made a right turn because most of their slowest speed was well into the intersection, so they felt like they made a close enough stop. When they entered the intersection and broke the threshold speed, they were moving much faster. If you are in an intersection, beyond the stopping point, waiting on a clear path to turn left, you can't be captured by the camera because you have already crossed the two boxes. I was in a meeting with all the cheeses from DFW, and we tried to come up with a standard definition of a stop. Some cities were using the stop line, others were using the curb line. Where I worked, we decided to use the stop line to avoid confusion. Dallas used the prolongation of the curb, which would technically get you more violations, because someone who legally couldn't be issued a ticket for running a red light under state law, could be issued a camera ticket under city ordinance. So in essence, they'd crossed the stop line, being in the intersection after the light turned red, but since they hadn't passed the curb line, the city ordinance hadn't considered them 'in the intersection' yet. All the raw data went to the vendor where they had clerks processing each capture. They view the video and the images, and if they feel it is a good violation, they put it in a review queue for the agency to review. We used the police traffic division. If an officer rejected a violation, it went to a supervisor who had to approve the rejection. I will tell you, the officers varied on their discretion with those just as much as they did on the street. Some issued violations that I wouldn't have even issued.

As far as it goes on the street, if you break the stop line of an intersection and continue through on a red light, you got a ticket. If you pulled way out into the intersection, but stopped well past the line, it was a ticket for failing to stop at the proper place. If you saw my patrol car and skidded to a stop at the last minute, but backed up safely to the proper line, you got applauded for your efforts.