Just got a ticket in the mail - my "crime"? Crossing an intersection's stop line .33 seconds after it turned red. So I am now officially a dangerous driver although I have driven 35 years accident free. New York State really really needs the money, I guess. Have you had a red light ticket? Are you a "dangerous" driver?
I got one last year. Dropped my son off at work at 7 AM on a Saturday, then apparently, when making a right on red, didn't fully stop. Cost ~$450. These cameras are popping up at all the busy intersections in my area. My first experience with ticket cameras was years ago while living in Amsterdam. In a 3 day stretch I got 2 speeding tickets in the mail, from a radar camera on the A2. Apparently they used to include a photo to prove who was driving, until a politician's wife opened an envelope to find a picture of her husband and his mistress. Not more photos after that!
In my 50 years of driving, I have only received one ticket, for speeding on the Mass Turnpike. That was about 15 years ago. So no, I'm not a "dangerous" driver.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]These cameras have all been turned off in Minnesota due to a Supreme Court ruling. If you read down they struck down a tenet of the law that is common to all such camera violation laws. Maybe someone should sue the state and use the legal ideas brought forth in this case. The Minnesota Supreme Court today delivered the highest-level court rebuke to photo enforcement to date with a unanimous decision against the Minneapolis red light camera program. The high court upheld last September's Court of Appeals decision that found the city's program had violated state law (read opinion). The supreme court found that Minneapolis had disregarded a state law imposing uniformity of traffic laws across the state. The city's photo ticket program offered the accused fewer due process protections than available to motorists prosecuted for the same offense in the conventional way after having been pulled over by a policeman. The court argued that Minneapolis had, in effect, created a new type of crime: "owner liability for red-light violations where the owner neither required nor knowingly permitted the violation." "We emphasized in Duffy that a driver must be able to travel throughout the state without the risk of violating an ordinance with which he is not familiar," the court wrote. "The same concerns apply to owners. But taking the state's argument to its logical conclusion, a city could extend liability to owners for any number of traffic offenses as to which the Act places liability only on drivers. Allowing each municipality to impose different liabilities would render the Act's uniformity requirement meaningless. Such a result demonstrates that [the Minneapolis ordinance] conflicts with state law." The court also struck down the "rebutable presumption" doctrine that lies at the heart of every civil photo enforcement ordinance across the country. "The problem with the presumption that the owner was the driver is that it eliminates the presumption of innocence and shifts the burden of proof from that required by the rules of criminal procedure," the court concluded. "Therefore the ordinance provides less procedural protection to a person charged with an ordinance violation than is provided to a person charged with a violation of the Act. Accordingly, the ordinance conflicts with the Act and is invalid."[/FONT]
In NM, the state Department of Transportation ruled that cameras may not be used on streets that are also state highways. That put a stop to all cameras being deployed in Santa Fe, since all relevant intersections include them. Even in other locations, the state wants a big cut of the revenue from the cameras, I guess as a disincentive to having them at all. Too bad, the city could cover a lot of deficit from hundreds of ignored red lights every day (not just one car at a time!). It is pretty scary here, combined with 24/7 drunk drivers everywhere.
at 30 MPH that light turned red when you were 15 feet from the intersection. In my book that's running a red light.
$450.00 ! That's daylight robbery. Mine was $50.00. I am going to change my route home to avoid this light. There is a very fine line between going through a late yellow light and going through a red. At my intersection, there is no danger at all in going through a yellow that turns red because the light for the opposing traffic is delayed a few seconds before turning green. Those cars are sitting waiting for the green, so there was no "danger" at all in my situation. Still, as I said, New York state really needs my money. They already get $200.00 a month just for me crossing a bridge to get to work. That's $2,400 a year in bridge tolls, more than I spend on gas.
There is also a very fine line between being alive and being dead. Risking your own life is your business. Risking the lives of others is not. Tom
As I wrote, there was never the slightest danger in this case. The opposing cars were still sitting waiting for the green. I think I know how to drive safely, having driven for 35 years with no accidents in the most congested area of the country. I did not risk anyone's life, as I tried to make clear. This is strictly about generating revenue for the state.
Bah, what a ridiculous decision. The only "appeal", short of arguing against actual broken equipment, should be a procedure to identify the actual driver at the time, thus eliminating the "owner liability" conflicts. Loan your car out, and realize that while you might not be responsible for a citation you might have to undergo getting the situation straightened out if your buddy screws up, so your buddy had simply better not screw up. . It's not like people don't have plenty of prior warning that this is going on, and the slightest modicum of predictive thinking says to take it into account. . _H*
Only $50? That isn't a fine, its just a minor user fee. If there weren't so many people running red lights there, it wouldn't need any delay. Very few lights in my area have any delay.
Actually, most lights in NYC have a few seconds delay between one set turning red and the opposing set turning green. Shouldn't this be standard?
In Amsterdam or California? How do they prove who's driving the car if they don't show the face shot, or do they now only show it in court?
There's nothing mickey mouse about crossing the intersection's stop line any time after the light turns red, but the problem with red light cameras and especially right turn tickets is they're unfairly enforced.
They sell on the internet a spray can of something that makes the license plate appear black whe photograped . My cousin applied this to his plates in Philadelphia when they set up cameras . There was a 90 day grace period and you got a warning before they started giving out real tickets. He and other people swear that this works very well.
In theory you are right but in practice, it can be very hard to know just when a yellow will turn red. If you are perfect, congratulations!
