Red light cameras

[Marvelmania]

The city where I live is going to be putting up red light cameras in about 7 different areas of the city this coming year. A lot of people are saying it's just another way for "Big Brother" to keep an eye on you. Anyone else live in a city with these or received any tickets from one?

[ABMAC]

I think it's just laziness. The campus police here are pretty fanatical, but the regular cops almost never issue citations except during the last days of each quota period. Even if there's an accident, they leave it to the insurance companies to investigate and assign blame.

[toys2cool]

I haven't gotten a ticket but in Coral Gables in Miami they already have them

[Hulk]

We live next to Scottsdale, Arizona, the pace where Big Brother seems to have retired to live in luxury. We have Red Light Cameras and Speed Cameras, with many of the Red Light Cameras being upgraded to do double duty. And those are just the permanent ones, they also have a fleet of roaming speed vans, which my wife has been tagged by twice in the past 5 years.

The city also managed to accomplish the first placement of several speed cameras on the State highway, which they do not have primary jurisdiction of. Its a brave new world out here, one that annoys me to no end. Even though I haven't been nailed yet, when these things go off at night they flash a double bright light to help capture a picture of the driver coming, and the license plate going. You would think that you were having a Close Encounter, and it ALWAYS causes people to slam on their brakes (and yes, speeding is down in the immediate areas, but accidents always rise).

[Bo8a_Fett]

In London we have 1,000s of them all over the place and my missus has had 2 tickets issued because of them...we had them turned over because one thing the cameras cannot show is the reason you were parked/driving there. In London they use them to gain revenue for local councils and although this is being looked into as illegal practice nothing much has changed...the traffic wardens are relentless, handing tickets out willy nilly and parking restrictions and congestion charges are springing up all over the city.

[garagesale]

I don't like speeding, but at least these are more objective than some of our local police (I'm sure many of you have great police dept.'s though!). I never speed, but I've been pulled over and even been given tickets for speeding and other violations that did not occur. Misjudgement perhaps, but it probably has something to do with a kind of profiling of crappy pickups. The people in the fancy cars (most of them) in my town never get pulled over. It's only the junky vehicles that get tickets. The police are merciless about giving parking tickets to students who park near the university (some can't afford the $100 parking permits), but never do a thing about the Dr.s' wives in Hummers speeding, making illegal turns, roaring across pedestrian crossings, and using the suicide lanes to pass (all while yapping away on the cell phones).

JamesD

[Zemo]

I hate Big Brother interfering, but I hate red light runners equally. Hmmm

[Mikey]

We don't have any of that high-tech stuff in the hick towns around me.

A camera on a pole ? ... then who clicks the button ?

I love being in the sticks

[cjefferys]

We briefly had them where I live, but there was enough public outcry about them to get them removed. The amount of people running red lights in recent years seems to have dramatically increased though, so the cameras would probably pull in a lot of cash these days.

[mitchedwards]

There are a few in Nashville. I cant imagine Johnson City getting cameras

[Marvelmania]

Mike, I thought I was close enough to being in the sticks What prompted this was a neighboring city, Kingsport put a few in and I think Johnson City saw the money they were raking in off them. I admit that I do speed sometimes but this not about speeding but red light running. To me it's more about where the money that is made off them will go.

[fallensaviour]

We have sixty sites here with thirty cameras rotating between them so you never know where one is.Plus we have the roving vans and cars as well.The red light cameras are all pulling double duty as speed and red light.Yes when they go off you are quite certain that you have just died and are heading for the white light.I have never seen anything so bright in the middle of the night in my life!!!
The tickets are worth two hundred and eighty dollars.

[jessica]

I got my photo taken while trying to turn left at Powell in Emeryville. I was scared to death of getting a ticket, but I never got one. The reason I was stuck at the left turn was because somebody in front was taking too long to turn into a driveway and I was two to three cars deep into the middle of the road. I thought I was looking at a $325 fine for running a red light. The ticket never materialized thank goodness. I was so mad when I got photographed at the turn that at that I immediately surfed the internet and found out that you can purchase this spray for your license plate. This makes it impossible for the cameras to capture your license plate because your license plate becomes too shiny when flashed at. I chickened out of buying the spray because it's not legal. You can't tell that your license plate has it because it's clear.

[Marvelmania]

The TV show Mythbusters tried out a few ways to go about beating a camera using the spray, excess speed (from a regular sports car) and a few other ways. All failed miserably. The only thing that worked was a car with a jet engine. Seems that the car had come and gone before the camera even clicked.

[Adam West]

I also remember the Mythbusters episode. They tried all kinds of things. One of the myths was that if you went fast enough (like 120 mph, the photo wouldn't take fast enough to catch your license plate) that didn't work.

They used all kinds of sprays and one that I thought would work for sure which was something you put over your license plate similar to a computer privacy screen. Look at it from an angle and you can't see anything but can see it square on. The theory being that the camera would take the picture at an angle and they wouldn't be able to make out the license plate...that didn't work either.

We have the red light cameras at a few intersections in our town but I have never been caught by one. I have heard that you should be able to win any red light ticket in court on the grounds that you have the right to face your accuser. You can't have a police officer as the plaintiff because he/she wasn't there to witness it. I don't know if this would work or if it does work.

As a side note, regarding police officers giving out tickets, if the police officer catches you speeding using radar you can ask the officer to show you the readout of the device. If he/she refuses or can't produce it to you, you can use that in court against them.

I have only had a few speeding tickets my entire life, have always gone to court and have won twice because the police officer never showed up.