Using Speed Cameras To Send Tickets To Your Enemies

High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras to get back at their perceived enemies, and even teachers. The students duplicate the victim's license plate on glossy paper using a laser printer, tape it over their own plate, then speed past a newly installed speed camera. The victim gets a $40 ticket in the mail days later, without any humans ever having been involved in the ticketing process. A blog dedicated to driving and politics adds that a similar, if darker, practice has taken hold in England, where bad guys cruise the streets looking for a car similar to their own. They then duplicate its plates in a more durable form, and thereafter drive around with little fear of trouble from the police.

Comments

without any humans ever having been involved

[similar_name]

I've often thought if I got one of these tickets I would take it to court and ask for the right to see my accuser.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Emnar]

The legislators have thought of that. It's an infraction, rather than a misdemeanor, so it's an administrative fine -- it goes on your driving record, but not your criminal record.

Because it's a criminal charge, you aren't given the right to face your accuser.

It's a perversion of justice for the profit of the state, but right now the judges let it pass constitutional muster.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Fear the Clam]

It's a perversion of justice for the profit of the state, but right now the judges let it pass constitutional muster.

That's just because nobody bothered to do the the same trick with the correct government or state official plates.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Geoffrey.landis]

The legislators have thought of that. It's an infraction, rather than a misdemeanor, so it's an administrative fine -- it goes on your driving record, but not your criminal record.

I don't know about where you are, but in Ohio automatic speed camera fines do not go on your driving record.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[couchslug]

"I've often thought if I got one of these tickets I would take it to court and ask for the right to see my accuser."

Print your tag using this link, along with some random tags from your area.
I found out about it when my co-workers pranked me by placing a "MAN SEX" fake over the plate on my tow truck...
Funny thing is that I towed several cars that weekend right past police without knowing about the plate (which is near my lightbar so I don't look at it).

Enjoy:
http://license.plates.txt2pic.com/

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[similar_name]

Since the cameras are generally owned by companies and not the local authorities, I think they only thing they can do is put it on your credit report.
Where I am, they recently took down some red light cameras because they were not generating enough revenue for the company and the city didn't want to pay for them. It has nothing to do with law and everything to do with profit.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I have to wonder: how many times a week do you have to hit one of these things with a paintball before they're not cost-effective to maintain?

One way to put a stop to any for-profit effort is to make it unprofitable.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Lehk228]

if you fill your own paintballs and fill them with glue instead of paint so the entire front glass has to be replaced it will work faster.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[lloydchristmas759]

Karl Marx, is that you ?

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[spottedkangaroo]

sounds like a dare

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Pichu0102]

sounds like a dare

I don't think anyone's really stupid enough to piss off someone who has the ability to ruin your life, or, if they're really corrupt, make you disappear.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[jdcope]

What should we think of a government that tries to find new ways to make our highways safe.

However, red light cameras do not make it safer. In most places, red light cameras INCREASE the occurrence of rear-end accidents because people are afraid they might get a ticket and stop short. And in my area, those tickets are nearly $200. On top of that, the camera companies get a cut in the profits from the tickets. So there is an incentive to ticket people. And it has been proven in certain cities that the governments are shortening the yellow-light times to catch people off guard. So even people who are not trying to "run" the light get caught in it. And speed cameras on on-ramps are just friggin stupid. There are enough people out there who dont know how to merge into freeway traffic. THEY are the ones who cause congestion.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Chandon Seldon]

If you live in that much fear of government officials, then you have bigger problems than speed cameras. In a free society, the fear, if any, goes the other way.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Worthless_Comments]

You don't? You really don't think anyone is that stupid? You sure have a lot higher opinion of people than I do.

You just gotta have a huge set of grapefruits.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[dangitman]

Did you read your own link? It described the type of word as "Nonstandard", and goes on to say:

Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term.

So, yes, there are plenty of things wrong with that word.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[TooMuchToDo]

Good point. A lot easier just to copy another plate as described in TFA.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[wickerprints]

Tell that to the US citizens who were served National Security Letters under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act. Oh wait, you can't, because those people are legally prohibited from disclosure, so there's no way to identify who they are.

The problem, of course, is not the validity of your statement. It's absolutely correct. But as we can clearly see, there really isn't such a thing as a truly free society, only those that call themselves "free."

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[PReDiToR]

Replying here because it should be up at the top. Sorry.

In the UK we have cameras that face towards you, taking a picture of the driver that will be used as evidence if you say "I wasn't driving".

Take advantage of this while you can.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Karl Marx actually proposed a way improved form of democracy where the workers united in neighborhood committees will decide their own neighborhood policies, their city, their state, their country and the world's policies, all through direct debate and vote, with EVERYBODY being part of the decision and policy elaboration process.
That is way much more democratic than we have anywhere in the world in the world these days, and specially in the US, where if you don't have a billion dollar to waste away you cannot run for president.
So, forget a little bit about pr0n and WoW and go read, or at least google a bit, before you make pathetic loser jokes about things you don't know.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[wall0159]

Just to be a devil's advocate - if they're not generating profit, then people aren't running those lights, and the cameras aren't necessary...

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[dgatwood]

I haven't seen a city in California whose times aren't already unsafely short. You can't tell me that a two second yellow is EVER safe, yet I've seen them that short in Sunnyvale, and many, many intersections at only three. And I've seen three seconds with zero all-red seconds for lights that allow left turns across five lanes of traffic. If you enter at the speed limit as it turns yellow, you will be in the intersection for at least two seconds while the light is green in the other direction. I can count at least a dozen lights between Fair Oaks and Sunnyvale roads alone that are dangerous, and those aren't even the intersections with cameras....

The other dirty thing they do to try to anger drivers and make them run red lights is to time the lights so you hit every second light red reproducibly. Again, the two major roads through Sunnyvale are timed in this way for the vast majority of the day. Not only does it increase the rate of road rage significantly, it encourages people to exceed the speed limit to beat the lights, encourages people to run the lights when they change to red right in front of them, and likely wastes millions of gallons of gasoline every year in California alone, all so they can raise a little more red light revenue at a few intersections....

IMHO, we need a California-wide ballot measure to demand citizen oversight committees be in charge of all traffic light management. That's the only way the abuse will stop. And red light cameras are abuse. Every study of red light cameras has shown that increasing the length of yellow lights to a minimum of seven seconds has the same benefits in terms of sideswipe accident reduction without the increased rate of rear end collisions, without wasting tons of fuel, without causing road rage, etc. Unfortunately, the people in power are not about to admit that they were wrong, so the only way to fix the problem is to wrest control away form them through a referendum.

At least speed cameras are illegal in California. We got one right, anyway. It's a good thing, too. There's a radar sign on Highway 17 that routinely overestimates the speed of oncoming traffic by up to 15 MPH. If such a device were handing out speeding tickets, I'd have a thousand of them, all while going the speed limit, all with a confused look on my face staring at the completely incorrect speed on the sign....

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are called HOA and they suck. http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/real-estate/HOA-horrors1.asp

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[diamondmagic]

http://www.google.com/search?q=red+light+camera+accident+statistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_light_camera

You're welcome.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Genda]

If you live in that much fear of government officials, then you have bigger problems than speed cameras. In a free society, the fear, if any, goes the other way.

Hell, It's not like some sick government Fsck could have you kidnapped right of the street and have you taken to a middle-eastern country to be tortured, in spite of the fact you were perfectly innocent...

I'm sorry, excuse me for just a moment... Oh, really?... Hmmmm...

Never mind.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[lwsimon]

Tell me if you spot one of these "free societies."

America hasn't been one for about 150 years, and the decay has been getting worse for the last 60 or so.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[dangitman]

With those systems (not sure about the UK) you usually don't have to go to court. You can write a letter, or fill in a form that comes with the ticket, stating your argument. Only if that is not accepted, do you go to court.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[mabhatter654]

whoa there! You mean there's something wrong with the citizens "cheating" if automated cameras aren't recording enough violations... heaven forbid most people obey the law!!! What a concept..

That's why this kind of "infractions for profit" are such a bad idea because somebody in the chain needs to keep their margin.. not improve safety or obey the laws.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way is to make the intersection designs controlled by insurance companies. It is in their best interest not to ever pay out, so the interesections that they can reduce accidents in will be made as safe as possible.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[NormalVisual]

The legislators have thought of that. It's an infraction, rather than a misdemeanor, so it's an administrative fine

That's the situation here in Orlando - the city recently passed an ordinance authorizing camera enforcement at six intersections in the area, but they know there's not a chance in hell it would actually stand up in court so they take the civil route in an attempt to avoid the courts altogether. I'm hoping the state hands their ass to them, though - Florida state law specifically forbids localities to enact traffic ordinances that deal with situations already covered under state law unless they have a special authorization from the state legislature, and the state hasn't given them one. So far, everyone that's had a ticket written has tried to contest the ticket (good luck arguing with a code enforcement officer) instead of arguing the legality of the ordinance itself, which has made me consider going to one of the intersections at 3am or so, stopping at the light, and then deliberately running it when the intersection is safely clear. I'd of course expect to get a ticket for it, which then would give me standing to do all kinds of things.

Additionally, Florida has very specific rules about how the revenues from traffic enforcement are to be allocated, and after some somewhat heated discussions with city officials, I've been able to determine that Orlando's portion of the take stays in the city while the rest goes directly to LaserCraft, Inc. (the camera vendor/operator), and the state doesn't see a dime of it. I'm still waiting for a copy of the city's contract to get some hard numbers. I'm thinking the money angle will probably be more apt to get the state involved than the apparently minor fact that the city is breaking state law.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[RealEditer]

Someone here in Texas is suing a couple of red-light camera operators, saying that they don't have private investigator licenses and thus don't have legal right to gather information for prosecutions. So far he's gotten one judge to agree.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[mr_stinky_britches]

Every study of red light cameras has shown that increasing the length of yellow lights to a minimum of seven seconds has the same benefits in terms of sideswipe accident reduction without the increased rate of rear end collisions, without wasting tons of fuel, without causing road rage, etc. Unfortunately, the people in power are not about to admit that they were wrong, so the only way to fix the problem is to wrest control away form them through a referendum.

Got any links to these studies? I googled "red light camera study" and found a recent news article which makes some interesting claims:

The study was conducted by the state, and surveyed red light cameras specifically for intersections in communities throughout Texas. A lot of those are right here in Houston. The results, according to this study, show that red light cameras appear to work.

..and the latest research from the Texas Transportation Institute supports that. In the state wide study, right angle crashes declined by 43% after installation of red light cameras. Although rear end crashes increased slightly by 5%, the overall decrease was 30%.

Ah, well here we go. Here is a page that has a collection of 10 or so studies which seem to suppport your claim.

Hopefully this information will be of use to the typically [in my experience] ungrateful /. crowd.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[arminw]

...It's a perversion of justice...

No it is not, but just an extra road tax. Justice isn't involved in any way shape or form. If it a speeding ticket, you basically get taxed extra for the privilege or fun of driving fast.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Trailwalker]

Consider someone you know who has social problems variously including anger management issues, alcoholism, drug abuse and/or severe financial mismanagement: in short, someone who repeatedly makes very poor life-choices.

Obama will replace him in a few weeks.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[magarity]

Admittedly rear ending is up a bit, but you have to draw a line somewhere
 
This usually happends because the yellow is too short for the speed limit there. Here's one guide (there are others more official but this one is simple and to the point.) Some people blame malice on the part of the local government in wanting camera revenue but they're more likely just ignorant. Time some lights in your area and bring this up at the next public town coucil meeting.
 
Notice that the too-short yellow is probably why the light was being run too often in the first place. Now that the camera is there, the too-short yellow requires slamming on the brakes to stop in time rather than a normal stop. That in turn causes rear-endings.

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[Chandon Seldon]

Unless of course I missed the part where people don't get to vote, must work at a state owned business and are not allowed to make most of the important decisions in their day to day life.

I see you accept the US government official definition of "free country", with the cold war era anti-red addendum and everything. Voting is meaningless if only a small range of "mainstream" candidates have a chance. Free enterprise only matters when the market isn't rigged.

Ask yourself this: Is China a free country? What *practical* freedoms do Americans have that someone in China does not? There are some examples, and those are important, but there are less than you might think.

It's specious to say that we're less free because the federal government got those rights rather than the state government. One can still leave the nation if one chooses and if enough people become unhappy with the nation, they can still secede, I'm not sure where in the constitution the right to secede was.

You touch upon the counter argument to your first sentence in your second. How many people does it take to make a policy change in a US state? At the federal level? Even organizations the size of the NRA and the Sierra club manage to accomplish surprisingly little at the federal level. Moving a policy from the states to the federal government results in a very practical decrease in the democratic control of that policy.

This is just one of those whack job libertarian ideas that because I can't Jay walk or use drugs that suddenly I'm some sort of a slave.

There's nothing "whack job" about libertarian ideas. Like any ideas, it's reasonable to disagree with them once you clearly understand them (and, necessarily, their historical and philosophical background), but simply dismissing them as crazy marks you as willfully ignorant. And there's nothing worse than being willfully ignorant (and proudly admitting to it).

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[TWX]

In the UK some are taking tires, hanging them on the speed cameras, filling the inside with gasoline, and lighting it. The gasoline burns long enough to get the tire burning, and as the tire burns, the steel belts keep it from burning itself off of the camera housing before it's been there for a considerable amount of time.

I wouldn't advocate doing this with tires that you bought new if you registered the warranty on them, but tires on wheels can sometimes be bought for $8.00 on half-price day at the junk yard, and dismounting them isn't that difficult if they're not those low-profile or large rim types. I'd imagine that you'd put the gasoline into the tire while it's on the ground, then lift it up and on, then toss a match or two into it.

Not that I'd advocate such a simple, destructive, and highly self-contained method of destroying speed cameras, but here are some results: http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm

Re:without any humans ever having been involved

[lwsimon]

The "150 years ago" part was a generalization. Yes, the Civil War was the beginning of broadening the power of the federal government, but more importantly it was the era where corruption began to be visible in American politics. This is the era when first began to lose sight of the "of the people, by the people, for the people" ideals that we were founded upon.

60 years ago was the beginnings of the Cold War. This is where the American people began to see large-scale prosperity, and lost sight entirely of the individualist spirit of our Founders. Once the beast of government got a taste of the power it could obtain by maintaining a state of constant war (or plausible threat of war), we have been in one ever since. First was the Cold War. Then the intensification of the "War on Drugs". In the 90s, it was on "militias" and "extremists". Now its "terrorism" and "fundamentalism".

America today is little related to the country we once were. Of course there were injustices, and we have grown much as a people since then - but we have lost the basis that made us great in the process. In our rush to see everyone equal, we've created classes and division based on gender, race, and who we prefer to sleep with. Alongside the heady excitement of prosperity in the 80s and 90s was the greatest degradation of civil right we have seen as a country.

As an example, in 1986 the NFA registry was closed, by unfunding a program. This created a de facto ban on an entire class of firearms. This may not mean much to you, or you may be entirely opposed to civilian ownership of weapons - but by God, it means something to me. It means that the government founded over 200 years ago by my ancestors, based on the idea that government rules at the behest of the citizens, no longer trust its citizens. That is a scary thought, at it will lead to conflict, eventually, whether violent, economic, or ideologic.

Regardless of whether or not the name lives on, or if this country remains a world power - make no mistake, we are living through the death throes of this once great nation. How much will survive is yet to be seen, but the idea of Liberty is already lost on my fellow citizens.

Predictable.

[spazdor]

This is the inevitable result of the 'panopticon' model of legal harmony. A car does not positively identify a person, nor does a license plate or a blurry photo.

The authorities can cast a wider net by being lazy, but this is the real reason we shouldn't tolerate it: it's almost laughably exploitable.

Re:Predictable.

[Original Replica]

And teh best way for us to not tolerate it, is to exploit it to laughable extremes. Have everyone copy the license plate of Governor Martin O'Malley and let him get multiple speeding tickets in different parts of his state at the same time, the law will change much faster that way as compared to waiting for the legislature to actually give a shit about bad law.

Re:Predictable.

[Kaboom13]

No, it will just be used as an excuse to make the governor and other politicians exempt from the law.

Re:Predictable.

[Chandon Seldon]

No, it will just be used as an excuse to make the governor and other politicians exempt from the law.

Then target their golfing buddies and their largest campaign donors.

Re:Predictable.

[robot_love]

Because they should be exempt from the law as well? :) I don't see how that will help.

Unless they are caught...

[matt4077]

...when they usually pay through the nose or get jailtime for counterfeiting an official document (which a license plate is).

It's interesting though that penalties are apparently tied to the car in the us, not the driver. I still remember the police showing up regularly at the door showing me a (usually bad) picture of my father and asking if I knew the person. Thank god^M^M^M the constitution for family privilege.

yeah great idea.

[CaptainPatent]

Wow, so you personally commit fraud and forgery to get your "enemy" a $40 speeding ticket?

sounds like a great idea until the first time a cop is on scene to pull you over.

I hope those kids like jail time!

Re:yeah great idea.

[otter42]

Wow, so you personally commit fraud and forgery to get your "enemy" a $40 speeding ticket?

sounds like a great idea until the first time a cop is on scene to pull you over.

I hope those kids like jail time!

You're serious??? You would give kids jail time for an administrative prank? For $40? That's sick. Just plain sick. With these kinds of opinions, no wonder we have these kinds of laws.

America would be a better place if we stopped trying to 0wn people in real life, instead of just video games and movies. There is such a thing as partial victories and conditional surrenders.

Re:yeah great idea.

[otter42]

Never. It's always a prank. If you want to argue that after getting caught ten times and clearly refusing to mend your ways that you should face some stiffer penalties, I couldn't agree more. That doesn't change that putting someone in jail for an administrative prank is wrong. And the knee jerk reaction to *want* that is perverted.

Here's a solution: why not take away their driver's license? That would have the same effect on stopping the abuse, while ratcheting up the pressure (getting caught driving with a suspended license is far more serious) all without the slightest risk of permanently scars.

Re:yeah great idea.

[Dutch Gun]

You're serious??? You would give kids jail time for an administrative prank? For $40? That's sick. Just plain sick. With these kinds of opinions, no wonder we have these kinds of laws.

Costing someone a $40 ticket goes way beyond a "prank". A prank is a practical joke you pull on your friends, and you all laugh about it afterward. This is economic vandalism.

Jail time would be unlikely (hell, you can steal a car and not get jail time if you're a first offender), but I'd certainly advocate some sort of required community service. Maybe 16 hours of picking up trash alongside a road will encourage someone to think a bit more about the consequences of bad choices. We can get creative in the sentencing too.

If someone actually wanted to make a statement...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they could create a website listing the make, model and licenses of cars belonging to police and other public officials; with convenient license plate templates or maybe a PDF license plate generator. Don't host it the US or UK though.

But that would be wrong.

Re:Another interesting tidbit

[NecroPuppy]

Well, yes... But to be fair, nobody wants to look like Jeremy Clarkson, not even Jeremy Clarkson.

Digital traps in an analog world

[otter42]

This just shows again the problems with applying a digital measure to our analog world. Speeding is by no means a crime. A crime implies harm, and having an instantaneous velocity over a certain point on a road hardly qualifies as a crime. Here we have a case of the computer being judge, jury, and executioner. This means that gone are the *very* valid justification that "that's the speed limit because driving any slower was dangerous."

Before, real-life situations could trump an engineer's arbitrary classification of a road. Which is good, because in real life, the situation *is* more important than the simulation. Now, instead of a judge who makes an informed decision that can be understood and formally disagreed with, we have a contractor, who is completely removed from the job. No one to get mad at, and, most importantly, no one to feel guilty. Every person in the chain has no responsibility and no reason to feel bad.

No matter the efficiency advantages of doing otherwise, every penalty applied to a human should be applied by a human.

Re:Digital traps in an analog world

[otter42]

But, speeding is a crime in that by speeding you are needlessly endangering other people's lives. Laws are not necessarily what is moral and in some cases for need of practicality, laws must be preventative instead of reactionary. Not that I'm advocating the extent to which they go, but by your logic we should remove ALL airport security.

Driving needlessly endangers other people's lives. Heck, so does existence. There's a certain amount of gray area in this. And while laws are not necessarily moral, the people who apply them are by definition.

In any case, not to get distracted from the subject at hand, I refute that speeding, as defined by going faster than a posted limit, is needlessly endangering lives. Those limits are decided by engineers who have NOT decided on the best speed. They've applied some rules of thumb, some rules of law, and some rules of common sense to arrive at a nice round number that is more correct than not. However, with cameras you're no longer talking more or less. You're talking exactly, atomically, right or wrong.

P.S. I'm missing the link between airport security and machines making legal choices.
P.S.S. And being a pilot, I can assure you that most of airport security is a farce. But I think just about everybody already knows that.

Re:Glossy Paper and Printers

[justinlee37]

Do you look at your license plate every morning? Would you notice if the letters and numbers suddenly changed?

the real problem is the speed limits themselves

[rta]

The real problem, imho, is that speed limits are artificially low. In the US anyway, the only reason to follow the speed limit is to avoid fines. The numbers are unnecessarily conservative for most driving.

In fact, i can drive past a cop at the speed limit in the rain and not get a ticket though clearly I have a much lower margin of safety going 65 in the rain than I do going 65 on dry pavement.

Similarly, one is allowed to go the same speed at night as during the day even though visibility is definitely impaired.

(Yes, I know the limit is set as an upper limit and that cops can ticket you for going an unsafe speed for the conditions, etc, etc. but in practice it doesn't happen for up to moderate levels of inclement levels. And in fog or a downpour or blizzard, well most people slow down well below the speed limit anyway.)

I do like the "advised speed" that's attached to signs signaling curves ahead. That actually provides useful information about the road rather than info about the revenue generation and/or paranoia of the local residents.

Henry Mencken disagrees

[bledri]

I don't think anyone's really stupid enough to ...

Henry Mencken disagrees:
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -- Henry Mencken

I know, he was talking about profit, but I think the sentiment applies more broadly.

Mandatory RFID license plates

[AcidPenguin9873]

Get ready for mandatory RFID license plates, and all the privacy and security problems that come with them.

Re:All well and good, except...

[mccoma]

Well, I wouldn't be too trusting of those reviews. I was told Illinois also reviews tickets on their toll roads and they made the following errors when trying to ticket me:

1. Misidentified the state the plate was issued from
2. vehicle on photo was white, my car is black
3. vehicle on photo is a semi truck, my car is a chevy cavalier

It still holds true after all these years...

[The Wooden Badger]

Be excellent to each other.