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Speed Tickets Challenged Based On Timestamped Photos
SEWilco writes "A businessman has challenged automated tickets of his vehicles by calculating the vehicle speed based upon the tickets, which include timestamps of two photos." Maybe more word problems should be on the police academy curriculum.
average speed != instant speed at any time between two points
Mr. Foreman’s tickets were all issued in Forest Heights, a town of about 2,600 where officials expected $2.9 million in ticket revenue this fiscal year, about half the town’s $5.8 million budget.
Couldn't get people to pay taxes for that new community pool there? Sheesh.
We should stop pretending speed laws and enforcment has anything to do with safety.
And stop messing around wasting time and money like this.
which include timestamps of two photos.
The obvious response? They will start sending ONE timestamped photo.
I got a ticket from one of those things 2 weeks ago; when it flashed, I looked down. I was doing 48. I've checked my speedometer using a GPS, and it's accurage. They aren't supposed to take a picture until 10 miles over the limit (the limit there is 40, so it shouldn't have taken a picture until 50). The ticket that came in the mail said I was doing 52.
I talked to a lawyer, and was told to just pay the bill, less trouble and less expensive in the long run.. so, that was $218.
The real kicker on the ticket was that each offense must be reviewed by a real cop with a badge number. The cop's name? Officer Dollar.
Bastards.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
Cities and counties are responsible for automated ticketing. Not the police. Don't be an idiot next time.
Om, nomnomnom...
There have been studies that show a huge increase in collision, especially rear-end collisions at intersection cameras.
There have been many scandals with towns setting their yellow lights to have durations significantly below the correct, and often legally required minimum times.
There is a huge trend for these to be cash cows for local governments by means of fraud. And they wonder why people hate them.
Looks like this guy has identified a town where the cameras are 'miscalibrated' and are raking in tons of dough from everyone that isn't as smart as this guy.
The real travesty here is that the judge let other tickets issued by the same devices stand after it was demonstrated to him that they are not reliable. If there is reason to believe that the device was wrong in one case, there is reason to believe that it was wrong in every case.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I think you're right.
The best way to fight that is to pass a law requiring two pictures AND those photos must include distance markers and time stamps (to 0.01 second) so that people charged can challenge incorrect reading.
Speeding cameras are okay. But they need to be able to demonstrate their accuracy in each and every instance.
One of the fundamentals of behavior modification is immediacy. A negative stimulus must be provided immediately after the offending behavior for the subject to learn. I received one of these tickets in the mail 2 months later from when I was traveling in another state. I don't even remember driving in that area as I was driving through several states at the time. So, there is no way this is going to change my behavior to make me stop speeding or increase safety.
"In Prince George’s County, cameras are operated entirely by municipalities, which can set them up within half-mile school zones. The devices are installed by vendors that typically receive about 40 percent of the payout on each ticket, with the rest going to local, county and state government."
How could anyone have thought that this was a good idea? If the only thing the private corps are doing is the installation, why are they getting 40% of all future proceeds? If the private corps are doing the on-going process of operating and maintaining the cameras, then you just incentivized them to do whatever causes more tickets to be mailed out.
My guess is that it's the later, and the local municipalities are more than happy to incentivize the private corps to break the law, since they're getting 60% cuts. Then, when scandals like this one break out, they wash their hands of the matter and say we didn't know what was happening, it was that corrupt private contractor.
Jezza would really get a kick out of this... he hates those too (as most of us do!)
From the article:
Optotraffic representatives said the photos are not intended to capture the actual act of speeding, and are taken nearly 50 feet down the road from sensors as a way to prove the vehicle was on the road.
How does proving that a car was on the road prove that it was speeding?
A lawyer with some spare cash can rent an instrumented "bait car" with certified-instruments that will be admissible in court and prove once and for all that the cameras lie, then sue the city on behalf of all who were convicted or who plead guilty under what amounts to duress.
The city can then sue the vendor for the 40% cut it paid back.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm at work, so I can't look it up, but do a google/youtube search on "atlanta speed limit 55" or something like that.
TL;DR: Some college kids decided to go the speed limit on Atlanta's 295 loop, which is posted at 55mph, but traffic travels around 70+ mph. They got five cars and blocked all lanes, and went 55 mph. The video editing is atrocious, but the point is very good.
The government intentionally posts low speed limits so everyone is guilty. Once everyone is guilty, they are free to pull over anyone, at any time, for any reason, and cite "speeding" as the reason.
From TFA, the cameras measure the car's speed 50 feet from the intersection, not AT the intersection.
So the 2 time stamped photos show the speed he was going at the intersection, which wasn't above the speed limit, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't speeding before that.
The real kicker on the ticket was that each offense must be reviewed by a real cop with a badge number.
Yeah, and those mortgages the banks are trying to foreclose on are supposed be reviewed by a bank loan officer.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Run the numbers. 2.9 million, City only gets 60 percent of the revenue. so you're looking at about $5,000,000 in fines per year in a town of 2,600. Almost $2,000 per resident per year in fines. Obviously milking people driving through town to finance their city.
These things are nothing more but cash registers for the city's coffers.
Here's how it works:
1. cameras are bought and put in school zones, poor visibility areas under much applause. It turns out they don't make any money.
2. cameras are moved over to 2-lane (each way) roads with a higher speed limit, they make some money but not as expected (*)
3. speed limit on said road is significantly reduced, with some bogus reason ("environment", "noise complaints", etc.)
4. profit!
(*) Ever wonder what's being talked about when the councillors go on "study trips" to other municipalities? How they can find alternate revenue streams, that's what.
Cleanup on Optotraffic in aisle 2! Cleanup on Optotraffic in aisle 2!
Seriously, if this isn't a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen, I don't know what is.
please provide references, really...
I tried this while carrying a survey grade GPS (the sort that the US Army Corps of Engineers uses to make maps in the first place, if the DGPS beacons are in place it's accurate within half an inch) and I still got "You could have messed with the logs, we'd rather believe the speed camera". I answered that it was unscientific and was told that law and science work by different principles. IANAL, but I am a surveyor.
Here in the UK we have many "safety" cameras - what bullshit. Anyway, I have been "caught" on these several times and never been successfully prosecuted. The real truth seems to be that the state relies upon you not fighting them.
One I got was a gattso type camera. The first thing to do is request the photos - you have to ask. You will receive a grainy b&w photo - this is not the one they use to prosecute you. Ask again and you get glorious technicolor. In my case the ruler markings on the road weren't visible because the road was sloped and wet. Magistrate laughed them out of court.
Another was on the motorway (interstate/freeway/autobahn). Here they had been doing or were planning to do some works. Part of this involved installing a couple of speed cameras. Even though no lanes were closed the cameras were active. I am very observant and saw no signs in the approach to the cameras. Imagine my surprise when the familiar "flash, flash" appeared in the rear view. They then sent a court summons because according to their fail tech I was doing 85mph in a 50mph zone. I went full matrix on them and prepared for the fight (a solicitor will help here). The resulting case went on for just over two years. It turns out that the "safety" camera schemes are border line illegal and require a metric shit-ton of perfect paperwork. The court system is full of incompetent fucks. These are the people who will prosecuting your case. Every time we (my brief and I) went to court we would request documents that we had asked for months prior to the hearing. Quelle surprise! They were unable to produce them. Cue angry magistrates and more adjournments. Eventually - after 1 1/2 years - they appointed a serious prosecutor to exact my persecution. The big day came and the "super" prosecutor was busy dealing with another case, although in the same court building. While we waited I got to see lots speeding cases judged and sentenced. One of the incompetent fucks would stand there and read from a pile of forms that humble subjects had submitted to her majesties court begging for mercy. They were all dealt with in the same way - instant license points, instant fines and some nefarious surcharge called a "victims fee". This was applied universally. Hours later the prosecutor arrived and we used the same tactic as with the fucks - same result - and that bitch of a prosecutor got angry. This did not go over well with the magistrates and we got our final adjournment. Weeks later - on Valentines Day no less - we got a fax. Turns out they gave up - i get costs.
So if you don't want to pay a "victims fee" then stop being one and stand up for yourself. Anyone can do it.
Better solution: 2 small electromagnets and some fishing rods with fine wire for line.
Most of these that are permanently installed don't use radar or lidar- they
use magnetic sensors in the road.
Therefore-
1) cast 1 magnet onto sensor #1, the other onto sensor #2.
2) Proceed to have the cameras take pictures of everything, everybody, and, nothing.
3) Profit! by offering to get people out of their tickets for $50. You'd have to get every activation record from the camera and show that it would activate on cars that were clearly not speeding, and on birds, and on nothing. But once the research was done you could rake in the dough.
What you failed to do was videotape the process and show the GPS unit showing yourself going under the speed limit a few dozen times and getting flagged anyway.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
good use of the iphones new location tracker.
So the camera company gets about $16 for every ticket and the municipality gets the rest. The ticket typically carries no points to the license, so people are encouraged to simply pay the fine. Cha-ching!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"Mr. Foreman said he is awaiting trial on about 40 more tickets, all of which he called 'bogus.'"
So what I'm taking from this story is that this guy got over 40 tickets in the mail, *none* of them actually encouraging him to slow the frak down. Sure, he talked himself out of a few.... But I'm curious what a judge would do to the rest. How many does it take for a suspended license? 10ish? I'd sue the judge if he allowed that man to stay on the road after that for endangering my safety.
I got one of these automated tickets last year in Coral Gables for running a red. I was doing maybe 45, the ticket I received said my speed was 88.
Back in a previous lifetime I was associated with a law enforcement agency. In those days you'd park & set up the radar, then check the radar calibration using a tuning fork & write in your notebook that the calibration checked. If the calibration didn't check, you didn't use the gun & turned it in back at the office. Immediately after writing a ticket you'd again check the calibration and note that it checked ok.
I just wonder how often these units are calibrated, or even checked.
Quote: installed by vendors that typically receive about 40 percent of the payout on each ticket
Quote: $2.9M in revenue
If I were a vendor I would be ticketing everybody that came through as well - 1 cool million per year just for a 1 time investment installing $100,000 worth of camera's and metal on top of the money the government already paid to get them built and installed. Even if half of them go through court unsuccessful you got a nice racket going on.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Why not just do some trivial signal processing on multiple HS camera photos to figure out speed?
Then you wouldn't need to deal with all of the laser measurement problems..
Oh right...that would be too easy and less false alarms means less revenue for everyone involved.
The highlighted word here should be "expected."
If the time between the two timestamp is short enoguh and you saw the radar, you can brutally brake and all you get is the average speed between the two photo , not the instantaneous speed at the moment the first photo was done. Although I will be the first to admit 1/3 of a second would be a bit too short, unless somebody saw the flash/radar station a bit before.
As well as the other replies you've already gotten, there's another factor here. When you're accused of a crime in a court of law, it has to be SPECIFIC. You're never issued a citation simply for "speeding", right? The officer puts down a specific speed. So the issue is; are you or aren't you guilty of the specific crime you're being accused of (which is driving X number of miles per hour in a Y speed limit zone).
It just so happens that when it comes to defining specific crimes involving theft, they're only concerned if the amount exceeds specific dollar limit thresholds or not. (EG. A crime involving theft of goods or money valued at under $500 might be a "misdemeanor" while anything over $500 is a "felony" offense. They'd never charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at $239.95." They'd charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at under $500.") So there, you'd only care if you felt they wrongfully pegged the price of your theft too high, and you'd have a perfectly valid reason to argue that in court if you had evidence that they did.
The problem with going after speeders is that we're faced with a confluence of public safety and outright greed. What we've got is a money-making machine and the justification to keep it operating.
The problem I've observed with speed cameras is that they do their job too well once drivers have gotten used to them. I've been in Asia where they have them installed and everyone does the limit. And it's frustrating to experience, everyone plodding along at 60mph. But if everyone is obeying the limit it means no revenue for the locality. In fact, they're probably operating at a loss since they've got to run and maintain those cameras.
How do they address the problem? By doing what we're reading about here. They start tampering with the system in a way that it will catch more drivers. And because there's photographic evidence, valid or not, people are less likely to fight.
But I'm convinced that this is one of the reasons why speed cameras haven't been implemented in my state. That and very likely police unions who would lose a lot of work as a result of these cameras.
Either way it's nonsense. Speeding has been turned into this bogeyman. Any time there's an accident speeding is indicated as a contributing factor. Hell, I saw a news report this morning where a truck ran a red light and got into an accident and an officer on the scene actually claimed that speed was a factor. No, speed was not a factor, going through the red was.
But that's how it goes and so people look at the statistics and see speeding as the biggest cause of accidents, by far. This is not to discount the danger of excessive speeding, but certainly it's not the massive problems it's made out to seem.
There's another factor here, and that's enforcement. It's far, far easier to catch people for speeding than anything else. So the authorities go after the low-hanging fruit. A couple of weeks ago state police set up a new trap on this stretch of highway. I've traveled this road for years and have never seen a problem here. But there they are, predictably located at the bottom of this relatively steep hill. So this cop decides to pull out into the midst of fairly heavy traffic, causing some panicked braking. This asshole's antics were a much greater danger to other drivers than the speeding driver, a driver who while traveling above the limit wasn't moving at a speed anyone would consider unsafe.
I don't see how these corrupt little towns are different from the African pirates robbing travelers. The Somalis should post some floating speed limits signs (1 mph limit - for safety of course) on the ocean, and put on uniforms - everybody in the water is guilty. Instant legal robbery like we do here in the former United States.
Our govts are so corrupt they've made the police into petty extortion collectors.
"The devices are installed by vendors that typically receive about 40 percent of the payout on each ticket, with the rest going to local, county and state government."
Honestly? Why don't we let cops get to keep 40% of the revenue collected from the tickets that they write? Oh yeah, because that would be a motivation for them to exaggerate or write false tickets just to get a larger cut.
I seem to recall a recent political corruption matter there. Shocking that they are misusing speed cameras to generate revenue.
Many people observing the speed limit feel some sort of duty to be vigilantes and 1) hog the left lane (the "passing" lane in some states, sadly not everywhere) and never move over on account that no one can go faster than the posted speed anyway and 2) end up driving side-to-side with similar-minded people because everyone else has already gone past, therefore creating the sort of highway cork purposefully demonstrated in the video.
Speed limits cause this sort of blocks because it only takes a couple cars observing the exact speed limit to prevent the natural flow of traffic (the speed of more than 80% of drivers). Some go as far as alternately pressing the brakes and accelerator so as to not exceed the speed even by 1 mile.
It takes a good amount of self-righteousness coupled with good dose of lack of consideration for others to just sit there and think that because you are driving at the legal limit you do not need to move aside to let faster drivers pass you. Sadly, it does not take many to ruin it for everyone. I drive the speed limit most of the time and I still move aside if others drive faster, to make passing me a non-event for everyone involved.
And this is a prime example of why. With a financial incentive to write tickets, that will take precedence over what the intent of traffic laws -- to manage public safety.
The problem with speed cameras and red light cameras is that the revenue generated from them (at least in an area where most of the travelers are local, regular commuters) is a short-term bump. As people are fined for their actions, they adjust their behavior accordingly. Unfortunately, even though law enforcement is intended to alter people's behavior to NOT break laws, municipalities base their budgets on the bet that people will continue speeding or running red lights regardless of enforcement.
This is where the problem comes in. When the inevitable shortfall in revenue arises, they begin to look for other areas to exploit. As people alter their behavior, more behaviors will be criminalized. At least a half-dozen cities have been busted for altering their yellow light times. Why? To make more people guilty of running red lights, so they can boost the money they make from the fines.
So it would not surprise me if these cameras were inaccurate, if not rigged to deliver false results. Desperate times beget desperate measures.
But if they were driving at the speed limit - be that 55mph or 70mph - then they wouldn't be blocking anything.
Think for a moment what blocking would mean; somebody behind that row who is going faster than they are. If they are going the speed limit, then that means whoever they're blocking is actually going over the speed limit.
A row of cars driving at the speed limit thus wouldn't be a problem.
( Short of emergency services, in case they can't drive on the shoulder or there is no shoulder to drive on. )
However, it does become a problem if certain traffic flows are expected to pass a certain stretches of the road in a certain amount of time. Traffic light timing might depend on traffic making it from A to B in 30 seconds, for example, so that by the time the last of that traffic hits point B, it opens traffic at point A up again.
But if for that 30 seconds the cars should be going around 70mph, and the speed limit is actually 55mph.. well then the traffic will take 42 seconds to get from A to B. But at 30 seconds the traffic is opened at point A again, while point B gets closed - so some traffic doesn't make it through. Slowly but surely, traffic on that stretch of road builds up, until it's completely gridlocked.
Which, of course, is exactly how too-low speed limits should be combated. Driving fast anyway and getting a ticket just means you're feeding somebody's revenue. Driving the speed limit and getting traffic locked up, requiring the local government to go send out cops to figure out why traffic is locked up, direct traffic, and listen to the talking heads on the local channels complaining of all the time and money lost by businesses due to the locked up traffic... that will get them to re-think those speed limits.
Around here auto shops sell a small piece of metal that looks like a shark fin with a base. You attach the base to the middle of your license plate so that the fin sticks out towards the read and the fin is running up and down. From the back you can read the plate number fine, but from a side angle like a photo camera would have you get half of the plate reflected where the other half should be.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
How did he calculate his speed? What were the reference points? What a useless article.
As well as the other replies you've already gotten, there's another factor here. When you're accused of a crime in a court of law, it has to be SPECIFIC. You're never issued a citation simply for "speeding", right? The officer puts down a specific speed. So the issue is; are you or aren't you guilty of the specific crime you're being accused of (which is driving X number of miles per hour in a Y speed limit zone).
No. In all the jurisdictions of the US I'm familiar with, the crimes are not exclusive, they are inclusive. If you are charged with 60 is a 35, for example, that also includes 50 in a 35 and even 40 in a 35. You can't get off by claiming that you were "only going 55" in that 35 zone, because that's an admission of guilt to a violation and your charge can be modified to "55 in a 35" on the spot and you'll pay that fine. They won't charge you with "speeding", but they will charge you with "excessive speed: X in a Y", and the fact that X might be too high or too low isn't a remedy.
They'd never charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at $239.95." They'd charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at under $500.")
You're mistaking charges with specifications. The charge would be "misdemeanor larceny from a vehicle". The specifics would be "theft of a car stereo valued at less than X$ from ..."
The companies that make these should be sued out of existence. People who work for these companies or own them should be shunned and insulted, and people should refuse to do business with them. Those in government responsible for authorizing and installing these cameras should be treated the same way. If you want to be free, you must be constantly vigilant.
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First off, I'm an elected official in PG County, Maryland, and if I hadn't had a long day at work, I'd be at the PGCMA (Prince George's County Municipal Association) tonight, instead of reading slashdot.
I haven't seen Forest Height's budget, so I don't know exactly how they have it in their budget; honestly, if they use the same auditors we do, we'd likely have to show 100% of the tickets as revenue, and 40% of the tickets as expense (to pay the company, assuming the rate in the article was accurate, which I don't know that it is, as it's my understanding that the practice isn't allowed under Maryland law), so the percentage might actually be effectively more than 50%, if you don't count the expenses because of the ticket systems. ($4.64M, so 62.5%) Also, you often break your budget down to operational vs. capital expense, so if you just look at it in terms of operational, it could be construed as even worse.
That being said, municipalities in Maryland and PG County have been screwed over in recent years. We're required to pass our budgets so they'll take effect by July 1st ... and as you need enough time for an ordinance to take effect, it means we're passing budgets in early June ... so when the state decides to cut state police aid and highway user fees in August, after we've passed our budgets, we got screwed. It was too late to raise real estate or property taxes, and we have limited ways to raise revenue other than that ... it's basically tickets, parking meters, and whatever fees we might charge for services (in my town, parking permits for the lot we own, and that's it; oh ... and speeding tickets on county or state roads? most of the money goes to who owns the road, not to who writes the ticket)
So, as we had no way to make up the shortfall, the state legislature last year gave municipalities the right to put up speed cameras near schools ... which didn't help my town, as we don't have any schools in our limits, but it's looking like some towns have gone hog-wild with the program. It would've been their first year, and so they had would've had to make a guess as to how much money they'd make (likely based on 'estimates' from the 'vendor'). And notice it said 'expected $2.9 million' ... it doesn't say how much they've actually made over 3/4 of the way through the fiscal year, which I'm guessing is *much* lower.
Also, specifically regarding Forest Heights -- they've just elected what I believe was a complete replacement of their board; they've been having problems for years. Any traffic cameras would've been installed under the previous commission.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I'm lucky enough to live in a state where traffic cameras have been ruled (state) unconstitutional on the grounds that the cameras generally aren't good enough to show who was driving the car, just the car itself. So the person receiving the ticket may not be the person that actually violated the law.
I think the real problem resides there : how the hell could policy maker let this kind of deal go through ?
40% revenue from other people's offense kind of incitates the camera provider to artificially lower the speed limit in the machine. Well, let's "call a cat a cat" : it downright incitates fraud from the device provider in reporting false speed tickets, cause let's be honest, this is in all likelyhood what just happened there that was exposed.
I just don't get how this was not set as a "pay for the device and maintenance" contract. I mean, the fishy smell is just so obvious, really. How can people let this pass ?
Cameras are good, but under these terms are just bound to be abused.
30 seconds with a scanner and photo editor.
15 seconds with a calculator.
When I left San Diego in 2001 they were beating the traffic light camera's left and right. Anyone who actually fought the ticket for presumably running a red light won. At least back then. I haven't kept up with it since then.
"While Judge O’Brien let Mr. Foreman off the hook, he ruled against several other accused speeders who based their not-guilty pleas largely on gut feelings that the cameras were flawed, while reducing the fines for some who pleaded guilty."
Three judges heard evidence that compelled them to doubt the accuracy of the camera, and they are on record as being convinced. Then they turn around and rule another person guilty of the same issue, from the same camera, because they didn't do some math and graphics editing. Guilty, until you prove yourself innocent.
There is some catch phrase that Penn & Teller use here, but I can't remember what it is after smacking my forehead so hard.
Actually, you are. You are accused of "exceeding the posted speed limit" or a violation of such and such law number. The speed written is simply part of the evidence that the prosecution believes suggests you are guilty of the violation. Evidence doesn't need to be exact to be considered valid. Beyond a reasonable doubt, or preponderance of the evidence, depending. If an officer paced or clocked you at 100 in a 55, and you smugly announce that you were only doing 60, you just admitted guilt of exceeding the posted speed limit.