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.

Comments

50% of the budget

[suso]

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.

Re:50% of the budget

[suso]

Consider things like paying for public works(plowing, winter damage repair to roads, etc), and other operating expenses; then $6 million is about right if it's a smaller town. Otherwise it could get higher than that.

My "wow" wasn't over the size of the budget, but of the percentage that was paid for by speeding tickets alone. I mean, what if nobody speeds some year, which is what you want anyways, right?

Re:50% of the budget

[Labcoat Samurai]

My "wow" wasn't over the size of the budget, but of the percentage that was paid for by speeding tickets alone. I mean, what if nobody speeds some year, which is what you want anyways, right?

Because speed limits and enforcement are about *safety*, not about *revenue*..... riiight. It's what they've always told me when I get pulled over for speeding. One time, I had even sped up to pass a guy more quickly, because I was being tailgated. Speeding a little bit permitted me to get out of the passing lane and let the unsafe driver pass me, but the cop still told me they were cracking down on speeding to "improve safety". Bullshit.

The obvious response...

[Bobfrankly1]

which include timestamps of two photos.

The obvious response? They will start sending ONE timestamped photo.

Glad someone is challenging this

[jcoy42]

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.

Re:Glad someone is challenging this

[Anonymous Coward]

I got one a few years ago that was bogus. It was the definitely the truck right in front of me, not me but it didn't matter. I tried to fight it but the appeals process was a joke--basically amounting to someone looking at the video and saying you are guilty. They didn't care to hear anything you had to say.

A lawyer advised me to simply ignore it. Don't pay it. It's a civil penalty not a criminal citation so they can't do anything more then send a debt collector after you. Eventually I did get a debt collection notice from an out of state law firm, and again following the original lawyers advice I replied with a letter stating that I believed the debt to be invalid and I asked them to send me proof of the debt in accordance with the Federal Debt Collection Procedure Act. As I understand it when you challenge the validity of a debt it is illegal for them to put a black mark on your credit record if you don't pay and they don't provide proof the debt is valid.

I never heard anything more about it. It's apparently not worth their time to follow up and "prove" the debt.

But the judge let other tickets stand

[Attila Dimedici]

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.

Interesting bit from the article

[manekineko2]

"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.

The best solution: Bait car

[davidwr]

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.

"Speed Limits" are stupid in general

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:"Speed Limits" are stupid in general

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Once laws were published so citizens could read them, governments learned three things --

1) Make them vague, as specific laws are easiest to circumvent
2) Make them plentiful, as you never know when you might need one
3) Make them byzantine, as the government should be the only one who can decide what they really mean

This may seem diabolical, but it is merely the consequence of having to manage a large population of humans. One last rule -- if a law is truly wrong to the point of threatening the stability of the nation, change it and admit culpability but only after everyone who was affected by it has died, including those who enforced it.

Of course, this sounds silly, but then trying to get a third of a billion people to behave sounds silly, too.

Re:camera con?

[Carnildo]

There have been studies that show a huge increase in collision, especially rear-end collisions at intersection cameras.

There's a tradeoff involved with red-light cameras: they increase rear-end collisions, which have a low injury rate, but decrease T-bone collisions, which often result in major injury or death. Total collision rate at the intersection goes up, but the injury and death rate goes down.

Re:and where's heisenberg?

[_0xd0ad]

No, they are saying he was able to decelerate 15 MPH in the ~50 foot distance between where his vehicle was when it was supposedly clocked, and where it was when its photo was snapped.You RTFA.

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. ... “Their speed is not measured by the photos. The speed is measured before the photos are taken.”

Of course, that does bring up the question of why they need 2 photos if they aren't using them to determine the vehicle's speed.

Re:camera con?

[alexo]

Lengthening the time of the amber light decreases accidents without the trade-off.

Re:and where's heisenberg?

[mrchaotica]

Going from 50 mph to 20 mph in 0.363 seconds means he would have had to been decelerating at about 3.7Gs.

Re:Maybe

[shmlco]

So the rich are free to speed as much as they want, only because they can afford to do so?

Re:Maybe

[cayenne8]

Hey, if they just remove the points I might have a bit less of an issue with it. I mean if you can just drive however you want as long as you have the money for the tickets.....

In New Orleans, they did JUST THAT!!

They put up what I thought were stoplight cameras...no problem I stop.

I didn't know they were also speed cameras....and there is a lag time between getting popped, and you receiving your ticket in the mail...a fucking MONTH!!

This was on my route to work..I got 7 of them...lucky it was ONLY 7.

But on the back of each ticket...it says clearly that "this is not a moving violation and will not go on your record".

This is NOTHING but revenue generation.

The nice folks in Jefferson Parish, next to us..voted these damned things out...with they people in Orleans Parish would do the same.

Re:and where's heisenberg?

[Red Flayer]

Just to add some points of comparison:

Normal hard braking is about 0.4 Gs.
Skilled hard braking is around 0.7 Gs.
Around 1 G seems to be the limit for skilled braking with performance tires and a great road surface.