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Baltimore Issued Speed Camera Ticket To Motionless Car
SternisheFan sends this story from the Baltimore Sun:
"The Baltimore City speed camera ticket alleged that the four-door Mazda wagon was going 38 miles per hour in a 25-mph zone — and that owner Daniel Doty owed $40 for the infraction. But the Mazda wasn't speeding. It wasn't even moving. The two photos printed on the citation as evidence of speeding show the car was idling at a red light with its brake lights illuminated. A three-second video clip also offered as evidence shows the car motionless, as traffic flows by on a cross street. Since the articles' publication, several lawmakers have called for changes to the state law that governs the way the city and other jurisdictions operate speed camera programs. Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday that state law bars contractors from being paid based on the number of citations issued or paid —an approach used by Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County and elsewhere. 'The law says you're not supposed to charge by volume. I don't think we should charge by volume,' O'Malley said. "If any county is, they need to change their program.'"
In my own area, a Judge has ruled they are not legal.
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
This happens regularly in the UK too, often with slightly unusually shaped vehicles like flat bed trucks. Sometimes the police paint the road markings used to verify the amount of movement between two sequential photos the wrong distance apart as well (happened near me).
Best thing to do is record your journeys with GPS so you can always prove you were not speeding. In fact all you really need to do is record one journey and then just alter the dates on the log for whenever you need it. UK courts have consistently taken GPS data over speed camera images/radar data.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The cop who signed off on this ticket is obviously not doing his job. This should at least be fraud, if not something more serious. Of course, there's no chance of the thug with a badge getting any sort of charges laid against him. There is no justice in the US.
Not fraud. Perjury. The cop is basically swearing that he witnessed the accused committing the act of speeding, and it is quite obvious that he did not. He lied to the court, in a round about way.
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
From the article: " The city's speed camera contractor, Xerox State and Local Solutions, says each potential citation goes through two layers of review to weed out any that have a deficiency, such as an illegible license plate. Then a Baltimore police officer must review the citation before approving it for issuance to the vehicle owner. Each citation says the officer swears or affirms that the car was going at least 12 mph over the speed limit "based on inspection of the recorded images." The officer's signature is also printed."
Did you ever see how they "sign" the citations? They are printed signatures in low dpi meaning noone really reviews them on a case by case basis.
I got a ticket once and tried to dispute it based on the fake signature but the judge was as crooked as the cop who showed up in court because he admitted the case even though the fake printed signature should have invalidated the complaint to begin with.
Someone high up in position of authority is filling up their pockets and the pockets of their cronies with money from those shotgun-approach speeding tickets.
Meanwhile, those freeway speed cameras are gone as they were ruled illegal but I did not see a dime back and I still had to deal with my insurance rates going up because of the points.
Well, last year we had a dead cop signing them! (I am from Baltimore.) http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110215/10424713107/dead-baltimore-cop-signed-certified-red-light-camera-tickets.shtml Not sure if we can fire him.