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Chicago Red Light Cameras Issue Thousands of Bogus Tickets
mpicpp points out a report in the Chicago Tribune saying that thousands of the city's drivers have been wrongfully ticketed for red light violations because of "faulty equipment, human tinkering, or both." The Tribune's investigation uncovered the bogus tickets by analyzing the data from over 4 million tickets issued in the past seven years.
Cameras that for years generated just a few tickets daily suddenly caught dozens of drivers a day. One camera near the United Center rocketed from generating one ticket per day to 56 per day for a two-week period last summer before mysteriously dropping back to normal. Tickets for so-called rolling right turns on red shot up during some of the most dramatic spikes, suggesting an unannounced change in enforcement. One North Side camera generated only a dozen tickets for rolling rights out of 100 total tickets in the entire second half of 2011. Then, over a 12-day spike, it spewed 563 tickets — 560 of them for rolling rights. Many of the spikes were marked by periods immediately before or after when no tickets were issued — downtimes suggesting human intervention that should have been documented. City officials said they cannot explain the absence of such records.
If it were only as simple as that. Invariably red light cameras lead to officials treating it as a revenue stream and trying various ways to "maximize" that revenue.
6 Cities That Were Caught Shortening Yellow Light Times For Profit
http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
City’s ‘gotcha’ traffic cameras use short yellow lights to increase ticket revenue
http://nypost.com/2012/10/08/citys-gotcha-traffic-cameras-use-short-yellow-lights-to-increase-ticket-revenue-study/
Florida Officials Shortened Yellow-Light Times to Increase Violations
http://archive.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=316418
That depends entirely on the state and municipality.
Most states allow you to turn on red when it is clear, but some don't. A few don't even require you to stop when making a right turn, if the way is clear. Conversely, municipalities in states that allow a turn on red can disallow it by posting notice at the intersection. And finally, a scant few states don't allow turns on red at all and are happy to ticket drivers for doing so.
Typically, people do 99% of their driving locally (or at least in their home state), so they know the relevant law. If not, err on the side of caution.
I doesn't matter if it is a .025% false ticket rate or a 95% false ticket rate. The article is pointing out that there are short-lived undocumented changes in camera behavior indicating either a faulty system as a whole or a direct manipulation of the equipment. Both of these are worthy of investigation, no where in the article (it is possible that I missed it) does it suggest that the system itself is failing and should be thrown away. Merely that it looks to either have a fault or is being abused by authorities.
Personally, I align with the later option.
But by all means continue to completely ignore the article.
It's worse in my town. they shortened the green light on busy cross streets along the main drag with the red light cameras. You are lucky to get two cars through now and if you are waiting for apposing traffic before turning left, you will be in the intersection when your light turns red. They did this right after the cameras went up.
Luckily, soon after the cameras went up, the state and a court said they couldn't be used pending a couple court cases over them. One judge already called it "criminal" in one of the cases and another called it racketeering so I think the state supreme court might not allow them either. The state (Ohio) is not banking on the courts, they are trying to pass legislation that would bar their use unless a cop was at the intersection witnessing the infraction.
One of the very first yellow light studies was conducted over Chillicothe Ohio's cams. I don't know if this is the original or not (I originally remember reading a PDF about it and from another site) but this explains a lot of the problem with short yellows.
http://www.shortyellowlights.c...
As much as I don't like these cameras, when you get a ticket in Chicago, and most of the suburbs I know of around here, you're provided w/ the means to actually watch your car commit the violation. I got a ticket for a rolling right turn on red last summer. You key your license and the citation number into a city website (google it, you'll find it) and you can watch an mpeg4 stream of your car passing through the intersection or turning on red or whatever - with a little curl magic you can download it as a keepsake.
Armed with the video, you should be able to appeal the ticket if you truly didn't commit the offense or if the camera went bonkers and ticketed everyone going through the intersection.
If it's a borderline case, most people don't bother with the hassle of appealing and just pay the fine...miss a day of work and sit in a traffic court for hours (and possibly pay court costs) or pay $100.
My observation around the Chicago area is that people are mostly just butthurt because they're getting ticketed for infractions that were lightly enforced before due to labor / manhour constraints of the police forces.