Red-light tickets pile up

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | May 30, 2010 | Matt Lakin

[don-o]

Sherry D. Matthews swears she stops at every red light. The cameras say different.

They've disagreed 41 times since March of last year, according to Knoxville City Court records - sometimes as often as five times in a month. Matthews, who lives in West Knoxville, hadn't paid a single ticket as of last week.

[bobjam]

“There was a story here last week about a lawyer who subpoenaed the red light camera to testify against her client.”

A publicity stunt on the part of the lawyer. The fact is that we’ve been photo enforcing toll booths for years. You don’t see people running toll booths do you? I don’t.

[Mach9]

And if he’d already slowed, and the yellow was short? This ticketing-by-camera stuff is just ridiculous. Stopping on a yellow to avoid crossing an intersection while the light changes would cause more accidents and road-rage than gunning the car at the last minute. The purpose of traffic laws, I thought, is to regulate the volume and speed of vehicles and maximize safety. These new gimmicks lose that notion entirely. They punish for an infraction of the rule rather than for an act that affects traffic-flow or safety.

[Thebaddog]

Was Buckhead involved in the Dan Rather retirement services?

[Uncle Miltie]

I slow down a block before the red-light camera, and roll down my window.

Then I accelerate like mad toward the yellow or red light, slam on the brakes, and flash a “V” for Victory sign as the camera takes my picture while I’m fully stopped before the crosswalk.

If they have stupid programmers, I can’t help it!

[battousai]

The problem I have with the cameras are when they shorten the amber just to make more people get caught, but at the same time there are people like the woman in this story who are just a menace who do need to get ticketed in her case I think some one needs to take a long hard look at her being allowed to drive, before she kills someone.

I just don’t buy that the camera is wrong 41 TIMES! More likely she didn’t notice while putting on her makeup and eating breakfast while catching up on the news from the morning paper all at the same time :P

My dad got busted by one (ya we have em up here in Ontario too) because he was behind an 18 wheeler (doing the limit cause the ticket showed the speed too) and didn’t see that the light had changed since the trailer was blocking the view of the lights, took it to court and they reduced it but wouldn’t quash it completely.

I haven’t noticed them shortening the ambers here at least and all the intersections with cameras have to be marked with signs to notify drivers. Also our cameras don’t focus on the left turn lanes so people caught out in the intersection making the left don’t get flashed either. So its not too bad, not sure they all work like that though.

[Dacula]

Yes, he was the one who discovered that the font could not have been from a typewriter.

Kind of like Obama and his Sestak job offer claim.

How long has it been since you were in this neck of the woods?

[Thebaddog]

I've been here a while. I remember that a fellow named Buckhead was on a roll with that caper as well.

And I think I really was in this site a lot during the Bush Florida recount. I was a witness to an attempted theft and a successful character assassination back then.

[TNdandelion]

I have a friend who got ticketed this way and the snap shot they sent her in the mail shows her car enter the intersection after the light turns red. She may have sped up when it was yellow, but she still was too late.

[Always Independent]

Most of the cameras here in CA also take video. You can even reivew it online.

[Paladin2]

That should make the situation pretty clear, yellow light timing not withstanding.

[Paladin2]

You don’t see people running toll booths do you?

EZ-Pass

[SaraJohnson]

How is she going to prove her innocence? Put her own camera on the post? This is a perfect shake down scheme for the less than honorable state and local governments.

[Always Independent]

My son got caught by one, so I decided to review it online. No matter how much he protested being not guilty, the video provided proof. Now it can be said that a cop might of let him slide being he entered the intersection as the light changed, you would lose in court trying to dispute it.

[Sans-Culotte]

Yes, that is correct. I was on jury duty for a traffic case last year. It was not a red light camera. The cop stopped the guy, and his camera in his car showed the car getting caught on red while in the intersection. We found the guy guilty. The statute says you are guilty if the light turns red while you are in the intersection. The idea that you are clear if it turns red while you are in the intersection is an urban myth; at least it is here in Texas. When you see the light turn yellow, be prepared to stop. Yellow does not mean "speed up to get through the light".

After that case, I am very cautious with traffic lights. If I get rear ended by somebody who tires to speed through on yellow, that guy is going to be in trouble.