Posted on 04/22/2011 9:28:07 AM PDT by rawhide
Will Foreman has beaten the speed cameras.
Five times and counting before three different judges, the Prince George’s County business owner has used a computer and a calculation to cast reasonable doubt on the reliability of the soulless traffic enforcers.
After a judge threw out two of his tickets Wednesday, Mr. Foreman said he is confident he has exposed systemic inaccuracies in the systems that generate millions of dollars a year for town, city and county governments.
He wasn’t the only one to employ the defense Wednesday. Two other men were found not guilty of speeding offenses before a Hyattsville District judge during the same court session using the same technique.
“You’ve produced an elegant defense and I’m sufficiently doubtful,” Judge Mark T. O’Brien said to William Adams, after hearing evidence that his Subaru was traveling below the 35-mph limit - and not 50 mph as the ticket indicated.
Mr. Foreman, examined dozens of citation photos of his company’s trucks that were issued along a camera-monitored stretch of Indian Head Highway his employees frequently travel.
The camera company, Optotraffic, uses a sensor that detects any vehicle exceeding the speed limit by 12 or more mph, then takes two photos of it for identification purposes. The photos are mailed to violators, along with a $40 ticket.
For each ticket, Mr. Foreman digitally superimposed the two photos - taken 0.363 seconds apart from a stationary point, according to an Optotraffic time stamp - creating a single photo with two images of the vehicle.
Using the vehicle’s length as a frame of reference, Mr. Foreman then measured its distance traveled in the elapsed time, allowing him to calculate the vehicle’s speed. In every case, he said, the vehicle was not traveling fast enough to get a ticket.
So far the judges have agreed.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
No more two photos. Justice served.
Great work! I’d love to see these damn things banned. But the one thing that really got my attention is that a ticket costs 40 bucks? In LA they’re 400 to 500!
LA / California have bigger deficits to finance.
Interesting. The vehicle measurement would have to be very precise and would have to account for the changing aspect angle due to the short timeframe between photos.
Good for him but the state, including judges, will circle the wagons to protect these cash cows.
Justice won’t be served until the Judge, The City Counsel, The City Attorney are behind bars for State Sponsored Extortion. This makes a mockery of Law, and Justice, and is dangerous in the sense that it will foment a public rebellion. That is how you get government functionaries rightfully hung from trees. Because if the Judicial system offers no outlet and recourse then rebellion is all that is left. The Judge let this guy off because he took the time to research and present a defense. That’s because he has 40 of these tickets, at $40 dollars each. Joe bag o’ donuts with his one $40 dollar ticket won’t fight it. So a tyranny is being knowingly perpetrated by this judge, and this city counsel. What remedy is left?
It’s dangerous because only a 2nd Amendment remedy remains.
This is not a threat. This is a warning to government. Anarchy and revolution are so very dangerous. You don’t know when something like this starts where it will go. The best defense for government is good government and responsible remedy.
This just screams for a civil RICO case to be filed.
If you can’t shut down the faulty cameras or the predatory government agencies and apparatchiks that use them to print money by defrauding the public, try going directly to the source and putting the manufacturers out of business.
Increased ticket rates do not alway's go step function to increased collections. Of course outrageous ticket costs just create more clerk of courts jobs, enrich collection agencies, and increase labor and data entry costs at all levels of the DMV and court system.
So it's a balance of what your end game is?
A town which gets half of its revenue from traffic tickets is pretty much the definition of a speed trap.
Now, some attorney needs to file a RICO complaint against the speed camera vendor and the municipalities that use the system, along with a class action lawsuit seeking punitive damages. If the discovery phase there should be some interesting emails about what is happening along with revenue projections and promises to the cities.
I don't like redlight and speedtrap cameras, but if a community puts them in, they have (in my mind) an obligation to make sure that they are fair and not a kangaroo court revenue scheme. If they shorten the yellow light, or the speed is not properly calibrated, then what the city (with the help of the camera company) is doing is fraud and theft.
Companies and government organizations that practice fraud and theft should brought to their knees and destroyed by the courts.
See post #9.
“A town which gets half of its revenue from traffic tickets is pretty much the definition of a speed trap. “
The most disturbing thing about smalls towns that do this is that the residents, are willing participants in this scam. Towns like this should be burned to the ground and the ashes scattered to the four winds to the sweet sound of the lamentations of their women.
Judge ignored all his evidence and ruled in favor of the revenue enhancement.
That’s what I would expect, but still you have to fight it out. To beat that kind of rotten scum-judge you need a good lawyer and an expert, and put some fear of God into the scum-judge. They are usually found to be like most bullies — fearful little men at heart.
That happened to New Rome, Ohio. Well, not the burning it to the ground, but it was disincorporated for being a corrupt little 60 person village with almost a dozen cops running the traffic scam there.
That’s a great story!
But that is ONE town in the entire U.S. A very rare victory. Thousands of towns and entire STATES are engaged in State Sponsored Terrorism. The citizens living in these towns and States are culpable in my opinion. Everyone who sits back and says “if you don’t want a ticket don’t speed” while cops and courts use the thousands of traffic laws to subvert probable cause restrictions. Anybody that sits back and smirks “ha, that will teach em” and get a nice fat boner as they drool with pleasure at seeing somebody pulled over is part of the problem.
The reason we live in a Police State is because voters want it that way.
Or the Texas red light camera companies demanding that yellow lights be shortened because they aren’t getting enough revenue.
I'm not certain if that truck is the vehicle in question, since the article mentions a Subaru. However, that vehicle looks like a full-sized Chevrolet pickup from the late 90s. Maybe later. It's a regular cab with what appears to be an 8-foot bed. This would have been just under 18 feet in length based on data from Edmunds.com.
Since there's no gap between the nose and tail of this 18 foot long truck, there is no way he's doing 50. At 35 MPH, distance traveled would be 18.634 feet in 0.363 seconds. That would be more reasonable based on the photo.
I have your case ready ... I’ve been issuing FOIA requests and getting no replies ..
Here’s the background..
City running stoplight cams under their “city code” (rather than as a state statute violation) to cut the state out of the cashflow. Started about 6 years ago.
City code has major errors and provisions that aren’t being adhered to , including verification of the cams accuracy.
We have the infamously mysterious short yellows that nobody can explain..
Cams are camera only , no radar or laser to get the speed , same issue here with the computer system inferring speed by video frame,,, except as a computer programmer and a photog I have an argument that hasn’t been tried here or anywhere else (AFAIK).
I am in Central Florida ,, I’m ready to cash in ... This town is ARROGANT as all hell and had these cams before the state of Florida OK’d them ,, they will keep them after the state of Florida rescinds their OK .. (House Bill 4087) .. needless to saw 99% of the $262 tickets are for people making a right on red after stopping inches past the white line..
e:mail me directly brian_tracy AT cfl.rr.com
I am dead serious about suing them into the next county.
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