Posted on 02/10/2008 6:34:59 AM PST by kellynla
Thousands of drivers who ignore their red light camera tickets are receiving an unusual giftfrom Orange County courts:
Their cases disappear.
No fine. No points on their driving records.
Meanwhile, the drivers who face up to their mistake and respond to their tickets face a $346 fine, driving school and sometimes, a spike in their insurance rates.
"It's not a real good message to get out there to the public," Superior Court CEO Alan Slater conceded in an interview.
An Orange County Register investigation has found that police and court workers throughout Orange County rarely complete the time-consuming process required to punish red-light violators. Court records indicate that as many as 25,000 motorists have received a free pass since 2004, although records are so vague that calculating an exact number is impossible.
Most police departments do not follow up on unpaid tickets, the Register found, and the court has failed to provide most departments with the information they need to do so. Some departments said they were unaware they needed to do any follow up work at all.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
ping
So who do they ticket?
We have four drivers in our family.
If you can’t identify the driver who do you ticket, the vehicle?
In TX they will only need the vehicle.
Our insurance policies are on the vehicle, with a list of eligible drivers.
To avoid the rate increase, I guess anyone could take the defensive driving course. (???)
All four of you, plus all your friends.
My son got a speeding ticket in OC and did the defensive driving course. It cost MORE than paying the ticket and he had to attend a class, couldn’t do it online. OC is pretty hard on those who bother to pay up.
They ticket the person whose name is on the title no matter who is driving.
“I think they know that with just a still photo?”
No sir. There are actual VIDEOS of the violations. LOL
Believe me. I KNOW!
I learned the hard way.LOL
But if you get stopped for something else can’t they see that you have outstanding tickets and arrest you on the spot?????
We got tickets for going through the ticket booth at Houston’s Sam Houston Toll Road. It was THEIR error, not ours, we have Easy Tag, and we didn’t have to pay the tickets. But they look it up by license tag, not by driver, and sent the bill to my husband, owner of the car in the photos.
I was glad it was their error. They had changed their system and had not bothered to tell us. You used to be able to put your easy tag on whatever car you were driving. They changed it and it had to be on the car it was first assigned to. Since they did not notify us of that change we did not have to pay the tickets.
Hey..the government ignores the illegals when they break our laws. Why can’t we ignore laws we don’t like??
“But if you get stopped for something else can’t they see that you have outstanding tickets and arrest you on the spot?”
Good question.
It sounds like that the cities are not processing these tickets and hence go unrecorded and don’t show up on your driving record.
I LOVE your idea. I have always wanted a Jaguar. I think I will ignore laws against stealing! THANKS!
Interesting! They have installed a lot of these cameras here in this TINY town of Lake Jackson Texas. I will see what I can find out about them here.
Precisely. The article is revealing. The issues for the writer are the terrible loss of revenue for the municipalities—taxpayers failing to fine themselves to pay for the officials' decision to put Big Brother at the intersections. And then there's envy, on the part of people who dutifully responded to the robots' summonses for fear of getting in worse trouble.
The reporter glosses over the issue of the rules of evidence. This is a hard case they're trying to turn into bad precedent. If the obligation of the prosecution to identify a suspect before charging him with a crime is winked at here, it will be winked at in more serious cases—especially where the suspect has money. It's much easier for municipalities to soak middle-class people trying to stay respectable than it is to go after Mexican gangs in the same jurisdiction who tend to shoot back.
If the OCR is so fascinated with costs to the taxpayers, bear in mind that failing to go after dangerous thugs causes far worse damage to the prosperity of taxpayers than a bunch of questionable tickets going uncollected. Look at the billions it cost New York City's economy to live with street crime under Mayor Dinkins, compared with the wealth that flowed when Giuliani started kicking criminals' butts.
Well, gee, there should be at least one photograph per violation. Do any of these stories ever get edited by an adult?
They are supposed to ticket the owner of the vehicle.
And then it is the responsibility of the owner to prove that they were not driving the vehicle and designate who was.
Of course, if the cities aren’t processing the tickets as they have not been doing...all of this is inconsequential.LOL
I would think that if you cannot face and cross examine your accuser, then you cannot be found guilty.
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