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.
I have made that point many times - we're surrounded by illegals living their lives as scofflaws and of course that trashes our respect for the law.
Seems these tickets/'points'/YEARLY FINES are money making scams for many states these days.
Here in TX my hubby just found out he's been convicted on ONE PART of a year old ticket (without any notice).
After 'holding' for 30 min. for DPS in Austin, I was basically told in ONE min......
"To Bad a 'mistake' was made, we cannot remove the points & fines you MUST pay for the next 3 years."
“So who do they ticket?
We have four drivers in our family.”
From the article:
When there is no age or gender match in San Diego, police can either discard the ticket or investigate further to see if they can identify who was driving. Sometimes they’ll compare the red light runner’s photo with DMV photos of other people living in the same house, San Diego Police Sgt. Joe Bane said.
“We don’t send it to court unless you match the photo,” Bane said. “They’re very stringent in the courts as far as what can be filed.”
But in Orange County and several others jurisdictions across the state, the court doesn’t require police to verify that the person in the photo is the person ticketed. The vehicle code doesn’t require it, Slater says.
Instead, the ticket packet mailed to each motorist includes a form asking the car’s owner to identify the person who was driving. Giving up the real driver is not required by law, despite what the paperwork implies. The court expects that motorists will appear before a judge if they’re not the person pictured. The judge can decide whether the person standing in the courtroom looks like the person in the photo.
“I would think that if you cannot face and cross examine your accuser, then you cannot be found guilty.”
Think again...
Just like any crime...if there is video evidence of you doing the crime, you can be convicted and expect a penalty.
Except in Orange County.LOL
By the way, the proper speed limit has been proven again and again to be the average of all cars using any stretch of road. It's true. Speed limits are set way too low by governments to raise money through fines, and to avoid liability from bottom feeding lawyers in accident related lawsuits.
Fight back.
It’s all about fund-raising, not public safety. Most of these intersections could be made safer by simply retiming the lights, but the authorities don’t want to end the cash cow.
Don’t pay any ticket that was not served on you personally, or served by certified mail.
(1) If they pass a law, they get credit for caring--nevermind that the law doesn't solve any problem, makes a problem where there wasn't one, or makes an existing problem worse--the morons who make up the rank and file of the Leftist movement think that passing a law and--above all--caring does something good...
(2) A huge number of cumbersome laws makes selective enforcement easy. Leftists LOVE tyrants, and this empowers countless petty and grand tyrants who can enforce the laws arbitrarily--not punishing transgressions by those they like, throwing the book at those they don't like.
Leftists LOVE laws "WITH TEEETH IN THEM!" (viz. draconial laws) that they can enforce selectively!
Why can’t we ignore laws we don’t like?
You think any illegal alien showed up?
You should have imitated them
Next time tell them --Yo hablo Espanol
Safety is not a factor to the red light cam faction. MONEY is!
Holy carp! All that for one red light run?
There is a red light cam near me. I was in a hurry and thought I could scoot through on yellow, but the car in front of me stopped and sat there for several seconds before making a right turn, leaving me in the middle of the intersection when the light turned red. I was pushing it, and I take responsibility for that.
I got a ticket in the mail, accompanied by a photo of my tag, my car, and my face, since I drive a convertible -- no getting around that. It cost me $50.
Few jurisdictions send cops to knock on people's doors for a single delinquent traffic ticket -- they send notice by mail. Rack up enough, and you get additional penalties; rack up more and they get a warrant for failure to appear. Again, it's not a high enough priority for them to send officers to execute the warrant, but it's in the system, and you're nailed the next time you get pulled over or need to renew your license.
My reading is that the problem is that the tickets aren't going into the system. Meaning that if a motorist has 20 unpaid tickets, the cop won't know that when he writes another one. That is a problem.
OC California has made it far more onerous to obey the law than to ignore it when it comes to traffic laws.
This has implications for those willing to see them.
“Holy carp! All that for one red light run?”
That’s right...in Orange county that is...
of course, since they are not enforcing the camera violaters...who cares! LOL
These cameras are DANGEROUS.
They should be illegal.
Cops should be required to pass a donut-consumption test.
If it can’t eat a donut, it can’t write a ticket!
Seriously not only are red light cameras profoundly Big Brotherish, they are dangerous. They’re put in busy intersections on streets with relatively high speed limits.
People zoom along, then *immediately* upon the yellow light, slam on their brakes.
Some legal firm, should specialize in the ensuing accidents, and go after the municipalities.
The systems I've seen also take a shot through the windshield. If it's clearly not you driving, you can go to court and contest the fine -- or you can go to court and sue the person who got the fine for you.
It works the other way around sometimes. I bought my uncle a car so he could take care of my grandmother. It's registered and insured in my name. I failed to get the tag updated in time, and he got pulled over and ticketed. The ticket was in his name, but it was my fault, so I did the menschy thing and paid it.
In most cases, it will take a lot more time, effort and money to fight a ticket than to just pay up. That is the way traffic offenses are stacked -- due process is available, so the courts won't overturn it, but there are so many hurdles that 99% of drivers will simply pay the fine.
A few years ago, I got my first-ever speeding ticket in the city of Atlanta. 56 in a 35. Right at the razor's edge, because 20 mph over the limit gives you two points instead of one, a much bigger fine, and a ding on your insurance.
My plan was to go to traffic court and basically try to strike a plea bargain, pleading to 19 over the limit, to reduce the damage. I consulted a lawyer friend, who said that it would likely work and definitely wouldn't hurt. I could show the judge my driving record with no previous speeding tickets and throw myself on the mercy of the court.
So I went to traffic court. When my case was called, the cop who wrote the ticket wasn't there, so it was dismissed and I walked out scot free. Many, if not most, police departments are too stretched to have officers sitting around waiting to testify for a minor traffic offense.
The cop will show up if it's DUI, more serious offenses like reckless driving, or if there's an accident. That was my observation as I waited for my case to be called.
Innocent until proven guilty, sir.
Not the other way around. - Actually, these types of tickets bother me immensely.
>They ticket the person whose name is on the title no matter who is driving.<
When a business owns the car .........
Here in Stanislaus county (Ca.) they simpy suspend your DL for failure to appear and issue a bench warrant for your arrest. Then if you are pulled over for anything and they check for “wants and warrants” you are promptly arrested and your vehicle impounded. Something so “minor” now becomes a major financial burden.
This is SOO vulnerable to a constitutional challenge.
Something is wrong there - the laws I have read say the you may not enter the intersection AFTER the light turns red. That means that if any part of the vehicle is over the limit line when the light goes red you are ok. You may enter the intersection when the light is yellow and if it turns red while you are in the intersection you did not enter when it was red. A good example is when you are making a left turn, you have entered the intersection but must wait for the traffic to clear, you cannot be ticked for waiting to safely pass through. the right turn you describe is the same example.
Well, this tells me that if EVERYONE ignored their tickets, then the law would be unenforceable.
And that policy changes means that I have to take an entirely different commute route when my car is in the shop. A good stretch of my commute is on an “ez-tag only” bit of road (no cash payment tolls).
Kafka-esque.
Red tape is all of our own “problem”. And we will all be prosecuted for something, someday.
With these revenue tickets from red light cameras, a good chunk of change (upwards of HALF) the money goes to a private company.
It’s good to be the king.
In every other court in this land, it is the other way around. The burden is on the accuser to prove that I AM guilty.
I would welcome all comments on what to do. My son, who drives a vehicle registered to my husband, received a red-light violation ticket for making a right turn on red at the SB Bristol/Segerstrom intersection. He says he didn’t know there were cameras there - I don’t live in the area and don’t know myself. The fine is $365ish - a lot of money! In the first picture you can see his brake lights are on, the second shows him making the right turn, the third his face and the last one the reg. #. The notice says this all happened at 3:29 on Feb. 16 however it looks really dark in the photographs and its very light out at that time and I know it was taken in the afternoon and not the early hours of the morning because he came home that day at 6pm and we went into LA to see a show that evening. What can my husband do to contest this ticket? We can’t afford to pay this extortionate fine? Would welcome any suggestions. Thanks.
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