Camera vs, Human enforcement

Joseph, you will get no argument from me. In fact, I sometimes feel like I am alone when I argue for camera enforcement.

That position includes the caveats that with red light cameras, the yellow part of the cycle shouldn’t be shortened and that a civil engineering firm should study effectiveness of each intersection independently. If they find collisions go up with the cameras there, they should find out why and fix it. If they can’t fix it, they should get rid of the cameras at that particular intersection.

The whole idea behind photo enforcement of all kinds is that can save lives. If we install the cameras, there should be standard nationwide standards for justifying reviewing their effectiveness.

The US Constitution, the Texas Constitution, and probably all state constitutions, provide that a defendant in a criminal prosecution has the right to face his accusers or the witnesses against him.

Texas law has a way around this, as presumably do other states. Texas Transportation Code chapter 707 provides for photographic traffic signal enforcement. The statute states that a local government can make an ordinance providing that the registered owner of vehicle photographed committing a violation is liable to the local government for the payment of a civil penalty. No criminal prosecution, no criminal defendant rights.

By changing the label, they change the way the law applies. Someone “liable for the payment of a civil penalty” has no criminal defendant rights. An “unlawful combatant” has no prisoner-of-war rights. A “person of interest” has no criminal suspect rights.

I don’t necessarily oppose this or that method of enforcement, but I do have concerns about increasing government monitoring for no good reason. A police officer can follow you on the roads without a warrant, since roadways are public places. It thereby follows that a police officer can put an electronic tracking device on your car without a warrant, since your car is mostly on roads or other places visible to the public.

It thereby follows that the state can track every car at all times everywhere it goes on public roads. The Texas legislature actually considered a bill that would require the placing of a tracking device on every vehicle. The device would be identified by readers placed near roads. This bill was not passed, but it came up sometime in the last decade. I heard rumors about it, but I looked up the actual text of the bill on the state web site and it actually contained what the rumors said it contained, the tracking of every vehicle registered in this state.

The purported purpose was to make sure that no vehicles were being used on roads without insurance. The cost of enforcing financial responsibility laws is the loss of privacy, the tracking of every vehicle at all times. It isn’t necessarily a violation of rights because your movements on public roads are not private. But it seems to me that it’s unjustifiably intrusive.

I’m sure it could also be used for enforcement. If a car was detected at one location, and an hour later detected 100 miles away, the driver must have been speeding at some point.

It just seems too intrusive, even if it isn’t strictly a violation of rights. I don’t know where to draw the line, so I don’t blame politicians for not knowing where to draw the line, either, but it’s a matter that will need to be figured out.

I have noticed a number of people have posted messages pointing out errors made by the installations. Just as I would believe you need to be able to check the ability of the ticketing officer, you should have the same right to question the machine. As I understand it some places tend to accept the machine without question.

A reasonable opportunity for the driver to dispute the camera evidence is a must IMO.

Forget the prejudice: why should be believe that the office points out the right car? I had my cruise control on at 55 MPH. A policeman came across 2 lanes of traffic and seemed to be pointing at me. I just kept going, since I was going the legal limit. I suppose he could have wanted someone else since there were several cars, but it didn’t look like it. He might also have gotten my plate # since I was driving really slowly after the nut ran across 2 lanes to play tag with me. But I never heard anything.

Dad, rest his soul, lived in MD suburbs of DC. He once got a speed camera ticket from DC. The ticket even included the photo of the car, showing the license plate. Dad was kind of surprised because he had not driven in that part of town for a long time. A closer look at the photo revealed that it was not his car – the licence number was off by one character. The human photo reader either mis-read it or mis-keyed it. Dad was able to fix it with one phone call or letter, which is astounding for DC.

There are towns in MA and NH that have SPEEDING TICKETS as part of their revenue generating budget. Some towns have even gone so far as requiring an increase in speeding tickets every year to help balance the budget. They are allotting x amount of money to be generated by speeding tickets. If they were TRULY for public safety…then shouldn’t they want to DECREASE speeding tickets by decreasing the number of speeders. Most police will give you a 5mph buffer…(AS THEY SHOULD BECAUSE NO SPEEDOMETER IS THAT ACCURATE)…Some of these towns have a 0MPH buffer. So you better drive 5mph BELOW the speed limit to NOT get a ticket.

The point about the machine’s accuracy is one of my gripes too.
in theory ;
They could take any photo of you,
display any speed,
and claim, that is you, pay up.

And so can an officer with a radar gun.
How can I possibly prove/disprove that the speed on the gun’s display is me ?
In actuality it could be saved on the screen from anybody ( palm trees come to mind ), she stops ME and says THAT speed is MY car.

Officers just don’t seem to take well to debate and discussion on the topic.

Judges either.
"prove to me the machine’s accuracy and I’ll pay the ticket"
Yah right.

Because you can challenge the ticket, and then put the officer on the stand and, through questioning, expose the fact that he doesn’t know jack about how his radar works, how to calibrate it, how to verify its target (hint: If there are multiple cars in the area, the radar doesn’t tell him which car it’s tracking), whether or not he followed the law in regards to the operation of his radar, whether or not his radar has had its yearly certification, whether or not, if it was moving-radar, his vehicle’s speedometer has had its yearly check and is “certified calibrated,” and a host of other questions that can expose the flaws in the accuser’s methods. And if the officer doesn’t like it, too bad.

Try doing that with an automated camera.

“Try doing that with an automated camera.”

That’s actually very easy. Cameras take two pictures a few seconds apart. The distance you move divided by the elapsed time between pictures is your speed. Can o’ corn…

I used to drive 45 miles to work down a 4 lane road with many side roads. Speed limit 55mph. I was amazed that if I drove 45mph, I would hit the lights when they were green.I don’t understand traffic engineers.{don’t understand car engineers either}. I also don’t understand intersections that have half the time limit on yellow lights as opposed to other intersections.I don’t like the Big Brother aspect of our lives now, as everything we do is on camera.Privacy is now a thing of the past.I realize a cop can’t be at all intersections at all times, but I would rather a cop witness an idiot tailgating a person who has to make the decision to run a yellow or slam on the brakes,starting a chain reaction in the conga line following the idiot.“I feared for my life, your Honor” It worked for me!

Because you can challenge the ticket, and then put the officer on the stand and, through questioning, expose the fact that he doesn’t know jack about how his radar works, how to calibra

You would think that would work right???

I worked with a guy some 20 years ago who had a PHD from MIT and was one of the leading experts in the WORLD on Radar. He was one of the original designers of the hand held radar guns. Worked on his doctorate at MIT during WWII where the first high frequency radar was invented.

One day he got a speeding ticket…and he knew he wasn’t even close to speeding. Tried to fight it in court…He tried to testify as a EXPERT on Radar…The judge REFUSED to allow him to testify as an expert…saying “Radar is a proven technology and we know how it works and how accurate it is!” If this guy wasn’t allowed to testify as an expert…what chance do you think the rest of us have.

He may not have been allowed to testify at his own trial as an expert because of an inherent lack of objectivity, which would be created if one could be both expert witness and the defendant.

Indeed. And you don’t need to testify anything about radar. Innocent until proven guilty. The state has to prove that their radar was working properly when it was used on you, and they have to prove that the cop knew how to use it properly. The burden of proof is on them.

I know this can work because it’s worked for me in the past. I had a cop give me a ticket for 60 in a 55. I knew I wasn’t speeding. I did a little digging and discovered that the cops hadn’t bothered to have their radar calibrated in over 3 years. I got them to admit that on the stand (and if they hadn’t I’d have produced the evidence and then watched the judge chew the cop for perjury) and the ticket was thrown out.

Will it work every time? No, of course not. I can tell you for one thing that if you get a ticket while passing through Osage, Iowa, and you take it to court, it will be a sham “trial” at which the judge has already determined your guilt before the first word is spoken in court.

But you do get to face your accuser every time, and you get to question the accuser. You can’t do that with a camera.

BTW, regarding the camera taking a picture a few seconds apart: Great. Now prove to me that the camera’s timing is accurate. If it’s off, it could return wildly inaccurate results.

I just thought of something. If you object to getting a ticket because the police were not there at the time, how about the guy who robs a bank, good clear photos of the guy and maybe his car license plate identifies him, but a policeman has not seen him commit the crime?

Actually that is done all the time…Especially in malpractice lawsuits.

As much as I would like to agree, I can’t see treating a traffic citation and a felony with the same standards.

Mr Meehan, I do the speed limit. The case I was refering to that the judge ruled in my favor was a time a backhoe backed into my lane on a curve.It wasn’t a blind curve. No traffic was coming,so I swerved and sped up to avoid the backhoe.I did get a speeding ticket by a motorcycle cop on the other side of the curve, but it was dismissed when the officer testified on my behalf.It is very possible a camera would be at the wrong angle on the curve to capture the whole incident.

“BTW, regarding the camera taking a picture a few seconds apart: Great. Now prove to me that the camera’s timing is accurate. If it’s off, it could return wildly inaccurate results.”

Once again, it’s easy. Use a quartz crystal or other clock chip as the timer and calibrate it every 6 months to one year. The calibration can probably be done remotely if the pictures are delivered remotely. And it doesn’t matter what you (or I) think. Mike’s judge will eat it up, and he’s the guy that matters.

“As much as I would like to agree, I can’t see treating a traffic citation and a felony with the same standards.”

But if you are going more than 20 MPH over the speed limit, you just committed a felony. Is it OK then?