Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Traffic Camera Ticket

Don't acknowledge receipt of that mail.

Yep! Might be a costly bit of satisfaction!

In our town the camera co and police were trying to bypass the court system. They had special
tickets printed that said not to contact the court house on when to appear before the judge.
Most people paid the $400.00 tickets without their day in court. These were completely
illegal tickets. Everyone can have their day in court.

I'm going to break my long time "lurker" status and reply on this subject because I despise this whole computerised system of justice. The whole idea of paying the ticket with no opportunity to rebut the charge flies in the face of "innocent until proven guilty"; it is nothing but a shake down to increase the flow of money into the coffers of the already bloated local gov't. They assume you will just pay the ticket to avoid giving up a day's pay to jump through the hoops and put up with the treatment you'll recieve from the arrogant judges and a court system far more interested in fleecing you than proving guilt or innocence. It's infuriating.

Last year, a house guest drove me to the emergency room for a serious prostate problem. I was admitted and schedled for emergency surgery the following AM. The emergency room staff gave my clothes and personal possesions to my house guest, which included my wallet and car keys. One surgery led to another. Long and short, I was hospitalised for six days while my guest cleaned out my checking account, ran up all my credit cards and ruined my car. She also took five hand guns and about $20,000 in power and hand tools, was involved in two hit and runs and passed a school bus which is why I'm here posting this tale of woe in the first place.

I had to go to court about this ticket. When I appeared in court, after waiting for five hours for my turn (during which I was offred plea after plea to "avoid the hassel of a trial") I presented the court a signed, notorised statement that at the time and date of the ticket I was in the hospital and incapable of having driven the car. Police reports documenting the theft and fraud were presented... I was wasting my time.

The Judge was clearly irritated I was taking up his time. Insisted I show (more) proof I wasn't driving and present him with a written, notorised statement identifying the driver. Couldn't do it, wasn't there to know who was diving, could only prove it wasn't me. Not good enough. That Son of a Bitch kept me on the stand for over a hour while he tried to get me to admit guilt or identify the culprit. The Prosecuter finally request the charge be dropped in the face of the evidence I had presented. The Judge was clearly irritated but let me know in no uncertain terms how lucky I was to be getting off with only court costs. I still haven't paid them but no warrents have been issued. This sucks.

Merry Christmas! Back to lurking.

Elmwood Place, Ohio put in these speedtrap cameras a few years ago. I was going through there twice a day. As soon as I saw them go up, I slowed down to 15-20 MPH in the zone even though the speed limited was 25-35 MPH. When I drove past the cameras, I'd flip them the bird. In rush hour traffic, it probably caused a backup with me driving so slow, but nobody got any tickets while I was coming through.

Fast-forward 2 years: The courts said the cameras were unconstitutional. Not only did Elmwood Place have to remove them, but they' had to reimburse over a quarter-mil in fines.

Removed in my town also. To many people complained to city council.

I’ve had one, sucks

I'm not sure these camera ticket scams can pass constitutional muster. I'm another that got a red light ticket in the mail for a vehicle I had sold before the alleged violation occurred. What a mess to get straightened out.

Most common ones I see are at toll booths with fast pass. Run it without a fast pass, they bill you in the mail.

I didn't. Wasn't my wife, it was my son. All I had to tell them was "sorry, it wasn't me driving." End of story.

I got one of those camera tickets in the mail not too long ago. Lucky for me it was only a warning though.

I actually remembered going through that intersection because I was thinking that's a damn short yellow light , now I know why.

What is the best gauge/shot size or rifle for traffic cameras ?

Mike

Speed cameras and red light cameras are nothing more than a revenue generating scam by the government. Most of the people that travel those roads on a regular basis, know where they are. With the speed cameras, people just slow down for the camera and then speed back up when they're out of range. The only people they catch are unsuspecting drivers. They also have portable cameras that come and go, but they always put them in the same spots and are easy to see. In construction zones on major highways, they have cameras mounted to the front of an SUV and are parked behind the jersey walls that also come and go. They too are easy to pick out.

My wife is famous for telling me to slow down when she's riding with me. Paybacks are hell. Back in 2009, she got two tickets within a week of each other at two different cameras. 60 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. Now, every time she starts ragging on me, I always say, "OK Miss 60 MPH in a 30 zone." That'll shut her up for a while.

We had a case a few years ago where there was one of those SUV mounted cameras in a construction zone on I-95. A guy had parked in an adjacent parking lot near where the SUV was by the interstate. I guess there's no fence there. He slipped through the woods to where the camera was, and with a baseball bat, smashed out all of the windows in the Jeep and then disappeared. The perp was never caught and the guy in the Jeep was uninjured.

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know how it stands up in court. But the ticket is issued to the owner of the vehicle with a picture of the vehicle and then a close up of the tag. As far as I know, if you don't pay it, the state won't renew your tags. The first offense is $30.00, so it's not worth fighting.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention.................I've never got a speed or red light camera ticket. Knock on wood.

That's incorrect. All traffic offenses are committed by the driver, not the owner of the vehicle. It makes sense, right? If you loan your car to someone, you are not responsible for their traffic violations.

They will send you a photo of not only the license plate, but the face of the driver. If it's your face in the photo, most people will just pay the ticket. They can compare the photo to your DL.

If it's not your face in the photo, all you have to do is tell them it's not you. They cannot compel you to disclose the ID of the driver, that's not your responsibility, it's their responsibility. They have to establish that it was you driving, and they can't force you to do their job. Think about it.

I guess every municipality is different when it comes to the traffic cameras and their enforcement. I got a notice in the mail several years ago in an envelope with what looked like an official letter head from my county law enforcement. I thought it was something related to donations to frat order of police. After Schmitt canning 6 or 8 of them I finally opened it to find a ticket and fuzzy Xerox of a picture of a motorcycle on it going through a traffic signal light

It had a web link that you go to to check it out more. I never did open the link. I got several calls from a lawyer firm on the west coast about it. I suggested they send me the info by certified mail and they declined. They finally quit sending them. A county commissioner fought the cameras to no avail, he did run a time slot on TV that showed him set fire to a traffic ticket he had received and dropping it into a waste basket. It prompted our county commission to admit they were unenforceable but hope that folks would still do the right thing......

I understood that the parent corporation for the camera systems was located off shore. That's where the majority of the money goes. The municipality doesn't recoup enough of the money to make enforcement viable. Their main benefit is supposed reduction in accidents.

If they can get away with the traffic cams the next step will be using an automobile GPS to send out anonymous speeding tickets every time your car goes 40 in a 30 speed zone.......

Savor the moment you got one up on the wife, cause she will pay you back in spades.

Actually, in this state, they don't give you a picture of the driver. This is an example of what our tickets look like.



However, I do agree with you, ultimately the person driving the vehicle is at fault.

I found this website that defends the fact that this crap is unconstitutional and unfair. The worst part is that you are guilty until proven innocent.

http://www.mddriversalliance.org/p/arguments-against-speed-cameras.html


Ticket Recipients who challenge citations have their cases heard in an unfair court proceeding commonly known as District Court 'Speed Camera Day', where dozens of defendants have their cases heard in an assembly line manner. Because the burden of proof for speed camera tickets has been lowered below that of a criminal case, below that for even ordinary traffic violations, defendants are essentially 'guilty until proven innocent'. Judges have in some cases made statements to the effect that 'the only acceptable "not guilty" plea was if someone else had been driving their car at the time the ticket was issued, and to present that driver." At Speed Camera Day hearings the government is free to present evidence without supporting witnesses, something which would normally be a violation of the "Rules of Evidence". In some cases defendants are found guilty even when they have proven that required operating procedures were not followed. In many cases even when a defendant requests the "operator" of the camera to appear, in the manner described on the citations, judges have instructed that those operators need not testify, something which goes against several supreme court rulings on the spirit of the "Confrontation Clause" of the US constitution. Not only does this set a horrible legal precedent, and risk finding innocent people guilty, but it gives no incentive for the government agencies which are enforcing the law to obey the law themselves.

LOL!

This is nothing more than the same philosophy that "guns commit crimes".

Cars can't either.

But you'll sure get a ticket for it.