Reasoning

“PLEASE, NEVER EVER opt to pay these Photo Enforced Speeding AND Red Light tickets! You do NOT have to incriminate yourself OR implicate anyone else,” he wrote. “It’s the government’s responsibility to provide evidence that YOU were the person driving, don’t help them in their ‘investigation.’ If you don't know you are truly guilty, you should ALWAYS go to court and fight your tickets, if there is NO VICTIM, there is NO CRIME!” It is the State that says you are guilty and is the prosecutor, not the camera.

It would be interesting to see how the state would respond if everyone zapped by photo radar took a legal stand against the automatic "guilty as charged". I'm not sure whether or not the outcome would be liberating — even though it seems it should.

These cameras are often fraudulent and calculated for you to lose. When it comes to snapping photos of people going through yellow lights. They change the speed of the yellow, making it a shorter light, in order to make money. The company that makes the camera usually does the prosecuting. It's ALL about the money! I also wonder if It is against the law to snap a picture of someone in their vehicle without permission or a warrant?

I'm not a speeder, but what happens if I was just not able to fully stop in the rain, felt (in my opinion) it was unsafe to make a sudden stop or the timing of the lights was changed to faster than I expected? There should also be a standard light setting rather than a trick light that had a shorter setting than the other lights in a series of lights. There is something called Anticipatory Obligation on the part of D.O.T. (The State Dept. of Transportation).

However, it should also be noted that, if you were actually guilty of running the red light that it would be more honorable to own up to a mistake rather than hide behind technicalities. You always have the right to lie and say you were not speeding or ran a red light or not. This would then be a moral issue for you which you have to live with. If you are guilty, then man up and pay your fine. DO NOT RELY ON ANY TECHNICALITY even though it may be an option for your consideration.

Malfunctions:
If you think photo enforcement equipment doesn't affect you because you adhere to traffic laws 100%, think again! There are numerous documented instances of camera malfunctions and program dishonesty that target and burden the innocent. Furthermore, it has been proven that camera operators are blatantly dishonest and will do anything to generate more revenue, including hiding evidence (case in point). If you get an erroneous ticket in the mail, or you are the victim of a dishonest camera operator, you can look forward to some or all of the following:
1. Missing multiple days of work to appear in court, plus gas and other expenses to drive there (some tickets require multiple appearances)

2. Several hundred to a thousand dollars or more for attorney representation if you so choose.

3. Missing a full day to attend traffic school in lieu of paying ticket (plus paying for the ticket)

4. If you lose: paying the fine, court and other added fees, higher insurance rates, possibility of losing your license, etc.

5. Many cities charge extra fees for you to fight your ticket or require you to pay before the hearing

How far do you think your argument will go that the equipment malfunctioned and that you are innocent? How will you prove that the equipment malfunctioned? Will you even remember the details of that day since you weren't expecting a ticket and didn't know you got one until weeks later? Are you going to rely on the honesty of these companies at the risk of points on your license and higher insurance rates?

Traffic Cameras Rife With Bogus Violations, Audit Shows
Jan 30, 2014 ABC News - Article
Excerpts:

At an intersection in Baltimore, video shows a driver clearly stopped, but the unmanned speed camera cited the car, with brake lights on and traffic whizzing in front of it, for going 38 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone.

An evaluation in 2012 by consultant URS Corp. of the camera system run by Xerox State and Local Solutions found an error rate of more than 10 percent, a figure 40-times higher than initial claims, The Sun reported.

Some individual cameras were off by as much as 50 percent.

Salisbury Teachers Question Speed Camera Accuracy
Jan 13, 2014 WBOC.com - Article
Excerpts:

SALISBURY, Md.- When one person complains about a ticket from a speed camera, you might chalk it up to just that; complaining. But when 17 teachers come forward -- teachers whose main priority is their kids' safety -- those complaints might grab your attention. They certainly grabbed ours. Now, the vendor and Wicomico County Sheriff's Office are defending the cameras' efficiency.

"I got a ticket the beginning of last month," explained Michalski's coworker, Laura Becker. "It said I was going 40 miles per hour and I have a mom-mobile, and I just don't think it's possible for me to exit this parking lot and get up to that speed in that short amount of time."

Brekford OK'd speed camera ticket for parked truck
Jan 11, 2014 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

First there was the infamous speed camera ticket that Baltimore issued to a car stopped at a red light.

Now comes evidence that the city's former contractor approved a speeding citation for another vehicle that couldn't possibly have been going too fast — because it was parked.

Trouble persisted during Baltimore speed camera tests, records show
Dec 21, 2013 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

Defective radar. Wrong citation numbers. Error rates as high as 30 percent.

Such problems persisted during months of testing aimed at fixing and restarting Baltimore's speed and red-light camera system, newly released documents show. Test results and other records obtained by The Baltimore Sun provide the first public look at persistent problems that led officials to cut ties last week with the system's contractor.

Into October, the documents show, 10 percent of the mock speed camera tickets were showing errors judged to be within the vendor's control — double the error rate allowed by the city.

TicketBuster: Same vanity plate in two states results in confusing ticket
Dec 12, 2013 WTOP.com - Article
Excerpts:

MCLEAN, Va. - A McLean, Va., driver received a confusing speed camera ticket from D.C. which had his vanity plate listed for a vehicle that didn't belong to him.

The ticket was issued on Oct. 30 to the vehicle for going 36 mph in a 25 mph zone on the 2200 block of K Street NW. Two weeks later, Ed Merlis received a copy of his ticket in the mail. The license plate on the ticket is "ANDARE," the Italian word for go.

"I was surprised to get the ticket. But I was really shocked when I looked at the vehicle and saw it was attached to a blue Toyota hatchback. It was my license plate, but I don't own a blue Toyota. I own a red Alfa Romeo convertible, they're very, very different cars," says Merlis.

Speed camera system flags a parked car
Nov 28, 2013 Chicago Tribune - Article
Excerpts:

On a Friday night in October, Megan Kasten parked her car for five minutes on Augusta Boulevard near Humboldt Park while she picked up a friend to go see a movie.

A month later, Kasten said, she got a warning notice in the mail for speeding past the Northwest Side park at 37 miles per hour, a violation recorded by one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's new speed cameras.

Drivers' videos show Morningside speed-camera problems
Nov 25, 2013 WTOP - Article
Excerpts:

"You see the camera in the video, you'll see my clock on the dashboard, you'll see my speedometer and you'll plainly see it's at 30 miles per hour. You'll also hear WTOP on in the background. And I got the ticket that said 44 miles per hour," says Weathersby. "But the video shows me going 30 miles per hour. How can you dispute it? It's video. It isn't edited; it just shows me going past the camera and it shows my speed on the speedometer."

Photo radar glitch leads to ticket trouble
Oct 17, 2013 Global News - Article
Excerpts:

Calgary’s Kirby Cox was unlucky enough to receive a $287 red light photo radar ticket in the mail. He knew right away that it was a mistake—since he doesn’t own a grey pickup truck.

It turns out an officer misread one letter on the license plate, which is why the ticket was sent to Cox instead of the offending driver. Administrators told him not to worry about the ticket, but two months later he received a conviction notice. Again, they told him not to pay it, but when Cox tried to register his vehicle the ticket still hadn’t been cancelled.

New Orleans woman gets red light ticket, but doesn't own a car
Oct 10, 2013 WWLTV.com - Article
Excerpts:

One New Orleans woman is refusing to pay up after being ticketed for running a red light. Here is the catch: She doesn't even own a car.

Linda Bordelon sold her car in March and no longer owns a vehicle. That is why she was shocked when she opened up her mail to find a traffic camera violation.

"I get this thing in the mail saying that in June 2013 I ran a traffic light, and I said, how can that be?" said Bordelon. "The license plate listed was not the license plate of the car I sold."

Ticket error blocks Md. woman from renewing registration
Sep 26, 2013 WTOP.com - Article
Excerpts:

GAITHERSBURG, Md. - When most pay a speed camera ticket, they expect everything is done and the case is closed. But one Maryland woman found she couldn't re-register a car more than a month after paying her ticket and came to WTOP TicketBuster for help.

Admin: Yet again, it is demonstrated that drivers must go to the media to get problems resolved.

DC red light cameras, not just catching red light runners
Sep 24, 2013 MyFoxDC.com - Article
Excerpts:

WASHINGTON, DC - Red light cameras in the district are raking in millions of dollars, even when drivers don't run a red light. The city has 50 cameras at intersections across DC. Each ticket is $150. One camera at New York Avenue and Fourth Street Northwest caught Barbara Herbert's car going through the intersection, but it's not the way it looks. "I did nothing wrong," she told FOX 5.

She showed FOX 5 the ticket that came in the mail. None of the three pictures shows her actually running a red light. In one, her car is in the left turn lane, stopped.

Juno Beach Driver Gets Red Light Ticket For Car That Isn't His
Sep 17, 2013 Video http://photoradarscam.com/malfunctions.php

Southaven Family Seeing Red
Sep 3, 2013 WREG.com - Article
Excerpts:

A red light camera snapped pictures of a truck rolling through a red light at Shelby Drive and Lamar.

The truck is the same make, but clearly red in color. The Mississippi tag is DB-8699.

Moss says it’s clearly not his mom’s truck.

The digits on the tags are spaced different. His mom’s car tag is DB8-699. The vehicle caught on camera has the digits DB-8699, and also has a handicap decal.

Study Evaluates Options For Increasing Red Light Camera Revenue
Aug 13, 2013 TheNewspaper.com - Article
Excerpts:

Researchers at the University of Tennessee are concerned with the way some cities are using red light cameras. In a study published in the September issue of the journal Transport Policy, Professors Lee D. Han and Christopher R. Cherry explored the relationship between generating revenue and increasing safety in photo enforcement programs.

"A literature survey reveals that most municipalities implementing red light cameras are committed to private red light camera providers with certain revenue goals to financially sustain their red light camera programs," the study found. "Most red light cameras are installed with dual, conflicting purposes, reduce red light running and maximize private (and public) sector revenue from red light running citations. Harmonizing these two purposes is challenging, resulting in substantial backlash against red light cameras."

Alderman: Speed Cameras Will Drive Out Middle Class
Aug 12, 2013 NBC Chicago - Article
Excerpts:

As alderman of the 5th Ward, which covers liberal Hyde Park, it is Leslie Hairston’s role to point out the inherent unfairness of schemes that enrich a mayor’s cronies at the expense of ordinary Chicagoans.

"I guess this is just going to be a city for wealthy people, that’s where we’re headed," Hairston told the Tribune.

Pine Lawn drivers continue fighting speed camera tickets
Aug 9, 2013 Fox2Now.com - Article
Excerpts:

PINE LAWN, MO (KTVI)– More drivers are questioning their speed camera tickets. Another crowd fought their tickets and drivers started to notice strange similarities in their alleged speed.

After hundreds lined up outside of Pine Lawn yesterday, dozens showed up today in Country Club Hills. Then people started wondering how so many people could be clocked at the same speed.

Third Maryland Jurisdiction Forced To Refund Illegal Tickets
Aug 9, 2013 TheNewspaper.com - Article
Excerpts:

Add Charles County to the rapidly growing list of Maryland localities that have been forced to refund illegally issued photo radar citations. On July 31, the sheriff's office announced a speed camera in Waldforf has been operating outside of school zone, in violation of state law.

Small refunds in red-light-camera settlement
Aug 9, 2013 Philly.com - Article
Excerpts:

Some drivers caught by red-light cameras in Cherry Hill, Stratford, and three other municipalities will get small refunds from the cameras' operator under a tentative $2.1 million settlement announced Wednesday.

The money, to be paid by Redflex Traffic Systems of Phoenix, will be divided among about 260,000 drivers and their lawyers.

Australia: Safety Official Seeks Refund Of 987 Speed Camera Tickets
Aug 8, 2013 TheNewspaper.com - Article
Excerpts:

Gordon Lewis, the Road Safety Commissioner in Victoria, Australia, on Thursday recommended 987 vehicle owners receive a refund on speed camera tickets they received in the space of a little more than an hour on the Western Ring Road. A camera trap had been set on June 30 at the Keilor Park Drive Bridge.

Ordinarily, the speed limit at the location is 100km/h (62 MPH), and few violations are issued. On June 28 and June 29 at the same location, for example, only 3 vehicle owners were mailed citations for speeding. The number of tickets issued jumped 32,930 percent on June 30, and after being questioned about the incident on talk radio, Lewis determined to get to the bottom of what happened.

Montgomery County Speed Camera Transforms Toyota into Dodge
Jul 9, 2013 Maryland Drivers Alliance - Article
Excerpts:

A Montgomery County speed camera issued a citation to a vehicle traveling 34mph in a 35mph zone, with photos showing two different cars in the two images.

Maryland City to Void Hundreds of Speed Camera Tickets
Jul 8, 2013 NBC Washington - Article
Excerpts:

The city of Greenbelt, Md., will void hundreds of tickets because of a manufacturer error involving two speed cameras.

The cameras were deemed non-compliant after an investigation.

It was found they had not been properly calibrated after leaving their Swedish manufacturer.

Md. man gets speed camera ticket after driving under the limit
Jul 8, 2013 WTOP - Article
Excerpts:

SILVER SPRING, Md. - A Silver Spring driver has received a letter of apology from Montgomery County police for getting a speed camera ticket after driving 34 in a 35 mph zone.

Garin, who asked us not to reveal his last name, was photographed driving north in the 9000 block of Georgia Avenue on May 27 at 9:37 a.m. However, the second picture on the ticket is taken at 10:01 a.m. and shows a completely different vehicle.

Photo radar erred, but $110 ticket is real
Jun 12, 2013 CBS Local - Article
Excerpts:

NEWARK (KPIX 5) – A Bay Area woman who got caught running a red light beat her traffic ticket, and her case could mean thousands of other drivers may also be due refunds.

A red light camera recently snapped photos of Keisha Dunlevy allegedly blowing a red light in Newark. But last week, Dunlevy went to traffic court, and argued before a court commissioner that cameras at that intersection were never properly noticed to the public in the newspaper.

The Netherlands: Government Investigates Inaccurate Photo Tickets
Jun 24, 2013 TheNewspaper.com - Article
Excerpts:

Innocent motorists are getting tickets in The Netherlands from average speed cameras that are miscalculating the speed of some vehicles by as much as 18 MPH. Last Monday, National Ombudsman Alex Brenninkmeijer announced his office had opened an official investigation into the matter.

Photo radar erred, but $110 ticket is real
May 24, 2013 Medicine Hat News - Article
Excerpts:

I would like to express a very serious concern about Medicine Hat photo radar. At 9 p.m. on May 7, I was sitting in my vehicle at the college, waiting for traffic to go by before I pulled out onto College Avenue. Once it was clear, I pulled out towards the Trans-Canada, and within seconds I saw a flash in my mirror. I was very surprised, but remembered having seen photo radar set up there before, so I glanced down at my speedometer. I was glad to see I had not yet reached 50 km/h, but was curious what that flash was.

A few days later, sure enough, I received a photo radar ticket in my mailbox with a picture of my licence plate and the charge that my recorded speed had been 67 kms in a 50. My fine for this charge is set at $110.

Maryland: Another City Forced To Refund Illegal Photo Tickets
May 16, 2013 TheNewspaper.com - Article
Excerpts:

Hagerstown, Maryland announced Wednesday that it would refund 808 illegally issued speed camera tickets. Brekford Corporation mailed the citations between the end of December and January using three automated ticketing machines that failed to meet the certification requirements of state law.

City Suspends Speed Camera Tickets Amid New Mistakes
Apr 16, 2013 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

Baltimore officials announced Tuesday that they have suspended the city's troubled speed camera program amid fresh reports of erroneous tickets, this time involving a new multimillion-dollar camera network.

The Baltimore Sun found that a recently installed camera on The Alameda has wrongly issued tickets, citing motorists for exceeding a 25 mph limit when the posted limit is 30 mph.

Two red light cameras impacted by software glitch
Mar 4, 2013 WHEC - Article
Excerpts:

If you recently got a ticket for one of them in Rochester, tickets from two intersections are being questioned.

We're talking about Mt. Read boulevard and Driving Park Avenue, along with Mt. Read and Emerson Street. Mayor Tom Richards says the yellow light was timed for three seconds, instead of four.

The Rochester Police Department says it will review tickets before February 19th, the day the light was fixed.

Malware Has Speed Cameras in Moscow All Effed Up
Feb 28, 2013 BetaBeat.com - Article
Excerpts:

How’s that brave new world of connected devices faring so far? It’s going just great if you’re a Russian who drives like a bat out of hell, because some sort of malware infection has got Moscow’s network of speed cameras all screwed up. Welcome to the autobahn, baby!

The report comes from Russia’s Izvestia, via The Register. The city has an extensive system of cameras designed to catch offenders in the act and mail them tickets. It’s supposed to net something like $3.2 million in fines every month, which no doubt buys a whole lot of umbrellas for the meter maids.

Only, the network hasn’t been working properly for the last couple of weeks.

Motorist pushes city to refund erroneous speed camera ticket
Feb 22, 2013 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

For Joe Stumpf, it appears persistence has paid off: The city has promised to refund him the $40 fine he paid after receiving an erroneous speed camera ticket.

It took the city Department of Transportation 10 weeks — during which time Stumpf fired off several emails — but the agency told him Wednesday he could expect a check in the next couple of weeks.

Red light cameras catch wrong man
Feb 18, 2013 WIVB.com - Article
Excerpts:

More than 500 communities across the country are using red light cameras to crack down on violators. Video of a car running a red light in Suffolk County, on Long Island resulted in a traffic citation mailed to Vic Ketch in Niagara Falls.

"I've never been to New York City, and it wasn't my car," Ketch said.

A red light camera caught the car running the light, but it doesn't look anything like Ketch's Toyota.

"Totally different body style, totally different color. This car had dark windows, tinted windows, ours does not," Ketch noted.

New speed cameras won't eliminate errors, radar experts say
Feb 17, 2013 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

Baltimore transportation officials have set high expectations for the city's new speed cameras, telling state lawmakers the devices won't be susceptible to errors that plagued the system over the past three years.

But radar experts say tracking radar isn't necessarily the cure-all it might seem. They predict the new cameras will reduce — but not necessarily eliminate — the kinds of errors that have cast a shadow over the city's automated enforcement system. Those errors, many of which came to light in a Baltimore Sun investigation, have included generating excessively high speed readings and tagging the wrong vehicle as the speeder.

Taxi Driver Beats Faulty Speed Camera In Court
Jan 31, 2013 AOL Autos - Article
Excerpts:

Finding fault with speed cameras has recently been an easy task. Speed cameras installed throughout the city of Baltimore were found to be so inaccurate that officials are scrapping the entire system and spending $450,000 to replace them. One issued a ticket to a driver stopped at a red light. In one small Ohio town, speed cameras issued 20,000 tickets in two weeks.

Turns out, they're a problem beyond America too. A taxi driver in England was fined 60 pounds, the equivalent of $94.61 for driving 50 miles per hour in a 30-mph zone by a speed camera. This week, he fought the ticket and won.

Comparing two images taken by the speed camera, the lawyer for Andrew Constantine proved his speed was only 17.8 mph, according to the Daily Mail. Constantine may have simply paid the ticket and moved on, but he distinctly remembered that ride because he was driving an elderly passenger, and was careful to give her a gentle ride.

French Speed Camera Sends Ticket To Poland
Jan 27, 2013 TheNewspaper.com - Article
Excerpts:

A speed camera in France falsely accused a motorist in Poland of speeding. On December 11, a student in Warsaw named Mariusz was surprised to find a "notice of contravention of the traffic law" mailed to him by the French government. The ticket claimed to have photographed his Peugeot traveling 57 km/h (35 MPH) in a 50 km/h (31 MPH) zone on the Route de Corbeil in Longjumeau, in the southern suburbs of Paris. For allegedly traveling 4 MPH over the limit, the noticed demanded payment of 135 euros (US $182).

Mariusz never left Poland in October and is innocent, but he has no way to fight the ticket...

Defective Baltimore Cameras Passed All Calibration Tests, But Logs Missing
Jan 23, 2013 GlobalTVEdmonton.com - Article
Excerpts:

EDMONTON - A photo radar ticket is something you never want to see in your mail, but what if the ticket you receive isn't even for your car? That's what happened to one Edmonton man, who's now warning other drivers to check their ticket twice.

The licence plate in the photo is partially obscured, but if you put it side by side with Hassen's car, the difference is clear, especially with the lights.

Defective Baltimore Cameras Passed All Calibration Tests, But Logs Missing
Jan 19, 2013 StopBigBrotherMD.com - Article
Excerpts:

Speed Camera Calibration records requested from the City of Baltimore showed that cameras admitted by the city's former contractor to have issued many tickets with faulty speed readings had passed their annual calibration tests with flying colors. However the city was unable to produce log showing that they had performed legally required daily tests on the machines for all days.

At any rate, the three cameras we requested records for passed all annual calibrations performed on them. The annual calibration certificates show that the devices were of the model name 'G1-ATR' and were built by a company called "Mesa Engineering". The certificates state that they were tested by a company called "MRA Digital" according to a "manufacturer specification". This is despite the fact that one of the cameras was the one at 1300 west cold spring lane which Xerox has admitted was issuing erroneous tickets, one located 1700 cold spring lane had issued a ticket to a stationary car, and the third location on Greenspring Ave was one where errors had been credibly reported to us. Xerox has now admitted that some their cameras had a 5% error rate.

Parma man issued Cleveland traffic camera tickets while in a coma
Jan 11, 2013 News Net 5 - Article
Excerpts:

PARMA, Ohio - James Barron was issued two Cleveland traffic camera tickets for doing 49 mph in a 35, but he wasn't behind the wheel when the violations took place. He was in a coma at the Cleveland Clinic battling for his life.

St. Louis Veterans' Day Parade participant gets red-light camera ticket
Jan 11, 2013 KMOV - Article
Excerpts:

ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KMOV.com) -- A South St. Louis County man was furious when he got nailed with a red light camera ticket while lining up for a parade to honor veterans.

Some city speed cameras have 5% error rate, Xerox says
Dec 14, 2012 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

Baltimore's speed camera contractor disclosed Friday that several of the city's automated cameras have been wrongly ticketing roughly one of every 20 passing cars and trucks.

Officials with Xerox State and Local Solutions told a mayoral task force studying the city's program that the five cameras have been idled and are no longer issuing $40 tickets after they found during a recent review that the devices had an error rate of 5.2 percent.

Hundreds Of Tickets On Hold Due To Speed Camera Problems
Dec 14, 2012 CBS Baltimore - Article
Excerpts:

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Hundreds of speeding tickets are now on hold after Baltimore City found several speed cameras with problems leading to improper citations being issued. Rochelle Ritchie has more.

There are five cameras along Cold Spring Lane that the city says snapped photos of cars that may not have been in violation. They are blaming it on environmental issues.

Hundreds of speeding tickets thrown out in Elmwood Place
Dec 13, 2012 WLWT.com - Article
Excerpts:

ELMWOOD PLACE, Ohio — Hundreds of speeding tickets will have to be thrown out thanks to a computer failure in Elmwood Place.

Officials there said a magistrate is throwing out about 300 cases from the docket thanks to the issue.

Village workers said nearly 1,000 tickets have been dismissed during the past two hearings.

City Issued Speed Camera Ticket To Motionless Car
Dec 12, 2012 BaltimoreSun.com - Article
Excerpts:

The Baltimore City speed camera ticket alleged that the four-door Mazda wagon was going 38 miles per hour in a 25-mph zone — and that owner Daniel Doty owed $40 for the infraction.

But the Mazda wasn't speeding.

It wasn't even moving.

The two photos printed on the citation as evidence of speeding show the car was idling at a red light with its brake lights illuminated. A three-second video clip also offered as evidence shows the car motionless, as traffic flows by on a cross street.

Flaws in new speed cameras
Dec 8, 2012 Yahoo News Australia - Article
Excerpts:

The Tasmanian police force's new speed cameras have to be modified, just a week after their unveiling.

The three new camera trailers, described as 'state of the art', have a major flaw; the laser cameras cannot fire effectively through protective glass which filters heat and light.

A year later, ESL has seen no money from red-light cameras
Dec 1, 2012 BND.com - Article
Excerpts:

Councilman Emeka Jackson-Hicks said she has heard numerous complaints about the program from residents that warrant a thorough investigation into the city's contract with the company.

"They are incorrectly processing license plates, putting the wrong state off of license plates onto tickets, putting the wrong license numbers on violations, and the wrong citizens are receiving violations," she said.

City official says speed-camera radar 'not 100% accurate'
Nov. 30, 2012 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

City officials said Friday that they no longer have complete confidence in the accuracy of their speed cameras' radar systems and have instituted a new "reasonableness" test on two cameras known to have issued erroneous tickets.

"We now know we can't just rely on radar being 100 percent accurate," said Frank Murphy, the city's deputy transportation director for operations. "It is incumbent upon us as the operator to make sure what's being issued is accurate."

Vow to challenge 'speeding offences'
Nov 24, 2012 IOL Motoring - Article
Excerpts:

Another faulty speed camera in Randburg has been snapping Joburg motorists, churning out fines and summonses for excessive speeding which could result in "offenders" being imprisoned. This comes barely a month after the Joburg metro cops were forced to cancel thousands of fines issued to motorists travelling in Republic Road because the speed camera was faulty.

Justice Project SA chairman Howard Dembovsky said the camera located on the corner of Bram Fischer and Frere streets had been identified as "producing extraneous readings that simply cannot be true speed measurements". In May, the driver of a Toyota Prado SUV was photographed travelling at 190km/h on a Sunday in the 60km/h zone.

City's lucrative speed camera program dogged by problems
Nov 18, 2012 Baltimore Sun - Article
Excerpts:

Going back to last winter, the truck's owner got three other tickets from the same camera, and in each case the camera's own photos show the citations were wrong. Other truck companies report similar complaints: Same camera, same issue.

According to records obtained and reviewed by The Sun, the city government and its speed camera contractor discussed problems with that camera as far back as February, yet the device continued churning out thousands of speeding tickets.

They can also be inaccurate and the process unfair, The Sun found in an investigation that focused on the city's program but which also analyzed automated speeding tickets issued around the region.

Tickets routinely fail to hold up in court in the city because of glitches in the data, the government's inability to produce evidence, the failure by police to weed out bad citations or obvious instances of motorists being wrongly accused.

Nearly 6,000 tickets have been deemed erroneous by the city because cameras were programmed with the incorrect speed limit or location address, or the equipment malfunctioned, resulting in several hundred thousand dollars in refunds and forgiven fines.

Baltimore has grown increasingly reliant on a private contractor for speeding enforcement, and for months government officials could not say how many tickets had been issued on the city's behalf.

Some motorists arrive in court with the facts clearly on their side. Parkville resident David Smith stood before Copeland to appeal a citation that showed a license plate ending in 'O,' whereas his ends in 'J.' The judge dismissed it, adding, "The court apologizes for the error and the fact you had to come down here this morning."

On another day, Jocelyn Morris of Northeast Baltimore challenged two tickets that claimed she was speeding in the 400 block of Cherry Hill Road and, 26 seconds later, speeding in the 1200 block of the same road. For that to be possible, Morris would have to have been driving more than 100 mph.

It wasn't just that the automated cameras had caught his SUV speeding twice on the same day, or that both citations came from the same stretch of North Charles Street. The tickets had also been logged a mere second apart. And while one had his car clocked at 42 mph, the other said 60 mph.

A number of motorists appeared in court with tickets whose speed-camera photographs showed multiple vehicles — cases that should have been rejected before they were mailed, and which judges said did not show conclusive evidence of guilt.

City officials have voided nearly 6,000 tickets because cameras were programmed with the wrong speed limit, citations incorrectly listed a camera's location or the devices malfunctioned. In all, city officials have had to recall batches of tickets due to errors seven times over three years, forgoing the revenue those tickets would have generated.

Information the city recently gave The Sun included 9,500 citations where the clocked speed was less than 12 mph over the speed limit. City transportation spokeswoman Adrienne Barnes said some were among 6,000 that were voided. The rest were legitimate, she said, but due to an unexplained "error in input," the speed limit appeared in the database as 30 mph instead of 25 mph.

And now, in the case of the camera on eastbound Cold Spring Lane near Poly-Western, there are doubts that an automated citation means a vehicle was actually driving fast enough to merit a ticket.

In August, five city cameras that have produced roughly 110,000 tickets suddenly stopped issuing any at all. One of them, on North Charles Street across from Notre Dame University of Maryland, was among the city's more prolific, yielding nearly a third of the combined total.

Asked to explain, city officials said they pulled the plugs after being challenged about how they define the "school zone" in which cameras are allowed.