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 that target and burden the innocent. Furthermore, it has been proven that these camera operators are blatantly dishonest and will do anything to generate more revenue. 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:
- Missing a half day to a full day of work to spend in court, plus gas and other expenses to drive there
- Several hundred to a thousand dollars or more for attorney representation if you so choose
- Missing a full day to attend traffic school in lieu of paying ticket (plus paying for the ticket)
- If you lose: paying the fine, higher insurance rates, possibility of losing your license, etc.
Driver of photo-radar van arrested for DUI
by Erin Norris - Sept. 9, 2008 12:35 PM The Arizona Republic - ArticleSCOTTSDALE - Police arrested the driver of a Redflex photo radar van on suspicion of DUI.
Roderick M. Ruffin, 53, had a blood alcohol content over 0.15 on Saturday while he was driving to Tempe to set up the van, police and company officials said. The legal limit is 0.08, and Ruffin's blood alcohol level is considered an extreme DUI.
The motorist, who claimed to be a retired police officer, told dispatchers he saw the van hit the curb twice and almost collide with the vehicle in front of it, police said.
The motorist, in a tape of a 911 call, described the van to a dispatcher.
“On the back of it, it says photo enforcement vehicle on the back and the guy is deuced,” the caller said.
An officer stopped the van near Second Street and Scottsdale Road after he witnessed the van weaving from lane to lane, police said. The officer was able to smell alcohol on Ruffin's breath. Ruffin was asked to perform field sobriety tests, which he failed, police said. Ruffin was then arrested.
Ruffin was driving the van to Tempe at the time, where he would have put it into operation, said Redflex spokeswoman Shoba Vaitheeswaran.
“We stand by our mission to help improve safety on the roads and we have a zero-tolerance policy for drinking and driving,” Vaitheeswaran said.
She also said Ruffin, who had been with the company for one year with no issues, has been terminated.
“Redflex performs background checks on all of its prospective hires and strives to employ only those members of our community who take public safety and public trust seriously,” Vaitheeswaran said in a statement. “The company deeply regrets and apologizes to the community for the incident, and expresses its gratitude to the Scottsdale Police for making the arrest and removing the offending driver from the road.”
Scottsdale contracts with Redflex rival American Traffic Solutions for photo-enforcement services. Both firms are based in Scottsdale.
Meet Silver Spring's Would-Be 'Speed Demons'
by Robert Thomson - Aug 17, 2008 Washington Post - ArticleA little after 4 p.m. June 25, Terence and Helga Brennan turned their sensible subcompact onto Wayne Avenue, heading for home in Silver Spring. Driving up the avenue, they passed a Montgomery County speed enforcement camera, which is supposed to capture images of drivers going more than 10 mph over the 30 mph speed limit. It took their picture.
Terence, 68, and Helga, 76, paid the $40 fine promptly after receiving the citation in the mail. Like many people, they felt it wasn't worth the hassle of contesting the ticket in district court. Like very few, they also thought the county needed the money.
But the Brennans had some questions about their encounter with high-tech law enforcement.
Dear Dr. Gridlock:
Do you know of any technical problems that might cause a speed camera to register the wrong speed? We were supposedly clocked at 100 mph in a 30 mph zone during rush hour on Wayne Avenue between Sligo Creek Parkway and Dale Drive.
The road is winding there, and the traffic light at Wayne and Dale, where we turn left, is just a short way ahead of the cameras. We and our neighbors, who know well that even 40 mph would be dangerous at this stretch, wonder how the camera could come up with such a reading.
This speed would be impossible on the Beltway at the best of times, and we have never in our life driven at this speed. An inquiry to the Automated Traffic Enforcement Unit in Rockville has not been answered.
Helga Brennan
Silver Spring
You read that right. According to an official Montgomery County document, Terence Conway Brennan chose 4:12:45 p.m. on June 25 to pilot his tiny Toyota Echo past a well-known speed camera like he was Kyle Busch approaching the checkered flag in No. 18.
Any machine can break. But before the camera citation was mailed to the Brennans, it was reviewed, certified and signed by a technician with Montgomery's Safe Speed Photo Radar program, just like thousands of other citations sent out since the state-approved pilot program began last year.
So who could say? Maybe if we had a video, rather than a snapshot, we would watch Mr. Brennan, with his bride of 40 years at his side, spin the slicks when the light turned green at Sligo Creek, aim his four-cylinder tin can up the grade, wind around the two big curves in time to hit the century mark after three-tenths of a mile, then, after a tenth more, decelerate in time to make the 90- degree turn at Dale Drive.
"Well, the last thing I remember, doc, I started to swerve . . ." No, as Jan and Dean warned us, you won't come back from Dead Man's Curve.
The notorious Brennans have been the talk of the neighborhood. "We're the Speed Demons," Helga said, with an impish smile.
But she added more firmly: "We don't speed."
Last month, these rebels with a cause mailed a letter to the county's Automated Traffic Enforcement Unit:
"This speed violation left us speechless," they wrote. "A hundred miles per hour during rush hour on Wayne? It never happened. Cannot have happened. Please check if your equipment malfunctioned and other people received similar notices for that day."
They received no reply.
"We fell down on this one," said Lt. Paul Starks, spokesman for the county police. When I asked police to look at the citation, the traffic unit quickly realized what had happened. The Brennans will get their $40 back. But here's the part the couple really cares about:
The traffic unit has checked the Wayne Avenue setup to make sure it's working correctly. And all citations issued there June 25 were reviewed. The Brennans' citation was the only mistake that slipped through, police concluded.
The error was human, Starks said. The reviewers failed to spot the red flag built into the system that is supposed to alert them to such problems.
The speed camera system is designed to catch its own mistakes. When a glitch occurs, the device warns the reviewers by citing a weird speed to get their attention, such as 0 mph or 100 mph. The Brennan's speed should have been the tip-off to toss the ticket, but it got through the review.
Capt. John Damskey, head of the traffic division, will figure out how to improve supervision so this doesn't recur. And police will review their mail procedures to make sure letters such as the Brennans' get answered.
Lawsuit Challenges Photo Radar Citations
Sep. 5, 2008 KPHO Phoenix - ArticlePHOENIX -- A lawsuit could impact thousands of Arizona motorists who have received photo radar tickets.
If successful, motorists who were cited might be able to ignore the tickets, while those who already paid might be able to get their money back, according to a report in the East Valley Tribune.
Legal papers contend the citations issued by Redflex Traffic Systems before the first week in August are illegal, the newspaper reported.
The lawsuit, filed late last month in Maricopa County Superior Court, alleges the company was using radar guns that had not been cleared for use, according to the East Valley Tribune.
Attorney Thomas Moring said his client should be allowed to refuse to pay the photo radar ticket issued by the Town of Paradise Valley in June, the paper said. He was clocked as speeding by a mobile photo radar unit operated for the town by Redflex, the newspaper reported.
Moring said the lawsuit also seeks to block any other state or local government that has issued similar citations from enforcing them, the East Valley Tribune reported.
It encompasses the cities of Paradise Valley, Chandler, Prescott Valley, Tempe and Pinal County and the Department of Public Safety, the paper reported.
Arizona Official Confirms Redflex Falsified Speed Camera Documents
July 9, 2008 TheNewspaper.com - ArticleArizona Secretary of State blasts Redflex notary for falsifying speed camera certification document.
Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer last week confirmed that documents used to convict motorists of speeding in Lafayette, Louisiana contained elements that had been falsified. Brewer revoked the license of Cheryl Krough, notary public for photo enforcement vendor Redflex after concluding that she violated four Arizona laws while purporting to certify a speed camera deployment form for use in official hearings.
"The notary executed a notarial certificate containing a false statement, providing the secretary grounds for a suspension or revocation," wrote Joann Cota, an assistant director with the secretary of state's office. "Therefore, the secretary of state has determined to revoke the notary's commission effective immediately."
At issue was the form used in an attempt to convict motorists Mark and Phil Abshire of speeding on October 10, 2007. Krough signed this document, certifying that van driver Scott Michael Bernard had sworn to the truth of the document's contents in her presence. The secretary of state's office saw no evidence that this ever took place.
"It cannot be determined whether the signer was in the notary's presence when the notary notarized the form," Cota wrote.
Krough, who worked in the Scottsdale, Arizona office for Redflex, was 1400 miles away from the Redflex employee who drove the van that day. The secretary of state's office expressed a certain amount of indignation that in response to an investigation of the matter by the Arizona Attorney General's office, Krough, "wrote a short response to the complaint on a post it note."
This scofflaw attitude at Redflex led to four legal violations, according to Cota. Krough was guilty of ignoring laws requiring the proper keeping of a journal, forbidding the notarization of a document containing blanks and, in general, "failing to faithfully discharge the duties or responsibilities of a notary public."
The Abshires had notified Brewer's office in January about the situation (details) and were thrilled to be vindicated. Krough likely had certified thousands of such forms throughout Lafayette and the rest of the country in violation of the law. The twins called on Lafayette council members to refund citations issued based on the questionable documentation.
"All fines collected by Redflex in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2007 and 2008 that were illegally notarized in Arizona should be voided," Mark Abshire said in an email yesterday. "Restitution by refunding fines to the affected individual citizens of Lafayette, Louisiana should be made immediately as it is unethical and unconscionable to collect fines by violating the laws of due process."
The Abshires were also vindicated in a January hearing where each was found not guilty after arguing the city had not followed the guidelines of its own speed camera ordinance.
Nearly 600 Scottsdale photo tickets tossed due to glitch
Jan. 29, 2008 ABC 15 - ArticleScottsdale has thrown out nearly 600 photo enforcement speeding citations after learning they were triggered by a faulty sensor.
The affected motorists were all traveling between Dec. 7 and Jan. 4 in the eastbound curb lane on Shea Boulevard at 120th Street, which is one of the mid-block surface street speed camera locations.
The city received complaints from motorists about the camera flashing when they were traveling below the activation limit.
The cameras are activated at 11 mph above the speed limit.
A police investigation showed that vendor American Traffic Solutions was issuing 75 percent above the normal number of citations during December from the camera location, Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said.
“Clearly there was an anomaly and we notified ATS,” Clark said. As a result, the city dismissed 589 citations already mailed by Scottsdale City Court, reimbursed 35 motorists who had already paid fines or driver school fees, as well as corrected driving records, city spokesman Pat Dodds wrote in an internal e-mail Monday obtained by the Tribune. The affected drivers are receiving notices that their citations were voided, Dodds wrote. Recorded speeding violations from the curb lane that had not yet been processed into citations were also dismissed. “All were going over the speed limit, but we couldn’t verify the exact speed they were going,” ATS spokesman Josh Weiss said. Weiss said ATS learned of the problem Jan. 4 and shut down the camera site for repair until Jan. 16. Weiss added that the company has since verified that all of the surface street and Loop 101 freeway cameras in Scottsdale are functioning properly. “These sensors are used on thousands of cameras and it’s extremely rare for something like this to happen,” Weiss said. ATS operates both the surface street and freeway cameras in Scottsdale. The Scottsdale-based company, which operates in more than 100 cities including Mesa and Phoenix, took over from previous vendor Redflex Traffic Systems last year. Dodds said a number of years ago, Scottsdale refunded fines after realizing speeding citations issued by a mobile speed van were done using the wrong speed limit.Tennessee: Refunds for Photo Tickets on Short Yellow
Mar. 13, 2008 theNewspaper.com - ArticleChattanooga, Tennessee Judge refunds 176 red light camera tickets issued at illegally short yellow light.
The city of Chattanooga, Tennessee will refund $8800 in red light cameras tickets issued to motorists trapped by an illegally short yellow time. Municipal Court Judge Russell Bean on Monday dismissed charges against 176 vehicle owners cited by an automated ticketing machine located at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Pine Street.
Last month, a motorist challenged his citation by insisting that the yellow light was too short and only remained lit for 3.0 seconds before changing to red and activating the camera. LaserCraft, the private vendor that runs the camera program in return for a cut of the profits, provided the judge with a computer database that asserted the yellow was 3.8 seconds at that location. Bean gave the motorist the benefit of the doubt and watched the video of the alleged violation while counting how long the light stayed yellow.
"It didn't seem to me that it was at four (seconds) because it would change right at three," Bean told the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Bean then personally checked the intersection in question was timed at three seconds while other nearby locations had about four seconds of yellow warning. City traffic engineer John Van Winkle told Bean that "a mix up with the turn arrow" was responsible and that the bare minimum for the light should be 3.9 seconds. Judge Bean ordered 176 of the tickets issued within the first 0.9 seconds after the light turned red canceled.
Short yellow times are vital to ensuring the steady flow of traffic citations for vendors like LaserCraft. Confidential documents obtained in a 2001 court trial proved that the city of San Diego, California and its red light camera vendor, now ACS, only installed red light cameras at intersections with high volumes and "Amber (yellow) phase less than 4 seconds."
Short yellows trap drivers in what is known as a "dilemma zone" where there is neither time to stop safely -- without slamming the brakes and risking a rear-end collision -- nor to proceed through the intersection before it changes to red. Red light cameras capitalize on this, with four out of every five tickets issued before the light has been red for a full second, according to a report by the California State Auditor. This suggests that most citations are issued to those surprised by a quick-changing signal light.
In 2002, a Baltimore, Maryland judge caught the city trapping motorists at signals with illegally short yellow lights. (Read court memo)
City's photo-radar system keeps speeders in check
by Trevor Hughes - Aug. 26, 2007 Coloradoan.com - ArticleOne driver was recorded traveling at 132 mph in a 30 mph zone on April 25, 2007. The owner of the vehicle said there's no way the GMC pickup he uses for landscaping could travel that fast. Municipal court officials said the ticket was never issued, which traffic Sgt. Mike Trombley said probably happened because the speed was so high. He said that while the radar cameras are calibrated at the start and end of each shift, it's likely the 132-mph reading was incorrect. He declined to discuss potential error rates for the system.
Arizona: Police Arrest Man for Driving Impossible Speed
June 2, 2006 EastValleyTribune.com - ArticleScottsdale, Arizona police have arrested Lawrence Pargo, 26, for speeding based solely on the evidence of its photo radar machines that registered his vehicle traveling at an impossibly high speed of 147 MPH. Scottsdale police maintain that Pargo's rented silver Sonata drove between 102 and 147 MPH past four speed cameras on May 21 at around six in the morning. Pargo's Hyundai, according to the manufacturer, has a drag-limited top speed of 137 MPH.
"This is a rental vehicle so it is doubtful that it could attain even this maximum speed," said Eric Skrum, spokesman for the National Motorists Association. "At a bare minimum, this is a ten-mph discrepancy and obviously an invalid ticket. I would suggest that rather than investigate this individual, the police should be checking their own equipment. This needs to be a top priority as there is no telling how many other drivers have received unjustified tickets."
Automotive reviewer Robert Farago wrote of the car, "only an Impala driver would mistake the Sonata LX for a high-performance sedan."
Australia: Unreliable Speed Cameras Secretly Disconnected
Apr 22, 2008 TheNewspaper.com - ArticleOfficials in Victoria, Australia quietly turned off unreliable West Gate Freeway speed cameras in 2006.
A set of speed cameras in Victoria, Australia were quietly turned off nearly two years ago because of police concerns about their reliability. In September 2005 the state government spent A$2 million to install the automated ticketing machines on the West Gate Bridge, a busy 1.6 mile route across the Yarra River in Melbourne. Police officials today confirmed that they had secretly disabled the cameras in September 2006 after the devices had issued 4243 citations.
"They were turned off, I've been advised, for technical issues," Assistant Police Commissioner for Traffic Ken Lay told Melbourne's 3AW radio. "So the decision was made that if we can't be absolutely sure let's not infringe. Motorists shouldn't be dobbed and if we do start doing that it undermines the system, it undermines road safety."
Lay insisted he was "happy" with the accuracy of the devices and that it was only the clarity of the photographic images that moved him to turn off the cameras. Some suspect more is involved.
In July 2003, a Victoria speed camera accused motorist Vanessa Bridges' 1975 Datsun 120Y of driving at 98 MPH, setting off a chain reaction of events that ultimately cost the state government A$26 million in refunds. Even after the thirty-year-old Datsun was tested and found to be capable of reaching speeds no greater than 73 MPH, police dug in their heels and insisted the photo enforcement system was accurate and that Bridges' fine would stand. Intense publicity arising out of her case, however, forced an investigation into the cameras on the Western Ring Road. Independent testing showed faulty in-ground sensors and electromagnetic interference had been responsible for generating bogus speed readings. The government had no choice but to cancel 165,000 camera tickets.
Today, Lay insisted safety was the only factor driving the 2006 decision by Victoria Police to keep the West Gate Bridge problems quiet.
"There was a decision made by us not to put it out there that they weren't operating," Lay added. "Some will criticize us for doing that, I understand that. But the decision was made to keep people alive."
Flawed Red Light Camera
How many innocent drivers paid tickets for violations they weren't guilty of? How many innocent drivers have the time and access to a video camera in order to obtain the evidence they need for court? Not everyone is capable of presenting a defense in court. Do innocent drivers deserve the burden of having to hire lawyers and spend hours and hundreds of dollars on equipment to prove their innocence from a for-profit camera installation on a violation that a human officer would never ticket? Innocent drivers do not deserve this burden! --admin
Another Red Light Camera Error
More Cameras Malfunctioning
Faulty Speed Cameras
More Camera Errors
Again, how many people have access to news stations and "Mr. Math" to help them prove their innocence? --admin
On Your Side: Photo Radar Tickets
Oct. 23, 2007 WJLA ABC 7 News - ArticleFighting an erroneous ticket - You have to get the TV station involved to fight your ticket.
Radar Equipment Malfunctions Quite Easily