Opel Astra Driver ‘Caught’ By Speed Camera Traveling Over 400 MPH

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You’ve probably received a speeding ticket in the mail before. Weeks after the incident, once you’ve forgotten all about it, you open a letter to read that you’ve been busted by a cleverly placed speed camera and have to pay a fine. Well, that’s what happened to a Belgian driver but he was fined approximately $7,800 for traveling 432 mph in a 30-mph zone.

Police attributed the error to a malfunction with the camera, getting him off the hook for the initial fine, but still slapped him with a citation for 6 mph over the legal limit.

I-Team Investigation: Speed camera refunds in College Park

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COLLEGE PARK, Md. (ABC7) — Some speed camera controversy in College Park, Maryland. Hundreds of drivers were ticketed but it turns out thanks to I-Team Investigator Scott Taylor more than 600 of you are getting those tickets thrown out of court.

This all has to do with a speed limit sign and a speed camera that just wasn’t in the right place and now College Park is out more than $27,000 in fines.

Faulty speed camera on A4 Bath Road just outside Bristol flashing drivers adhering to speed limit

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A speed camera on the A4 Bath Road is continually flashing at drivers – regardless of their speed.

Van driver overturns £400 speeding fine after proving cameras filmed TWO different vehicles – and cops said it was a ‘common error’

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A VAN driver who was wrongly slapped with a £400 fine after a speed camera clocked a different vehicle to his own, has had the decision overturned as cops admitted it was down to a “common error”.

The automated system had thought that both vans were one and recorded a speed of 77mph.

Motorist contests speeding ticket thanks to camera bug

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(JB) A motorist caught speeding in Luxembourg successfully contested his fine as a result of a bug in one of the new speed cameras.

According to a parliamentary question from Deputy Martine Hansen, at least one motorist was able to challenge the fine because his GPS showed that the vehicle was seven kilometres away from the speed camera at the time it was photographed speeding.

Maryland Speed Camera Falsely Accuses School Bus

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The driver's rights group uncovered a disturbing pattern in which motorists who complain about the accuracy of a ticket to the local speed camera ombudsman -- a position created by state law -- all receive the same response in a form letter.

"This request to void this citation comes from the Montgomery County Police directly and indirectly from the school board," Xerox employee Clarence Bell wrote in a January 21 email. "As I understand and supported by bus telematics, the bus was not violating and the large surface area of the bus reflected the radar beam onto vehicles moving in the opposite direction, which presented the 'shift.' The system measured that shift and calculated a higher speed than the bus was actually traveling. This is a known possibility and we should have caught it in processing... Should you choose to void the citation, please let me know as I understand the school board paid by credit card."

As with the other citations, records for the Baltimore Road speed camera show that the operator's set up log, operator's training certificate and speed monitoring system annual calibration certificate were all in order at the time of the alleged violation. The Maryland Drivers Alliance argues that this is evidence that the current system is fundamentally flawed.

French Supreme Court Throws Out Inaccurate Speed Camera Tickets

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France's highest court threw out several speed cameras tickets earlier this month after an expert proved the speed estimates were bogus. The Court of Cassation examined the tickets and found that it was impossible for the accused school buses to have been traveling at 80 km/h (50 MPH) in a 50 km/h (31 MPH) zone, as the cameras claimed.

Finland: Speed Camera Accuses Train Of Speeding

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In Helsinki, Finland, the police department on Wednesday released a speed camera photograph of a train in a light-hearted attempt to personalize the city's automated ticketing program. The image, taken on January 17, shows the front end of a car with a fast-moving train in the background. According to the speed camera, the "car" is traveling at 117 km/h (72 MPH), but the police realize the car was not actually traveling that fast on the snow-covered road.

The issue came to light after Dutch speed cameras accused a large commercial truck of traveling 238 km/h (147 MPH) and a bus of traveling 185 km/h (114 MPH). These errors were only noticed because the vehicles that were charged were equipped with 90 km/h (55 MPH) speed limiters. Van de Kamp suggests there is no way to know whether innocent motorists have been wrongly accused by faulty readings.

SPEED TRAP CAMERAS WILDLY INACCURATE, POLICE UNION SAYS

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There are serious doubts about the reliability of the police’s new mobile speed trap cameras, according to police union ACP. Officers are concerned about high numbers of wrong speed measurements, especially with large vehicles and buses which are regularly flashed driving at improbably high speeds. The union is therefore calling that the use of these speed trap cameras be suspended until a solution is found, Dutch newspaper AD reports.

4-year-old girl gets speed camera ticket in mail

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DES MOINES, Iowa —A 4-year-old girl is being summoned to court this week for a speeding ticket that is under her name.

The mother of the girl called KCCI 8 News to talk about the incident.

Md. man receives automated traffic tickets for vehicles he doesn't own

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WASHINGTON - A Maryland driver says he is being issued automated traffic tickets for cars that he doesn't own.

Michael Greene, a software engineer who lives in Rockville, reached out to FOX 5 after he got home a couple weeks ago from his Christmas break and found a stack of automated fines in the mail.

Greene called everyone connected to the tickets.

“No one wanted to help,” he said. “I talked to jurisdictions and that really got me nowhere. I talked to the MVA and they said all of the data was correct. I even called BMW and BMW said all the data was correct for them. At that point, with everyone washing their hands, someone's got to figure out where the problem is.”

College Park Speed Camera Ticketed Stopped Bus

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In a long delayed response to a request for documents pertaining to speed camera errors, college park produced a cache of emails including (heavily redacted) correspondence about a “UM Shuttle” which had been erroneously ticketed by a College Park Speed Camera while it was not moving.

In another case, College Park ticketed a motorist for a vehicle which was not even theirs, according to a heavily redacted letter produced by the city.

How did driver get two speed camera tickets– same time, same place in Newburgh Heights?

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NEWBURGH HEIGHTS, Ohio-- The Fox 8 I-Team is investigating how a driver got two tickets from a speed camera two weeks apart, yet they show the exact same speed and the exact same time of day.

Snellenberger said, “There’s just no way I’d be going the same exact speed and at the exact same time. There’s just no way.”

She added, she has a timesheet proving she was at work at that time.

Drivers caught by camera – for NOT speeding!

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Countless motorists were left bewildered after being flashed by speed cameras on the A505 Leighton Buzzard bypass – while travelling UNDER the speed limit!

A fault in both cameras along the busy stretch of road meant many drivers were snapped, despite keeping to the 50mph restriction.

Police Apologize After Issuing Faulty Photo Radar Tickets

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Robinson noticed that the school zone lights were even off in the photo radar picture. Robinson went to the area and took pictures and timed the lights. He even went to the traffic light engineer for the City of Boulder and got a report that shows the school zone flash times. It shows that along Folsom Street the lights flash between 7:40 a.m. and 8:20 a.m.

“My ticket was at almost 8:24 … so … 4 minutes difference … that’s kind of hard to justify that that was legal,” Robinson explained.

Emanuel's speed cameras issue $2.4 million in bad tickets

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Mayor Rahm Emanuel's speed camera program improperly issued more than $2.4 million in fines to Chicago drivers, ticketing them when cameras were supposed to be off and when the required warning signs were confusing, obscured or missing, a Tribune investigation has found.

At the same time, City Hall has systematically ticketed drivers near schools without the legally required evidence of a schoolchild in sight. A Tribune random-sample analysis puts the number of those questionable tickets at about 110,000.

San Mateo PD Throws Out Nearly 1,000 Red Light Tickets Totaling Over $500,000

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The San Mateo Police Department has thrown out nearly 1,000 red light tickets, totaling more than $500,000 after the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit uncovered the city did not follow new state regulations for red light cameras at two intersections.

Barrow speed camera turned off following fault

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A SPEED camera in Barrow has been switched off after it malfunctioned yesterday.

The camera in Salthouse Road started to flash uncontrollably early on Wednesday.

Apparently It’s Possible to Have Your Car Towed and Get a Speeding Ticket at the Same Time

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On September 6, 2014, an Australian speeding camera caught a silver SUV zooming down the highway, well over the speed limit. The camera captured the license plate, and an automated system delivered a notice—with photographic proof!—to the vehicle’s registered owner. Justice served, right?

The only problem was that the SUV was on the back of a tow truck, and the well-intentioned speed camera had no idea.

Driver believes she was dinged with two separate tickets for one offence in same area

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A Winnipeg driver is upset over receiving two speeding tickets she believes were issued at same exact same time and location.

Christine Ibalio said her first ticket was issued after she was pulled over by and police officer on Sept. 9 at 9:02 a.m.

Perth lawyer questions reliability of WA Police speed cameras

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A PERTH lawyer has questioned the reliability of WA Police speed cameras, claiming the laser speed measuring devices are not “infallible pieces of equipment”.

Terry Dobson was sent an infringement notice last month stating he was exceeding the speed limit in Mount Hawthorn on August 4.

But on closer inspection, he noticed the car pictured was not the same colour or model as any of the cars registered in his name.

“I went online and double checked their photos and then I wrote to them and pointed out what I thought was an obvious error,” he said. “They withdrew the infringement with no apology or explanation at all.”

Leduc rider gets photo-radar ticket for motorcycle he doesn't own

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Patrick Leach lost his licence plate while riding his motorbike last summer. He went to his local registry, got a new plate and reported the old one missing.

Fourteen months later, he opened his mail to find a photo-radar ticket … with his old plate … for a motorcycle he doesn't even own.

He mailed that letter in with the ticket, thinking that might be the end of things.

Nope. Next thing he knew, he got a notice to appear in court this coming February. He's angry that he has to jump through all these hoops to straighten out a clerical mistake.

Faulty speed camera flashes at nothing

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Pedestrians, cyclists and cars were all flashed by the malfunctioning speed camera in New Bristol Road, in Worle.

Reader seeks answers for camera speed ticket mistakes

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The Des Moines retiree said he mailed the payment June 23 and it cleared his bank on July 8. A month after the first notice, he got in the mail "a second and final notice." Rather than risk facing collection, he sent in a second check with a letter by certified mail.

No one had rectified the situation and no one has contacted Mostrom or called him back when he wrote the Watchdog on July 28. He and his wife wondered: Who's accountable to the public for double billing like this? What does the speed camera outfit profit when such errors are made? Are other people having similar problems?

Mostrom is right to worry: Iowans have had their credit ratings negatively affected because of camera citations.

FOLLOW UP...

Readers share traffic camera ticket billing problems

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A Des Moines reader’s billing problem stemming from a traffic ticket generated by a speed camera touched a nerve with other readers who said they had experienced similar problems.

Are Italy's speed cameras ripping you off?

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According to data from contribuenti.it, there has been a 987 percent increase in speeding tickets issued since 2010. In the province of Milan alone, speeding tickets rake in €408,000 a day – but this number looks set to decrease.

It now appears that many speeding tickets could have been issued by machines that were not calibrated correctly. The revelation comes thanks to a lengthy legal battle fought by two motorists in Mondovì, a town in north-east Italy.

Winnipeg man claims photo radar ticket doesn't match actual location

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A Winnipeg man hit with a $391 photo radar ticket plans to take his case to court because he claims the picture on the ticket doesn’t match the neighbourhood where police allege the infraction happened.

Gurney said he discovered a difference between the photo and the neighbourhood when he returned to the area after getting the ticket.

Montgomery County Issued Erroneous Tickets

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An investigation by the Maryland Drivers Alliance revealed that Montgomery County's speed camera program issued several erroneous citations in recent months by issuing them to the wrong vehicle. Meanwhile, Montgomery County's “Local Designee” failed to identify another confirmed erroneous citation and has so far refused to answer questions by the Maryland Drivers Alliance about the nature of this error.

Man gets speeding ticket for going the speed limit

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A man from Australia became an internet sensation after he received a speeding ticket for going exactly the speed limit last month. Zac Murray of Queensland, Australia was driving to work in his father's car when a police speed camera snapped him going 100 kilometers and hour, or about 62 miles an hour, in a 100 kilometer zone.

For his careful driving this law-abiding citizen was charged $151 by police. Murray posted a picture of the ticket to Facebook. The ticket accused him of allegedly speeding by less than 13 kph. He hasn't received a speeding ticket in seven years.

More than $150,000 in Ngauranga Gorge speed camera fines cancelled

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Police have had to cancel more than $150,000 in speeding fines, after a daylight saving error in one of Wellington's new hi-tech cameras went unnoticed for over a month.

College Park Tickets Wrong Car

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The ticket, issued in February, showed a picture of a white SUV, but was issued to the owner of a Black Camery instead. Several of the characters on the image of the license plate were not clear on the citation.

Speeding notice to ambulance owner identifying it as scooter

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MYSURU: The city traffic police need to upgrade their technologies to be accurate while dealing with vehicles violating traffic rules. Recently, city cops issued a speeding notice to the owner of an ambulance identifying the vehicle as a scooter.

Speed Camera Keeps Ticketing This Teacher's Parked Car

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HUMBOLDT PARK — A Chicago speed camera already cited for ticketing parked cars in 2013 has struck again, ticketing one Humboldt Park woman four times without cause.

Jennefa Krupinski has the photo proof to back up her claim: four speed camera photos issued to her since June show her car parked outside of her home in the 3100 block of West Augusta Boulevard, each triggered by a random speeding car — but each costing her $100.

12 Defenders: Fixing red light camera issues

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"Our name is listed on the ticket" Mecsko says. "We drive a Honda Odyssey, and it was clearly a Mercedes. They asked for the registration number, the tag number, and they compared it with the sticker number. It was not the correct sticker that was issued to us at renewal."

The Mecsko's renewed their tag by mail and they were supposed to get a whole new license plate. The Montgomery County Probate office had inadvertently sent out a sticker renewal, not an actual tag. They are still investigating this, and not willing to comment yet. The Mecskos have surrendered that tag, and gotten a new tag altogether. But they're still not completely satisfied.

The Montgomery police department reviews hundreds of these violations every day and admits they don't always get it right.

Thousands fined despite respecting speed limit

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Thousands of motorists using the Kennedy tunnel near Antwerp have received a speeding fine without exceeding the speed limit.

Digital road signs indicated a maximum speed of 100 kilometres per hour, but a software problem activated speed cameras as from 70 km/h.

Montgomery woman receives traffic camera ticket for car that isn't hers

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A Montgomery woman got one of those tickets in the mail, but says the car in the picture isn't hers.

“The image is then sent back to American Traffic Solutions in Arizona, ATS draws this information from the Alabama DMV before it gets to us,” Lt. Rucker explains. “It's already got the name and the registered owner attached to it when we get it. We check to make sure the tag matches, we look to see if the criteria is met [such as] did the vehicle stop, did the vehicle keep going, so on and so forth.”

Lt. Rucker admits they don't always get it right.

Brentwood, Maryland Hides Speed Camera Errors

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Brentwood, Maryland succeeded in concealing just how plagued with inaccurate readings its speed camera program has been. The town spent more than four years dodging numerous attempts by the Maryland Drivers Alliance to use public information laws to obtain emails and other documents pertaining to problems with the system. Only last week did the city hand over the requested files under the pressure of a lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

The town claimed it could not comply with the request for emails since it had "lost" the password to the Hotmail account where the messages were stored.

Driver hit with speeding fine when broken down car was on back of TOW TRUCK

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A woman has been fined for speeding – even though her broken down car was on the back of tow truck at the time of the alleged offence.

When Sonia asked for evidence she was given a photo showing her car on top of the breakdown truck – which was doing 51mph in a 43mph speed zone.

The picture was taken in September but Sonia didn't receive the fine until last week – leaving her just one day to appeal.

Sonia said: “I've spent loads of time and energy trying to prove this was a mistake and I’m still unsure whether they’ll accept the obvious.

"But it was even more surreal when the person in my local traffic office said we'd been sent the fine because the tow truck that took my car away had an Andorran numberplate."

School speed-zone cameras inaccurate

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With the errors inherent with radar detection units used in school speed zones, it is clear that radar detection units deployed in Nassau County school speed zones can result in the issuance of tickets in error to motorists driving in full compliance with the law.

Alberta man fights photo radar ticket and wins

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In March, Deets was issued a violation notice in the mail stating that on March 27 at 4:15 p.m. his red Ford truck was recorded failing to obey the posted speed limit, travelling 40 km/h in a 30 km/h zone.

Deets noticed the front end of another vehicle, a white truck, partially obscuring the back of his vehicle in the photo -- where Deets' truck can be seen with its brake lights on approaching a red light -- and recalled another vehicle trying to pass him.

This isn't the first time a case like this has made it to a Whitecourt judge before being tossed. Roger Beaudoin successfully had his ticket overturned in January 2011 after he was incorrectly issued a violation notice when a speeding vehicle passed his own.

17,000 N.J. red light camera fines dismissed because drivers never got the tickets

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TRENTON — Thousands of drivers in New Jersey were caught on camera allegedly running red lights but were never informed of the potential fines they faced because of a technical glitch.

Trigger happy speed camera in Hanworth 'like a lightning storm outside our windows'

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LEVITTOWN - News 12 Long Island is already getting word of problems with one of the speed cameras set up at a school zone after being in use for only two weeks.

According to the Nassau County Traffic Safety Coordinator, the cameras at Abbey Lane Elementary School in Levittown were rolling and issuing violations even when school wasn't in session. More than 200 tickets were issued by mistake.

NORTH RIVERSIDE RED LIGHT CAMERA GLITCH?

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NORTH RIVERSIDE, Ill. (WLS) -- Drivers in west suburban North Riverside said a glitch with a red light camera is leading to wrongfully-issued tickets.

Drivers said they are being snapped by the camera at Harlem and Cermak after making a right hand turn off of Harlem. More than 150 people packed a courtroom Wednesday night to fight the tickets after they received notices to show up, all at the same time.

Trigger happy speed camera in Hanworth 'like a lightning storm outside our windows'

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Mum-of-two says constantly flashing cameras on the A312 Hampton Road West have been causing her sleepless nights for more than a year.

Engineers from Transport for London this morning switched off a camera on Hampton Road West after motorists complained about it flashing constantly.

The 45-year-old carer told getwestlondon it often flashed repeatedly for no reason, and said the effect at night was akin to a non-stop electrical storm. "It's like having lightning going off outside your window, and it's been a problem on and off for about 18 months," said the mother-of-two.

Faulty red-light camera found at a rate of once a week

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RED-LIGHT speed-camera faults are being discovered at a rate of one a week, prompting calls for the public to be properly informed so they can challenge fines.

They have been forced to reveal the breakdown records over a five-month period last year from May 23, which included 21 instances in which a camera was found to not be working properly, but motorists were never told.

‘Faulty’ traffic cameras catch Muscat motorists off guard

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Though the Royal Oman Police (ROP) has installed cameras at traffic signals in the capital city to curb gridlock and catch traffic offenders, some cameras are reportedly not working properly and clicking pictures 'randomly', a reliable source at the ROP has confirmed.

"Some of the cameras are not working properly as they keep on clicking pictures even when the traffic signal is green," said the source.

It wasn't me, officer: A notice from Washington, D.C.

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This week, I got a call from a friend who had a run-in with red light cameras. Or at least, a computer in Washington, D.C., thought he did. He hasn’t been in our nation’s capital in years, so when Flagler Beach resident Eric Jordan got a letter last week from Washington informing him that his car had been caught on camera running a red light there, and that he owed $200, he was not pleased.

“This is actually the second notice,” he said. “I didn’t get the first notice.”

“Now, I’ve got to take time out of my day and prove my innocence,” he said. “Who’s going to pay me for my time? If I have to travel to Washington, who’s going to pay for that? Who holds the private company accountable for putting the citizens through this exercise?”

Ticketbuster: Snow causes red-light camera to issue ticket in error

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As the video shows, part of his vehicle was in the right-turn lane, part in a straight lane. The light was red with a green arrow for right turns. D.C. police later concluded that De Jesus accidentally triggered the wrong sensor. However, snow and ice covered much of the right-turn lane.

Two weeks after he filed his challenge, the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) ruled against him.

"The Respondent's vehicle failed to stop at the marked stop line on 2/15/14 at 10:37 PM at the location listed on the citation and did enter the intersection while facing a steady red signal and therefore committed the violation of passing a red light in the District of Columbia," writes Hearing Examiner Desiree Mathews.

Ireland: Whistleblower Exposes Faulty Speed Camera Equipment

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Speed cameras around the world have been caught issuing citations to thousands of motorists who were not speeding. A camera in Melbourne, Australia issued $26 million in bogus tickets a decade ago. Just last year, one in ten tickets issued in Baltimore, Maryland was based on a faulty speed reading. On Tuesday, the Irish television network RTE One provided insight into one of the causes of unreliable camera readings in Ireland.

The current affairs "Prime Time" interviewed a whistleblowing former employee of GoSafe, a consortium of speed camera providers Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia, Spectra Group of Ireland and Egis Projects of France. The man, who asked to remain anonymous, explained how GoSafe ignored his concern that the speed cameras were being set up improperly.

Orlando man receives red-light camera ticket for car that’s not his

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ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando man is fighting a red-light ticket from a city he said he was never in and a car he doesn't own.

The 20-year-old student got a ticket from Miami-Dade County with a picture of a vehicle running a red light, but he said the picture proves it’s not his vehicle.

Leaked city documents show undisclosed speed camera problems

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Last March, Baltimore issued a speed camera ticket to a bus company after one of its yellow buses was clocked going 42 mph on Harford Road. But the city voided that $40 citation after concluding the vehicle’s actual speed was just 26 mph — below the 30 mph limit.

That erroneous ticket is among a number of problems that city transportation officials knew about but did not disclose publicly when they suspended the speed and red-light camera program last April, according to internal city documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

In addition to the misprogrammed camera and inaccurate P.O. box, the report notes that about 100 tickets were issued with “repeated images and timestamps,” making them invalid. There were also “a few erroneous citations,” including one that showed two different cars in the pair of photos meant to show a speeding vehicle’s movement.

Red light camera randomly flashing now fixed

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SPRINGFIELD — A red-light camera North Street and Bechtle Avenue that was randomly flashing this week was fixed Friday afternoon.

“I’m sitting stopped at the light. The light turns green and then all of a sudden, the red-light camera’s flash starts going off. It hit four cars going through a green light,” Springfield resident Chris Kitt said.

Redflex, the company that owns and manages the cameras, sent an employee to fix the problem shortly after the Springfield News-Sun contacted the Springfield Police Division about the issue.

Snowy license plate led to speed camera mistake

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JACKSON TWP., Montgomery Co. — A Montgomery County man is attempting to challenge a speed camera ticket he says was issued by mistake last week — the result of a partially snow-covered license plate.

The problem is that neither Mink, nor his truck, were in New Miami that day. Plus the truck in the photo is not his.

Mink drives a four-door white pickup, while the truck pictured is a two-door gray pickup. The license plate is similar to his, but part of it is obscured by snow in the photo.

Mink said he's tried to contact New Miami Police, calling five times over a two day period, to point out the mistake.

"They won't return my phone call," he said.

Balto. Co. sent speed camera ticket to wrong motorist

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Canton resident Emily Fusting knew right away that Baltimore County had the wrong person when she got a $40 speed camera ticket in the mail recently. She drives a gray Hyundai hatchback. The car nabbed by the county camera on Kenilworth Drive? A dark-colored sedan.

Maryland: Audit Finds Thousands Of Inaccurate Speed Camera Citations

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Twenty-five of the 37 cameras issued bogus tickets, with 10.6 percent of the citations overall found to be faulty. Another 25.6 percent were found to be questionable. The worse offenders were the 5400 block of Loch Raven Boulevard (58 percent erroneous), the 6500 block of Eastern Avenue (45 percent), 1098 Caton Avenue (35 percent), 6000 block of Hillen Road (31 percent), 4862 Erdman Avenue (27 percent).

The audit notes several factors that might explain the accuracy problems. The ticket photos often show multiple vehicles. In many cases, the wrong vehicle was cited. Often the camera was found to be incorrectly positioned.

Traffic Cameras Rife With Bogus Violations, Audit Shows

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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"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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Memphis Red Light Camera Has Southaven Family Seeing Red

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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'

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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'

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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

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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.

Mystery speeding ticket: Does the camera lie?

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SIOUX CITY | An Oregon man who got a speeding ticket after his rental car was snapped by a traffic camera on Interstate 29 in Sioux City claims he was hundreds of miles away at the time and has witnesses and documents to prove it.

Ken Benkstein thinks the only logical explanation for his $168 ticket is that the camera equipment malfunctioned, recording the date incorrectly when a different customer had the car.

Probe your fines, some cameras faulty

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Speed cameras can be faulty, so motorists should carefully examine their fines and not just presume they are guilty.

So said Justice Project South Africa chairman Howard Dembovsky after the Joburg metro police department (JMPD) admitted that thousands of fines issued to motorists travelling in Republic Road, close to Brightwater Commons, were illegal. He has promised to cancel them.

Red-light cameras faulty, VicRoads admits

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Seven more red-light cameras across Victoria have been exposed as faulty in an audit that was sparked when a Melbourne motorist challenged his fine in court.

VicRoads chief executive Gary Liddle said the audit of 200 red-light cameras had found that the timing of amber lights at seven more sites was incorrect, meaning motorists were not being given enough time to drive through an intersection. At several of those sites, the error had existed for years.

Red light ticket snafu case of 'it wasn't me'

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MANATEE COUNTY -- A Manatee County woman said she recently got nailed by a red light camera in Tampa even though she and her husband never left their Terra Ceia home that day.

Fleming believes she got the ticket because her license plate is similar to the plate on the seen on the red light camera photo except for one letter.

"I reviewed it myself online and I could see the ‘X’ very clearly. And it was not a ‘K’,” she said. “The image on the website, it looks like a full size motorcycle. Not a moped.”

The 96mph right turn

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After several months of public records requests, in June 2012 I finally received the raw American Traffic Solutions(ATS) red light camera data from the City of St. Petersburg for the first 6 months of their program. Right away there were dozens of citations that stood out as being suspect, so I gathered 121 of them in to a list and sent in another public records request to receive the videos of these. Over 3 months later and I finally received the videos to most of the violations that I had requested, they did not deliver 14 of them. This is the analysis of one example of just how bad the ATS equipment can malfunction, the "96 miles-per-hour" right turn on red.

Red-light camera fines to be reviewed after bungle revealed at Melbourne airport

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Police Minister Peter Ryan has asked speed camera watchdog Gordon Lewis to investigate infringements issued to motorists from a camera at Melbourne airport over a 15-month period.

The review could see up to $2.8 million returned to drivers and 28,000 demerit points reinstated.

The move came after VicRoads admitted it failed to adjust the timing of an amber light at the intersection of Terminal Drive and Centre Rd when it changed the speed limit from 40km/h to 50km/h in November 2010.

Computer glitch cops blame for speed ticket woes

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Tasmania Police says software used by speed cameras was not compatible with new software it installed in mid-June.

The number of tickets being issued from the state's speed cameras dropped from more than 2,000 a month to about 400 in July.

City ignores malfunctions in photo enforcement

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However, after having extensively studied the city’s operation of this system, including multiple public record requests, discussions with engineers, multiple discussions with the police chief and spending time in our municipal court last week, I am sadly left with only one conclusion: this system is being used unethically, if not fraudulently, in an attempt to generate revenue for the city.

As early as February 2011, the mayor, police chief and city attorney were notified by multiple citizens that the photo enforcement system was malfunctioning, primarily by issuing tickets when the yellow school-zone lights were not flashing.

California: City Conceals Red Light Camera Problems

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Cities that allow a private vendor to run a red light camera program often are reluctant to divulge any news that could cast doubt on the system's legitimacy or accuracy. Along these lines, Riverside, California has not been transparent regarding problems with the automated ticketing machines that have issued 161,199 citations, now worth nearly $500 each, since 2006. City documents obtained under the freedom of information laws reveal at least one intersection taking advantage of inadequate yellow signal timing and that cameras are silently being disabled by vigilantes.

Concern as police disable inaccurate speed cameras

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All five speed camera boxes posted on West Auckland streets have been disabled after failing calibration tests, police revealed yesterday.

Photo radar double-dips: Edmonton woman ticketed twice in 11 seconds

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When the two $89 tickets arrived in the mail last month Michele Perret said she initially thought it was simply all the paperwork for one ticket.

"In a situation where there are two cameras a few feet apart or a few seconds apart, you don’t have that same opportunity to correct your behaviour."

Tereposky said drivers should call the inquiry line on the tickets if they have the same problem, and duplicate tickets like this will generally be quashed.

Perret said she did call the inquiry number, but was told she would have to go to court and plead her case if she wanted the ticket thrown out.

Florida: Traffic Camera Records Impossible Speeds

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Proponents of photo enforcement frequently assert the camera never lies, but newly released evidence suggests the technology can often be wrong. In St. Petersburg, Florida, cameras belonging to the private vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) have accused vehicle owners of doing the impossible. If the camera is to be believed, on December 13, 2011 at 3:29pm, a woman blasted through the intersection of 66th Street and 38th Avenue at 215 MPH.

Man who only drives scooter in neighborhood gets far away red-light ticket

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Donald Abbott, 79, rides his scooter inside his senior community in Volusia County. Somehow, though, he was given a ticket for running a red light an intersection 22 miles away.

Abbott says the incident captured by a red-light camera shows a heftier man on a scooter that looks nothing like his -- different brake lights, fenders and decals.

City Speed Cameras Issue 8000 Tickets With Issues

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The city’s error prone speed cameras are on the fritz again, this time issuing 8400 tickets that nailed motorists for speeding, but in the wrong direction.

New Jersey Halts Red Light Cameras Over Yellow Timing

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The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) yesterday ordered a halt to red light camera ticketing in 21 cities. The agency became concerned drivers are being shortchanged and the law violated after learning that 63 of 85 photo ticketing intersections failed to meet legal requirements for yellow signal timing. The agency prohibited ticketing at these locations pending certification of each individual intersection's timing.

Speed Cameras Found to Have Error

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Speed cameras are raising concerns tonight after a major error was found. More than three thousand tickets must now be thrown out. A worker caught a mistake on the speed camera located on Wabash Avenue and Ridgewood.

Johnson City traffic camera inoperable at time of fatal crash

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JOHNSON CITY — The help Johnson City police investigators expected to get from a red light camera at an intersection where a fatal motorcycle crash happened Wednesday might not be available because the camera was not operating at the time.

More traffic trouble revealed (IT Worker Tampers with Tickets)

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Tampering with fines for traffic infringements is a concern for motorists after an IT worker was sentenced yesterday for changing the details on tens of thousands of tickets.

Ranil Seneviratne, who worked for Serco Traffic Camera services, changed the speeds on camera tickets and even turned speeding tickets into red-light fines...

I-Team: Questionable traffic tickets

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But there's a problem. The I-Team pointed out to Providence police a few months ago that the strip in the middle of Cahir Street -- marked off with sold yellow lines -- was most likely a median. According to state law, if there is a median in a road, a motorist does not have to stop for a school bus that is loading or unloading students on the opposite side of the street.

"I'm not going to say they were wrongly ticketed. A ruling has been made by the judges in Traffic Tribunal court … So, the judges told us they would not sustain those, so we stopped writing those (tickets) about six weeks ago," Zienowicz said.

That's not much solace for those who paid the $500 fine and tried to tell the judge about the median. Neither the judge nor Providence police would listen.

N.C. Red-Light Camera Malfunctions 31 Times; Suit Filed

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May 14--CARY -- At least 20 people were victims of the same overenthusiastic Cary traffic camera system, and town officials are not happy. After an investigation revealed the repeated glitch, and amid a lawsuit regarding the camera network, two council members said Cary could make significant changes to its automated red-light ticketing program.

The cameras at High House Road and Cary Parkway first malfunctioned last summer, and over the next year registered at least 31 false positives, many of which led to $50 tickets. The town of Cary is "very disappointed" that the glitch went unnoticed by Redflex, the contractor that administers Cary's automated traffic-ticketing system and keeps 88 percent of the money paid by violators.

Man fights red light camera violation, wins

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ORLANDO, Fla. - Chris Gelaides says he's never run a red light. But the Orlando man did receive a Notice of Violation from Orange County indicating that on February 26 he did. The fine: $158.

"I checked the website and you can see another car running the red light, and I'm still there. And I got the notice for running the red light."

The video shows Gelaides sitting at a complete stop in the left hand turn lane at the intersection of University Boulevard and Rouse Road. As Gelaides idled, waiting for the turn signal, the driver beside him headed straight through the intersection, running the red light.

Speeding fines revoked after camera fault

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"On this occasion, and on the four previous occasions, the mobile speed camera operator set up at a site which was close to, it appears to be a road sign, and that with the ‘Double Doppler’ effect what we’ve got is the mobile speed camera vehicle travelling past, the beam picks up the vehicle, it can then look for another metallic reflective surface and it could pick up that surface, bounce back to the vehicle in question, and then back to the camera itself. And that’s what gives us these excessive speed readings," he said.

He conceded that person may have unjustly lost his or her licence.

Wrongful ticket prompts review of Cary red-light cameras

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CARY - A stoplight camera malfunction has spurred Cary to review some traffic tickets. Video evidence shows a camera issued a ticket for a driver making a legal turn on a flashing yellow light, according to police.

A chief question for the town, he said, is why Redflex didn’t catch the erroneous ticket. The international company is obligated to have each ticket reviewed by at least three people, Godwin said.

Red Light Camera Ticket Mistake Causes License Suspension

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Hunt received a ticket that says he was in North Miami that day and was caught by a red light camera breaking the law and when he called the City of Miami for help he became angrier.

"The only thing they could tell me was hire an attorney to fight it or drive to Miami for a court date," he said.

In the video the car is a gray four door Mercedes Benz, Hunt drives a green two door GMC pick up truck. In the video, the tag on the Mercedes ends in XGE, the tag on Hunts truck ends in XGF.

Speeding fines wiped after camera test bungle

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More than 700 speeding drivers will get off scot-free after a bungle forced the withdrawal of a month's worth of fines from a speed camera on a notorious Melbourne arterial.

And the fault was only revealed when one of the drivers appealed against a fine in court last week.

But at the time of the offences the camera was supposed to have been turned off because it was being tested for accuracy.

Speed cameras nail the innocent, too

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It seems everyone has a speed camera story, and here is mine. Just after Christmas I received a citation from Maryland Safe Zones Automated Speed Enforcement in the mail. It was not my car; I was not in the place at the time specified, and the picture of the license plate was virtually unreadable. I was offered the option of paying $40 or asking for a court date. I chose the latter and received a letter a couple of weeks later stating that I needed to appear in District Court in Towson at 9 a.m. on Jan. 31.

Fortunately, I appeared before a judge who was full of good humor, compassion and common sense. After my name was called and I walked to the front of the courtroom, I was asked if it was my car in the picture. I replied in the negative. Next, the judge looked at the citation and without hesitation said, "Case dismissed. I cannot read this license plate. Not guilty." All of that took about 30 seconds, and I didn't need to present evidence in my defense. Interestingly enough, the same thing happened to the man who was called before me.

To dispute this inaccurate citation, I had to drive 54 miles in morning traffic, which took me 90 minutes of drive time, and pay a $5 parking fee, not to mention the cost of gas and missing time off from work.

Iowa drivers say traffic cam wrongly nabs big rigs

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FORT DODGE, Iowa— Fort Dodge has parked its mobile traffic camera after some drivers of buses and other big vehicles complained to the city that they were not speeding when the camera snapped photos of their vehicles.

The drivers told the City Council this past week that it would be impossible to get the big rigs moving as quickly as evidence from the cameras suggests, The Messenger reported.

Teachers: photo radar busted

Excerpt:

At least 16 Grant Park High School staff members are outraged over photo radar speeding tickets they say they were unfairly slapped with in the past few weeks.

The school staffers say they all were driving on Grant Avenue at speeds far below what they were clocked at by a mobile unit parked on a service road across from the school.

"The maximum the scooter does is 70 km/h. I was clocked at 68 km/h. There’s no way I’d be travelling at that speed," Furlan said.

The "simple geometry" of the position of a radar operator he saw parked in a minivan on the north service road on Thursday, he said, indicates the school’s staff — and hundreds of other motorists on that section of Grant — are being ticketed wrongly.

Bike 'going' 57 mph finishes Cheverly’s speed-camera deal

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The Prince George’s County town of Cheverly sent a letter in July to speed-camera vendor Optotraffic, informing the company that one of its cameras had caught a bicycle going 57 mph — just 26 mph off the world record for a flat surface.

The obvious error, town officials wrote, was the latest in a pattern of inaccurate readings by the Optotraffic device, which had caught another bike going 38 mph and an "invisible vehicle" traveling 76 mph.

Missing tickets lead to upset motorists

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Morinville – Although it is not surprising for anyone to get caught in the lens of Morinville’s photo radar camera, some area residents were surprised to find they’d been caught and convicted without ever having received the initial speeding ticket, a situation that has resulted in a late fee being applied to that earlier infraction.

4000 wrongly booked by camera

Excerpt:

Leading Senior Constable Trevor Bergman, who beat a mobile speed camera fine, says fines and demerit points of more than 4000 other motorists similarly caught should be scrapped.

He recently wrote to Mr Baillieu to tell him thousands of motorists had been incorrectly snapped where he was booked.

"I am bringing this matter to your personal attention so you can intervene in this matter and arrange the necessary refund as soon as possible, as you have previously said you would fix up any speed camera problems," he wrote.

Monroe says it may pull traffic cameras because of repeated errors on citations

Excerpt:

MONROE -- The city of Monroe may move to terminate its contract for traffic-enforcement cameras, officials confirmed Friday.

The decision was based on the company's failure to meet performance standards, Monroe police spokeswoman Debbie Willis said. The company repeatedly sent out violation notices that had typos, omitted words and contained other errors.

Denver collects fines on drivers who stop at red lights

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DENVER (CBS4) - The city of Denver is bringing in thousands of dollars in fines every year by ticketing people who stop at red lights. They are ticketed because their tire goes over the white line that marks where the vehicle should stop.

The red light cameras at various intersections in the city will flash and the driver will be sent a $75 citation if the vehicle goes over the white line, even if the driver stops for the light.

Texas: Red Light Camera Tickets a Man Running a Green Light

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A "CRAZY" speed camera in Dandenong was featured on a television current affairs program last week after it flashed constantly for no reason.

Dandenong resident Joseph Wright said he was riding his bike with his nine-year-old son about two weeks ago when he saw a camera malfunction at the intersection of Lonsdsale and Webster streets.

Speed Cameras Questioned in Prince George’s County - chool zone camera caught ticketing on the weekend

Excerpt:

New speed camera concerns were raised in Prince George’s County, Md., when at least one worked overtime a cited several drivers who shouldn’t have received tickets.

Texas: Red Light Camera Tickets a Man Running a Green Light

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Cities that use automated ticketing machines at intersections routinely assert two things: The camera does not lie, and at least three humans review each citation before it is dropped in the mail. That did not happen in Port Lavaca, Texas. On September 12, Port Lavaca Police Sergeant Kelly Flood signed a ticket accusing Dale Price of running a green light and demanding he pay $75 by October 12.

Is this red light camera ticketing the innocent?

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$12K in tickets from Bluff City speed cameras might be refunded

Excerpt:

BLUFF CITY, Tenn. -- About $12,000 worth of speed camera citations issued in late July may be refunded after a former police officer admitted to letting a reserve officer use his log-in information to review the tickets on the city’s computer system.

Fresh police challenge to speed camera accuracy

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ANOTHER police officer is trying to prove speed cameras are inaccurate.

Veteran traffic cop Trevor Bergman has failed in an attempt to get documents, through a Freedom of Information request, that he claimed would prove the unreliability of the cameras.

Red light cameras called into question over 'short' yellow lights

Excerpt:

A St. Louis judge tosses out a red light camera ticket, calling into question every intersection in the city equipped with the technology.

The issue is the length of yellow between red lights. A viewer told me that he got a ticket because the yellow didn't last long enough, so I checked it out for myself and took my findings to the city.

--Editor: Clearly, no engineering study was performed or they would have noted that the violations are due to improper timing rather than intentional red light running and they could have actually fixed the intersection. The age of technology is just an excuse - it's not a big deal to change timing in old stop light equipment. At any rate, cameras should but shutoff until it is corrected, but the city doesn't want to give up on the cash.

AAA questions accuracy of College Park speed cameras

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WASHINGTON -- College Park speed cameras are under fire. AAA Mid-Atlantic says they aren't accurate and are placed to trap drivers.

Richard LaDieu, who drives part time for the University of Maryland, says he's been ticketed twice. Both speed cameras tickets were proven wrong by a chip in his car.

Speed cameras questioned after police withdraw fines

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NT police withdrew the fine during the case without an explanation, and now the Opposition is suggesting the Government review all mobile radars.

An expert report on the accuracy of speeding cameras was used to contest speeding fines in court, and mobile radar expert Joe Mulligan from Creative Electrics said the devices had not been calibrated.

Police Escorted Funeral Procession Ticketed

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Red light cameras: Say those words and some people start to steam. But now, a stunning story of a funeral procession that was ticketed, and even worse, it seems clear that no one even watched the tapes before the violations were sent out.

500 People Given Red Light Tickets Instead of Speed Camera Tickets

Excerpt:

Getting a red light ticket is bad enough, but getting one while driving on the interstate? That has happened to about 500 people now.

The speed camera caught them driving too fast on the interstate, but due to a clerical error they were sent a red light camera ticket instead of a speeding ticket.

Challenging speed camera tickets

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Tony Rodriguez got a speed camera ticket he should have challenged. For starters, the ticket information is incorrect.

The plate picture starts with H-9. But it was recorded as H-8. The ticket states the vehicle is a Chevy. But it’s a Mercury. And the car in the picture is a District cab. But Rodriguez’ taxi was a Diamond cab, which have diamond-shaped lights on the roof. That’s not what’s in the picture.

Sydney Lane Cove Tunnel fines to be refunded after glitch

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THE NSW government will pay back about $32,000 in fines to motorists caught speeding in Sydney's Lane Cove Tunnel after the certification of two cameras was bungled.

Australia: Employee Alters Traffic Camera Ticket Data

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Five times and counting before three different judges, the Prince George’s County business owner has used a computer and a calculation to cast reasonable doubt on the reliability of the soulless traffic enforcers.

After a judge threw out two of his tickets Wednesday, Mr. Foreman said he is confident he has exposed systemic inaccuracies in the systems that generate millions of dollars a year for town, city and county governments.

Australia: Employee Alters Traffic Camera Ticket Data

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The employee of a photo enforcement firm in Victoria, Australia was arrested yesterday for adjusting the speed readings in a database of photo tickets. Police believe the man identified as a 36-year-old from Craigieburn changed the date, time and speed reading on a total of 67,541 red light camera and speed camera tickets. The data were altered between February and March while the man worked for Serco, the private firm in charge of ticketing operations.

Glitch forces Longview to dismiss hundreds of traffic-camera tickets

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A computer coding error has prompted the city of Longview to dismiss 303 tickets issued through its new traffic camera safety program, according to city officials.

Innocent Drivers Receive Photo Tickets in Florida, Australia, France, UK

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Motorists around the world have been mailed photo enforcement tickets accusing them of crimes they did not commit. In the Northern Territory, Australia, police were forced to refund 70 tickets issued to drivers accused of exceeding 60 km/h (37 MPH) in an 80 km/h (50 MPH) zone on the Stuart Highway on January 13. These motorists had paid the fine and accepted three points against their license because it was not worth the effort to fight. A handful did take the time to challenge the citations and had them overturned on the grounds that the police officers typed in the wrong speed limit into the machine, the NT News reported...

Speed camera wrongly clocked catering van at 103mph

Excerpts:

It told motorist Gerard Gowans he took four minutes and 34 seconds to travel 220m along Alexandra Pde - and that he was speeding.

Mr Gowans last week contested his two speeding fines in court and was able to prove at least one of Victoria's 435 traffic cameras is inaccurate.

Speed camera wrongly clocked catering van at 103mph

Excerpts:

Davina Hardiman from Chard said it was impossible for her van to reach speeds that high and that the speed camera on the A358 was wrong.

Somerset Safety Camera Partnership has written to her to say it was a mistake.

Italy: Speed Camera Gives Economy Van 764 MPH Ticket

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The owner of a family van was surprised to receive a ticket in the mail from police in the southern Italian town of Oria accusing him of driving 1230 km/h (764 MPH). The Lizzanello resident had been driving his Fiat Doblo on the SS7 in the province of Brindisi on November 6 and weeks later received a letter demanding that he pay 165 euros (US $223).

Red Light Camera Ticketed Wrong Driver

Excerpts:

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando man has a warning about red light cameras. He say the wrong driver was blamed.

Robert Noeker claims the video shows he stopped when another driver ran the light at International Drive and Kirkman Road. However, Noeker got the ticket.

WFTV researched and found that the same thing has happened to other drivers, but the city said there's nothing wrong with its cameras; instead, it was operator error.

Timing glitch led to photos in school zone

Excerpts:

Reader Michelle Riggs called in last week concerned about a glitch in the photo-enforcement school zone near Stewart Middle School in Tacoma. With no warning lights flashing on the school zone sign, she drove past the cameras at 30 mph at 8:30 a.m. and again at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. But both times, the cameras flashed.

She’s concerned that she and others may get unwarranted tickets.

Tacoma Police Department spokesman Mark Fulghum explained that the school had changed its operating hours and adjusted the flashing lights, but hadn’t informed the police to sync up the cameras.

Maryland: Forest Heights Speed Camera Accuracy Questioned

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The accuracy of the speed cameras deployed by Forest Heights on Indian Head Highway (State Highway 210) has been questioned by local residents were claiming innocent drivers were being ticketed. Citation photos appear to show many cases that speed cameras in Forest Heights cited vehicles for speeds far in excess of the speeds the citation images indicate.

Camera problems void [140,000] speeding tickets

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The City of Edmonton is suspending use of some of its cameras used to catch speeders and cancelling some unpaid speeding tickets after it was determined the equipment was clocking drivers at speeds that were impossible to attain.

'Crazy' speed camera flashes all drivers

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Red-faced police in Salzburg have admitted a speed camera has flashed every driver regardless of the speed they were going for several hours.

Ex-cop says wrong driver was booked by speed camera

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Robert Rumbold, a retired superintendent, used a grainy speed camera print to challenge the charge after being snapped at a lucrative Melbourne speed trap.

Mr Rumbold, 72, argued in Ringwood Magistrates' Court that he had not exceeded the speed limit and that another vehicle in the print, an overtaking taxi, had set off the camera.

Camera Nabs Driver for Yielding to Ambulance

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Texas, Australia: Bogus Photo Tickets Raise Alarm

Excerpts:

The validity of speed camera readings is under fire in Victoria, Australia. The state government has responded by concealing relevant records and refusing to respond to the freedom of information requests made by the Herald Sun newspaper. Concern over the issue as grown as the paper's online poll showed that only 6 percent of readers were confident in the accuracy of photo enforcement...

In Fort Worth, Texas the private company American Traffic Solutions (ATS) mailed Stu Cocanougher a red light camera ticket for turning right on red on October 11. Although police and local politicians claim they thoroughly review every ticket before ATS attempts to collect the fine, it is clear in Cocanougher's case that no such review took place.

Arizona, Florida, Malta, UAE: Traffic Cameras Fail

Excerpts:

The city of Tucson, Arizona has been caught ticketing motorists at an intersection running a yellow light...

A red light camera in Florida accused a dead man buried in Baton Rouge, Louisiana of running a red light, WAFB-TV reported...

Drivers on the Mediterranean island of Malta will be mailed a refund because speed camera tickets charged them double the amount allowed...

A speed camera in the United Arab Emirates failed to prevent a crash on Monday. A young driver and his passenger were killed after the pole from the automated ticketing machine on Khaleej al Arabi Street in Abu Dhabi inflicted fatal wounds, the National reported.

Traffic officials send [photo] ticket to dead man

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BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A Baton Rouge widow was surprised to get a traffic ticket in the mail from Florida addressed to her deceased husband.

9OYS: Tucson fixes traffic light issue

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TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - The City of Tucson has made some changes after 9 On Your Side raised questions about traffic lights at one of Tucson's newest red light camera intersections.

Hungary, Poland, UK: Bogus Tickets, Faulty Cameras

A court in Hungary has thrown out the speed camera citation issued to the driver of a Mercedes Actros long-haul truck in Zalaegerszeg. The automated ticketing machine accused the vehicle of driving 31 MPH faster than the truck's speed limiter would have allowed...

In Swidnik, Poland last month police secretly removed a speed camera from service that had a cracked housing. According to Wiadomosci-24 police kept the withdrawal from service a secret to avoid undermining "the credibility of the measurements" of the photo radar device if the public had known it had been in use while damaged...

Indiana, Italy: Bogus Photo Enforcement Tickets Issued

Excerpt:

A motorist received automated tickets from two towns in Calabria, Italy for a single simultaneous offense. According to the notices, the vehicle was photographed on the same day, in the same town, on the same road, at the same speed by the same speed camera operator. Yet one of the tickets was issued by the police in Rocca Imperiale, the other by the police fifteen miles away in Amendolara, Alla Guida reported.

On the island of Sardinia, the prefect of Cagliari canceled 450 bogus speed camera tickets issued by a camera in Monastir. The prefect ruled October 4 that based on an usually high number of tickets issued that something was wrong. The camera was installed without the legally required warning signs in place and the photo ticketing company was being paid on a per-citation basis, Omni Moto reported.

Vehicle owners in Indiana are at risk of receiving bogus speed camera, red light camera and toll road tickets because of the way in which the state issues license plate numbers...

Maryland, New Jersey, Australia, Hungary Experience Photo Ticket Trouble

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The city of Glassboro, New Jersey has been caught trapping motorists with a red light camera installed at a location with illegally short yellow times. WPVI-TV reported that the intersection of Delsea Drive and William Dalton Drive had a yellow time of 2.8 seconds where state guidelines set a minimum of 4.0 seconds. The short yellow helped boost the number of $85 citations issued, although officials refused to release figures of how many were ticketed at the location.

The mishandling of county speed camera records almost prevented a Maryland couple from moving into a new home. According to College Park Patch, the motorists discovered a hitch on their credit report as Montgomery County claimed a $45 photo radar ticket was never paid. It had been paid, and showing proof of payment to the settlement attorney was sufficient to clear up the matter.

A laser-based speed camera accused a Mercedes Actros long-haul truck in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary of driving 140 km/h (87 MPH) in a 60 km/h (37 MPH) zone on December 4, 2008, Zalai Hirlap reported. Police insisted that this reading was absolutely accurate, but the prosecution ran into a problem at trial last week. The truck was equipped with a device limiting its top speed to 90 km/h (56 MPH), and a digital tacograph plus a GPS system confirmed that the vehicle has never driven as fast as claimed. Police countered that its video evidence showed the truck at 140km/h, then 4 seconds later slowing to 75 km/h. An expert witness showed that the 20-ton vehicle would have had to brake from 140 to 75 in 1.6 seconds, but a vehicle seen on tape behind the truck did not seem to change its pace despite the heavy braking alleged by the police interpretation. The judge threw out the evidence as unreliable.

Cops admit cameras flawed

Excerpt:

A TECHNICAL glitch has forced police to switch off all point-to-point speed cameras along the Hume Highway.

The embarrassing bungle has seen Victoria Police take unlawful action against drivers on at least nine occasions.

Australia, Illinois, France, Saudi Arabia, Washington: Speed Camera Problems Rampant

Excerpt:

The Roads and Traffic Authority in New South Wales, Australia admits that poor quality roads had caused speed camera inaccuracy. Complaints about bogus speed readings in North Narrabeen forced 996 refunds worth A$173,251 and centered on a faulty sensor in one of the lanes.

In the town of La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in central France, authorities installed a speed camera on the RD940, Le Journal du Centre reported. The automated ticketing machine was supposed to operate at the 50 km/h stretch of road, but it ended up taking photographs of a pole located just a few yards away from the camera.

In Lynnwood, Washington, a municipal court judge overturned the $124 speed camera ticket mailed to Paul Cesmat because the city did not provide the required warnings to indicate a lowered speed limit had been in effect. KING-TV reported that the city's for-profit contractor had set up cameras outside Lynnwood Elementary School where a sign says the speed limit is 20 MPH when lights are flashing. The sign had no lights installed.

On August 25, Chicago, Illinois resident Sonia Nano received a $375 ticket in the mail claiming that her 2005 Nissan was photographed traveling through Interstate 55 on May 25 at 62 MPH in the reduced speed limit 45 zone in Sangamon County. As the Chicago Tribune reported, Nano does not own a Nissan and was never in Sangamon County. To fight the ticket, she was told to make the four-hour drive to Springfield to appear on October 14 at 9am. Only after the Tribune intervened did the state attorney's office agree to drop the bogus citation.

Speeding enforcement camera catches the wrong culprit

Excerpt:

•Sonia Nano has never been to Sangamon County.
•She does not own a 2005 Nissan.
•She in no way, shape or form looks like the woman caught on camera May 25 speeding through a construction zone on Interstate 55.

So the Chicago resident was more than a little confounded to learn she was issued a ticket for driving 62 miles per hour in a 45 mph work zone.

Australia, France, Poland, UK: Speed Camera Accuracy Concerns Grow

Excerpt:

A court in Melbourne, Australia has thrown out a speed camera citation over accuracy concerns, the Herald Sun reported. Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court last month dismissed the case against Robert Levasseur after he was able to show the same time codes were printed on a series of sequential camera photos. Despite the obvious error, officials insisted there is nothing wrong with the camera and it will continue to issue citations.

In West Dorset, England a motorist has succeeded in identifying a flaw in one of the country's most notorious speed cameras. Paul Snowball found that the automated ticketing machine on the A35 at Chideock relies upon improperly spaced pavement markings as a secondary accuracy check. Officials claim that they use lines painted five feet apart on the pavement to conduct a crude time-distance calculation to verify that the radar speed reading is correct. The lines on the pavement at this location, however, were 4 foot 6 inches or 4 foot 8 inches apart. Snowball's case was dismissed, the Dorset Echo reported.

In Silesia, Poland, motorist Wieslaw Rekowski was mailed a 150 zloty (US $53) fine for allegedly speeding in a Jeep. Rekowski, however, owns a Volkswagen Golf and never goes to the area in which he was accused of driving 72 km/h (45 MPH) in a 50 km/h (31 MPH) zone. Officials blamed the false charge on a "rare mistake," Super Express reported.

A woman whose car was registered in Guadeloupe, an archipelago in the Lesser Antilles, was accused by a camera of speeding in Paris, France -- 4,200 miles away. Police have rejected all attempts to resolve the bogus ticket and insist full payment must be made, DOMActu reported.

$130,000 in Central Coast speed cameras fines to be handed back

Excerpt:

MORE than $130,000 is to be repaid to Central Coast motorists fined after being caught on speed cameras.

Gosford deputy mayor Craig Doyle said he had obtained information that the State Government was to repay fines totalling almost $4 million after many of the cameras - at least nine of them on the coast - were found to be faulty.

Florida, Ohio, Australia, Germany: Photo Enforcement Accuracy Problems Multiply

Excerpt:

Garfield Heights, Ohio will refund 984 speed camera tickets worth $98,400 after city officials admitted that they misled the public. In announcing the automated ticketing machines, officials promised that tickets would be issued to those accused of going 11 MPH over the limit. The city's contract with Redflex, the Australian company that actually runs the program, called for tickets to anyone going 10 MPH over the limit.

In Troy, New York, motorist Susan White was falsely accused of running a red light on May 20 at 4:32pm by an automated camera in North Miami Beach. The $125 ticket came with a photograph of a dark Chevrolet with an extremely blurry license plate. White drives a light-colored Kia Soul. White explained to the Times-Union newspaper that she has never been to Miami and was at work in Troy on May 20. After the Times-Union got involved, American Traffic Solutions canceled the bogus ticket.

A court in Siegburg, Germany found a motorist who had been flashed by a speed camera on the L 333 in Sankt Augustin-Buisdorf not guilty. At trial, an expert was able to show from the camera's photographs that it would have been impossible for the driver to have been traveling at the speed alleged based on measurements of distance traveled over time.

Speed camera doubts

Excerpt:

That suggestion has been strengthened by documents seen by the Herald Sun. Those documents reveal the EastLink cameras have been plagued with a litany of faults, corrupt data and damaged hardware.

The documents raise serious doubts about the accuracy of the cameras.

Query on tickets issued from rogue camera on Wellington Rd

Excerpt:

The Wellington Rd speed camera site is arguably Australia's most controversial.

Documents show that on March 2 last year, a tollway camera in lane 3 was taking images when it wasn't meant to.

The contractor sought access to the camera to determine why it had malfunctioned.

It is believed the camera had been intermittently taking sub-standard images in the weeks leading up to March 2.

Maryland, Australia, Spain: Traffic Cameras Beset With Accuracy Issues

Excerpt:

On average, red light cameras and speed cameras in Adelaide, Australia go haywire twice a week, according to documents obtained by the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper. Over the course of two years, a total of 213 incidents of the devices breaking down -- sometimes photographing drivers who have done nothing wrong.

In Spain, more than 100,000 illegally inflated photo radar citations have been issued since May 24, according to the European Motorists Association (AEA)...

Australia: 18,944 Inaccurate or Illegal Photo Radar Tickets Refunded

Excerpt:

In less than three years, officials in New South Wales, Australia have been forced to refund 18,944 faulty or illegally issued speed camera citations. Between July 2007 and May 2010, the state government has returned A$3,788,885 worth of citations issued by automated ticketing machines that were not operating properly...

Drivers outraged over Forest Heights speed cameras' miscalculations

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Some drivers say the cameras focused on northbound and southbound Route 210 are committing highway robbery. Earl Lomax is a former police officer who says the two speed camera tickets he got along the busy two-lane road this summer are bogus.

Red light camera malfunctions at Oyster Point

Excerpt:

NEWPORT NEWS — – A new red light enforcement initiative at a major intersection in Newport News has been temporarily suspended following an equipment malfunction.

Police spokesman Lou Thurston said Friday that the program has been temporarily suspended "due to issues with the equipment."

Milwaukie photo radar produces 13,000 tickets; impact on safety unclear

Excerpt:

Glenn Nickelson, 65, of Vancouver received a $288 photo radar speeding ticket last February. Nickelson, who said he has not been in Milwaukie in years, was baffled by the citation.

"It wasn't my car. The picture was a Pontiac. Ours was a Kia," Nickelson said. "After three weeks it was straightened out. But it seems pretty haphazard, doesn't it?"

Metro columnist Dan Casey: Letter of the law fails driver

Excerpt:

Those robocams, once again under consideration in the city of Roanoke, bug the living daylights out of the longtime Roanoke Valley beer distributor. When you hear his story, it's easy to understand why.

He would be the frustrated protagonist who nearly goes insane trying to explain to traffic department paper pushers that his 1998 Volkswagen Beetle could not be the scofflaw car that racked up hundreds of dollars worth of red light violations and parking tickets in Washington and Arlington in 2000 and 2001.

Archer knew this was impossible because his Beetle has never been out of the Roanoke Valley. Ever.

Maryland, Tennessee, Australia, Germany: Bogus Speed Camera Tickets Issued

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Seven-time Formula One racing champion Michael Schumacher, 41, told the Bild newspaper through a spokesman last week that the speed camera ticket he received for allegedly driving 120 km/h (75 MPH) in a 100 km/h (62 MPH) zone on the A8 Salzburg was bogus. The speed camera photograph clearly shows someone besides the Schumacher was behind the wheel of a rented Wiesmann sports car. Nonetheless, a court in Traunstein found the racing legend guilty for failure to appear and imposed a 140 euro (US $183) fine.

A car dealer in New South Wales, Australia has been hit with A$775 in speeding tickets for offenses committed by somebody else. Phil Taylor sold his personal automobile to an Irish contract worker, but the Roads and Traffic Authority refused to transfer the vehicle registration to the new buyer's home address in Ireland. As a result, Taylor has been stuck with all of the tickets that the new owner racked up before returning home to Ireland.

"If this guy had sped through the camera one more time I would have lost my license," Taylor told the Tweed Daily News.

A speed camera in Bluff City, Tennessee claimed that an octogenarian woman from Virginia blasted through the town on a motorcycle at midnight. Jean Robinson from Lexington, Virginia neither rides a motorcycle nor ever visits Bluff City, WSLS-TV reported. Nonetheless, despite claiming that "three people" review every citation, nobody at the police department or photo ticket company noticed that the ticket shows Robinson's vehicle ownership details -- she owns an automobile. The vehicle committing the alleged offense on the ticket is a motorcycle with a similar license plate number.

In Brentwood, Maryland every speed camera ticket issued between June 24 and July 13 will be refunded, according to a statement from Mount Rainier Police Chief Michael E. Scott. The city refused to clearly explain the reason for the error to inquiries made by the Washington Examiner. It appears that the private company that operates the program, Optotraffic, used the signature of an inactive police officer to approve the citations -- in violation of state law.

Md. town refunds speed camera tickets

Excerpt:

A Maryland town bordering Northeast Washington is giving refunds to hundreds of drivers who were erroneously issued speeding tickets over the course of two weeks, The Washington Examiner has learned.

Brentwood Mayor Xzavier Montgomery-Wright attributed the refund to an "internal error," which she refused to explain.

Problem Solvers: Lexington woman gets ticket from Tennesee, but she's never driven there

Florida, Australia, Scotland: Accuracy, Legal Problems With Speed Cameras

Excerpt:

American Traffic Solutions, the private vendor that operates the red light camera program in North Miami Beach, Florida accused Susan White of Troy, New York of running a red light on May 20 at 4:32pm. White was at work thousands of miles away at the time. The company demanded $125, even though the ticket clearly was not hers. The license plate in the citation photograph was blurry, showing something like BCH, but could have been 5CN. The dark Chevy that apparently ran the light looked nothing like the light-colored Kia Soul that White owns, the Albany Times Union newspaper reported.

California, UK: Bad Signs And Short Yellows Create Photo Ticket Traps

Excerpt:

In Los Angeles, California, yellow lights at intersections met the absolute bare minimum yellow timing for straight through movements in a test of sixteen locations by the University of California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. On the other hand, nine locations were found to have left turn movements with illegally short, sub-three second yellow times.

Clem7 speeding fines withdrawn

Excerpt:

Motorists caught speeding in the Clem7 tunnel since its opening two months ago will escape penalty.

Speeding notices issued to drivers are being withdrawn because testing of the eight speed cameras did not comply with legislation.

Frankston motorists to escape fines from faulty red-light camera

Excerpt:

A NEW red-light camera in Frankston is on the blink, but motorists won’t be penalised.

The camera, on the corner of Nepean Highway and Davey St, has been constantly flashing all last night and this morning.

Lawyer finds glitch in Portland's red light cameras

Excerpt:

PORTLAND -- Portland lawyer Mark Ginsberg beat the city this week on a red light camera ticket he got last February.

He asked the city for an explanation of the technology involved, and the meaning of some numbers on the photo. What he learned was startling.

"The city of Portland, in their own documents they sent to me, said they don't know how accurate their own photo red light cameras are right now."

Investigate speed camera accuracy: Morris

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A Victorian MP has called on the Brumby Government to investigate the accuracy of a speed camera following concerns motorists are being wrongly fined.

Accuracy and Legal Problems in Photo Tickets Across the Country

Excerpt:

In the past few weeks, motorists in Arizona, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, Texas, Washington state and the UK discovered that they had been wrongly issued red light camera and speed camera tickets. In Baltimore, Maryland, for example, the speed camera at the 2200 block of West Cold Spring Lane was set to ticket drivers as if the speed limit were 30 MPH. In fact, the limit for eastbound traffic is 35 MPH. Baltimore officials now must issue refunds after 932 motorists were falsely accused, WBFF-TV reported. The tickets would have been worth $37,280. Only 200 vehicle owners had paid the citation before motorist Brian Struckmeier blew the whistle on the speed limit error.

In El Paso, Texas motorist Gracie Goetz received a red light camera ticket in the mail for a violation that she did not commit. Goetz drives a silver car, but the car shown on the citation is black. Goetz got the run-around when trying to point out how the ticket was wrongly issued, as city officials insisted that errors were rare, KFOX-TV reported.

Motorist William King also received a red light camera ticket in the mail from the city of Excelsior Springs, Missouri for a violation that he did not commit, WDAF-TV reported. King owns a silver Ford Edge SUV with the personalized license plate "ON EDGE." The vehicle in the ticket photo is a black Ford Edge with the same license plate. It turns out that the state allows the same plate to be issued as long as the cars are registered in separate counties. Neither the city nor the red light camera company bothered to resolve the bogus ticket until WDAF intervened.

In Milwaukie, Oregon, Lalita Miles, 48, received a $235 ticket in the mail for allegedly driving 37 MPH on King Road where a sign indicated the speed limit was 25 MPH, The Oregonian reported. Miles discovered that, in fact, the speed limit on the road was actually 35 MPH, but the city continued to use an illegally low limit to boost the number of citations generated. A Clackamas County Circuit Court found Miles guilty of driving 2 MPH over the limit.

Red-Light Mix-Up Could Lead to Changes at the DMV

Surprise! Photo Radar Trailer Malfunctions Caught on Video

Woman Gets Red Light Camera Ticket, But Car Is Not Hers

Excerpt:

EL PASO, Texas -- When Gracie Goetz opened her mail on Saturday, she said she got an ugly surprise.

"I got this official-looking scary thing that looked like I was in trouble," Goetz told KFOX on the phone.

She lives in Austin, but somehow got a red light camera ticket in El Paso, even though she said she never drove her car in the Borderland.

Colorado, Illinois, Italy: Bogus Tickets And Accidents From Traffic Cameras

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An American woman stationed with her husband at Osan Air Base in South Korea was accused by a camera of toll skipping in Illinois on March 10, 2009. Even though Heather Perry could prove that it was impossible for her to have committed the crime -- her car is in storage while she is overseas -- she was nonetheless threatened with a $150 fine if she did not pay $63 immediately.

In Tarsia, Italy a motorist's reaction to the sight of a speed camera caused an accident on provincial road 241.

Driver not breaking law receives ticket because of red light camera

Florida, Germany, UK: Traffic Cameras Face Accuracy, Legal Issues

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A Florida motorist defeated a red light camera ticket issued by a private company in Collier County after showing the yellow light duration at the intersection was too short. Mike Mogil measured the yellow time at Collier Boulevard at 3.8 seconds, but it should have been 4.5 seconds based on state guidelines, WVZN-TV reported.

Police in Germany may no longer issue speed camera tickets from a motorcycle after a statement by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt questioning the accuracy of the systems.

Ohio, Texas, Washington, Australia, Germany: Photo Ticket Accuracy Troubles

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The Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia earlier this month heard claims that disgruntled former employees of the speed camera operator VIPAC had the capability of remotely adjusting threshold settings and issue automated citations to innocent motorists...

In Houston, Texas motorists are receiving "red light running" tickets for turning right on a green light, KTRK-TV reported...

In Seattle, Washington judges are angry with the city for continuing to issue citations with the red light camera location at 45th Street and Union Bay Place, even though judges have already ruled that the camera was set up in violation of state law...

In East Cleveland, Ohio a mobile speed camera is issuing $95 tickets in front of Shaw High School where the limit is 20 MPH when the school zone lights are flashing. The lights, however, are broken and motorists are receiving tickets despite the lack of notice of a speed limit change, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

The German agency charged with verifying accuracy of police equipment (Landesamt fur Mess- und Eichwesen) earlier this month discovered that a set of twelve speed cameras in Erfurt had "software errors" that resulted in bogus readings...

Ticket exposes problem with traffic signal

California: Red Light Camera Refunds Reach $3.1 Million

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Red light camera refunds will now reach $3.1 million in the city of South San Francisco, California. City officials decided this week that it had no choice but to refund tickets issued between January 28 and March 10 after being confronted by potential lawsuits over the city's failure to abide by state law.

1,740 red-light-camera tickets to go away

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League City will dismiss 1,740 red-light-camera tickets and issue refunds because a traffic light at the Gulf Freeway and FM 518 hasn't been staying yellow long enough.

Speed fines refund after faulty camera find

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AT least 900 speeding fines will be cancelled after it was discovered a northern beaches speed camera, located on one of the state's most lucrative stretches of road, was delivering false readings.

Busted: wrong woman ticketed

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Connie Buckallew of Queen City received an $85 traffic ticket in the mail Saturday morning.

It was from the City of St. Peters, Missouri stating that she had run a red light on January 17, 2010, and the offense was captured on a red light photo enforcement camera.

The Pontiac Grand Prix in the pictures is not Buckallew's, and it's clearly not Buckallew pictured in the driver's seat.

Canada, UK: Automated Cameras Involved in Mistakes and Accidents

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Errors on the part of drivers, the police and the cameras themselves are causing problems. The camera software, for example, frequently is unable to distinguish similar characters such as the letter O and the number 0. Other errors can happen when drivers apply for insurance and accidentally transpose letters on their applications, causing incorrect data to be entered into the insurance database. In such cases, the automated machines will attempt to verify insurance coverage and wrongly flag the vehicle as uninsured. Police will pull over and attempt to issue a ticket to these individuals who would be put in the position of proving their innocence.

"Simple errors can result in a lot of wasted time and inconvenience for you, the police and your insurer -- quite apart from the risk of temporarily having your car confiscated," Douglas said.

South San Francisco to refund some red light fines

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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - South San Francisco police say drivers who received tickets for running red lights in the city from the middle of August through late January are due a refund because of a legal oversight.

Washington, South Africa: Bogus Speed Camera Tickets Issued

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A speed camera in Tacoma, Washington issued tickets to motorists who were driving the correct speed limit in a school zone...

In Johannesburg, South Africa, Metro police were forced to refund tickets issued by a speed camera that had been positioned in an unauthorized area on Gordon Road in Roodepoort...

California: City Refunds $1.4 Million in Illegal Traffic Camera Tickets

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The city of South San Francisco, California last week admitted it had issued red light camera tickets under an ordinance that had never been properly ratified. As a result, every ticket, worth $446 each, that the city allowed American Traffic Solutions (ATS) to issue since August 2009 was invalid. Over 3000 citations and accompanying license points will be refunded.

The city's focus on technicalities has ensured the program would have no impact on safety, as verified by preliminary accident statistics at the city's two camera-equipped intersections.

Red-light running cameras flashing like strobe lights at some intersections

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County's red-light running cameras along Immokalee Road malfunctioned this week, flashing like strobe lights and confusing motorists.

Problem with Tacoma speed camera fixed but some got tickets

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Spanaway resident Richard Johnson called Friday to alert The News Tribune to an issue with the speed camera near Stewart Middle School in Tacoma.

The camera is located in the 5000 block of Pacific Avenue and became active in early January, Tacoma police reported. It's designed to looking for violators the 30 minutes before and the 30 minutes after the school day.

Johnson said he got a ticket in the mail for going 30 mph in the school zone. The problem, he said, was the warning lights notifying drivers they are in a school zone were not working.

Ticket Issued to Wrong Person, Prompts Anti-PE Bill Proposal

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Democrat Peggy Gibson introduced the South Dakota bill after a constituent received a ticket that didn't belong to her. That ticket was issued for an illegal right turn in August by the driver of a four-door sedan.

The $86 ticket was delivered to Kimberly Greer of Huron. Greer was surprised to see her name on a picture of the offending vehicle.

"I haven't owned a car since 2000," Greer said. "I have a Ford F-150 and a Ford Ranger."

Sioux Falls officials told Greer she would need to contest the ticket to a Sioux Falls hearing officer. The car was hers, they said.

Red Light Camera Snaps Too Many Photos

Man Gets Speeding Ticket For...Parking

Excerpt:

Getting a speeding ticket is never fun. It's even worse when you get a speeding ticket while your car is parked. For one UK motorist, that's exactly what happened, not once, but twice. On two separate occasions, he has been sent a speeding ticket when he knew his car was stationary.

Arizona, Hungary, Maryland, UK: Speed Cameras Plagued by Accuracy Problems

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Speed cameras worldwide were plagued by accuracy problems this week. In Scottsdale, Arizona, a black man received a white man's tickets on five occasions.

In Chevy Chase, Maryland, WTOP News reported that hundreds of duplicate speed camera citations are being generated as motorists drive past a fixed camera and a mobile unit parked right next to it...

A similar problem is apparent in the town of Pecs, Hungary where a man received two speed camera citations for the same alleged offense...

In Nottingham, England, motorist Jeff Buck, 55, received two speed camera tickets while his car was parked outside his home on Watnall Road on December 13.

Speed cameras taking too many pictures

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CHEVY CHASE, Md. -- Nearly 200 duplicate speed camera photographs have been snapped in the Village of Chevy Chase since the beginning of the month, and there could be more.

Village Police Chief Roy Gordon tells WTOP that out of the 2,794 possible speed camera violations that have been taken since Jan. 1, 174 of them were duplicate pictures. Meanwhile, 1,090 potential violations are still being processed and could contain additional duplicates.

Viewer fights photo radar mistake

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A New Mexico man received a red light camera ticket for nearly $500 in San Diego, Calif. The problem is, he was in New Mexico on the day the camera flashed, and the vehicle in the picture isn't his.

Getting a hold of anyone in San Diego to fix it has been a headache for Aragon. He says he's tried for the past three weeks with no luck.

Viewer fights photo radar mistake

Excerpt:

A month after Terry Fox traded-in a car back in 1999, he got a photo radar ticket in the mail. He contacted Scottsdale City Court and was told to send in a copy of his driver's license as proof it wasn't him in the photo. He never heard a word about the ticket again. Then, just a few weeks ago, he received a letter.

Terry says a court audit determined he had never paid the ticket and he owed $228. He went down to the court to explain again, 11-years later, that he wasn't the guy!

On Your Side: Woman Fights DC Ticket Mix-Up

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WASHINGTON - No one likes getting a speeding or parking ticket in the mail, but it's especially frustrating when it's from a place you never visited.

Graham continued, "I've lost my job, due to the cancer and everything. And I've been having to fight that and now have to fight something that don't even belong to me."

Graham claims the car in the citations, a Toyota Corrolla, isn't hers. The information doesn't even match the vehicle. It describes her old Honda Civic, which was actually scrapped by her boyfriend three years ago.

After sending proof that the tags expired and the car was scrapped, D.C. police sent Graham a letter stating that it was insufficient evidence and she was still liable. Graham says she's never even driven the 60 miles to the District.

Road runner : Photo radar shoots a fake, cites owner of legit 'N JOY AZ' plate

Excerpt:

Lucky guy he got the real deal. He designed the novelty plate for the Arizona Office of Tourism in 1991. Since he came up with the concept, he has the only one that's actually a registered license plate.

He turned out to be not so lucky, though, when one of the novelty plates went through photo radar on the front of a large, white, Dodge truck and garnered a citation, which was sent to Taylor as the registered owner of that license plate.

The first problem is that Taylor drives a red four-door Lexus sedan. The citation even says his vehicle is a Lexus, right above the photos of a white truck with the novelty plate on the front of the vehicle.

Speed cameras challenged thanks to vehicle tracking technology

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A driver has successfully challenged a speeding ticket thanks to vehicle tracking technology installed in his van.

Gareth Powell was clocked doing 61mph in a 50mph limit on A4174 near Bristol in November last year, while he was working as an employee of MD Building Services Ltd.

Vehicle tracking records proved that his Ford Transit Connect van had in fact been travelling at 48mph.

This driver would have had NO defense had he not had GPS tracking data on his side. --admin

German Court Questions Laser Speed Camera Accuracy

Excerpt:

A German court last month overturned a traffic citation after prosecutors failed to prove the accuracy of a new laser-based speed camera technology. The district court of Dillenburg heard testimony from four experts, each of whom cast doubt on the system. The Judge Matthias Gampe concluded that the motorist accused by a Poliscan automated ticketing machine of driving 96km/h (60 MPH) in a 40 (25 MPH) zone was not guilty.

About 100 of the devices were installed in Mannheim in 2007. Since then, 19,000 motorists have complained about erroneous readings. The expert witnesses testified that changing lanes or having a vehicle cross between your car and the camera could generate spurious readings. As the court found, there is no external means of verifying that the speed estimate generated is accurate because the system does not photograph vehicles at set distances like conventional systems.

BIKER CLOCKED DOING '383MPH'

Excerpt:

A BIKER has appealed after losing his licence when speed cameras clocked him riding at an impossible 383 mph

Motorbike mad Paolo Turina of Cernusco Lombardone, Italy - who also copped a 200 fine - claims the speed camera was clearly so defective the charge should never have been brought.

Ticket Mistake May Have Cost Woman Job

Excerpt:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Elizabeth Vaughan says she thought she had a much-needed job in the bag, but a mistake involving a photo-radar ticket from a decade ago spoiled her chances.

License suspended even though woman wasn't served ticket

Excerpt:

"I got pulled over by Phoenix police and they told me I had a suspended license and they gave me a couple of tickets for suspended license and possession of suspended license," she said.

Parker says she had no idea why it was suspended.

"So I had to go down and figure out what it was and it was a ticket in Scottsdale," Parker said. "They gave me a photo radar ticket I wasn't aware of."

Parker says she never received a photo radar ticket in the mail informing her and, more importantly, no one ever officially served her.

Was justice denied by speeding ticket delay?

Excerpt:

Bolen's situation stems from what officials described as a glitch with an Illinois State Police vendor responsible for generating tickets through speed vans positioned on I-88 and other construction zones around the Chicago area. State Police District 15 Sgt. Jim Jenkner described Bolen's situation as "isolated," although he couldn't say how many tickets could have been issued or how many motorists could have been affected in Kane County.

Venice woman's red light-camera ticket: wrong car, wrong city

Excerpt:

Silvia Cuervo says her first red-light traffic camera ticket was mystifying, because it came from somewhere in North Florida where she hadn't been driving.

But rather than go up there to fight it, the Venice resident and her husband say they just grumbled and mailed the check.

Then Cuervo got another ticket, this time from the city of Lakeland. It said her 2003 Nissan had run a red light there, about 4 a.m. June 28, by not quite coming to a full stop before making a right turn.

But the borderline nature of the violation wasn't the issue for Cuervo. She was worried and frustrated. She and her husband say they have never been to Lakeland, and that their only car -- a 2003 yellow Nissan Xterra SUV registered in her name -- was parked at their home in Venice that June morning.

Oh, and the tag number listed on the ticket? It was not even remotely similar to the one on Cuervo's car.

The Netherlands: Parked Truck Receives 45 Automated Speeding Tickets

Excerpt:

Dutch lumber merchant Martin Robben no longer believes that the speed camera never lies. As reported by De Telegraaf, the man was falsely accused of speeding forty-five times on August 25 while his vehicle, a commercial truck, was parked on the side of the road in Oldeberkoop village.

Man: License Taken Years After [Photo] Ticket

Excerpt:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The MVD notified a Scottsdale man that his license was suspended eight years after a photo-radar camera captured him speeding.

"So I called the court and a young lady told me to come on down that they've been having some issues like this with computer glitches and a lot of old tickets were popping up," said Lind.

As for the citation, Lind appealed and won because there was no proof that someone served him the ticket.

"It was still a hassle, and it cost me hundreds of dollars," said Lind.

Speed cameras mean deja vu to some drivers

Excerpt:

When Scott Rufolo received a citation after getting nabbed by a speed camera March 3, he paid the $40 fine right away because he knew he'd been doing 51 mph in a 30-mph zone. But when he received another citation for a violation Aug. 3, he was angry.

The citation listed him as going through the same Connecticut Avenue and East Melrose Street intersection in Chevy Chase on a day when he was home in Greenbrook, N.J.

Chevy Chase Village Police Chief Roy A. Gordon said a human error by an officer had transposed the "3/8" date to "8/3," causing the speed camera to save the images until Aug. 3 and send out a new batch of citations for the earlier offense.

Rufolo's August citation and 40 others were voided after the error was discovered, Gordon said. Nine motorists who paid their fines will receive refunds.

Heath (Ohio) speed cameras issuing false triggers on motorcycles

Excerpt

It turns out, he's not the only one; apparently, motorcycles have been tripping the light fantastically often in the last few weeks, and nobody seems to know exactly why.

Redflex hasn't been able to explain why motorcycles are getting triggered, but it doesn't happen every time, Shepherd said.

South Africa: Chinese Car Accused of Impossible Speeds

A set of speed cameras in Johannesburg, South Africa accused a Geely automobile of reaching impossible speeds. On April 26, a camera on the N12 South flashed the Chinese import belonging to motorist Francisca Al-Halaseh near Canada Road Bridge. Just 19 seconds later, according to the tickets, she was flashed driving 102km/h (63 MPH) in an 80km/h (50 MPH) zone at Randshow Road Bridge. The only problem is that those locations are 2.9 miles apart, meaning Al-Halaseh would have to have been traveling 549 miles per hour.

That would be difficult for the Geely CK-1 which was first sold in South Africa in 2007. The company's most potent flagship model boasts only 94 horsepower from a 1.5 liter engine. That gives the 100,000 Rand (US $12,850) economy car a top speed of just 105 MPH.

Operator error nixes radar tickets

An Edmonton man who challenged a photo radar ticket that had him pegged at 7 kilometres over the speed limit has had his 71 dollar ticket thrown out.

Matt O'Daly was ticketed on the Rainbow Valley bridge along with 157 other drivers on June 21st.

O'Daly says he was not in the wrong, because the photo radar operator didn't check to verify the speed zone.

The operator mistook an 80 kilometre zone for a 70 kilometre zone.

How many innocent people just paid the ticket anyway? How much time and effort did it take for this guy to win? --admin

PV to reimburse 1,000 cited by traffic camera

Excerpt:

Paradise Valley plans to refund a total of $36,000 to more than 1,000 drivers who received tickets for running a faulty traffic light at Tatum Boulevard and McDonald Drive.

The town sent 1,063 letters June 22 informing drivers ticketed between May 7 and June 17 to expect a full refund of their fines.

UK Cancels 24,889 Invalid Speed Camera Tickets

Excerpt:

Official in West Dorset, England will refund a total of 24,889 speed camera tickets worth 1,493,340 pounds (US $2.5 million) that were improperly issued over the course of a decade. The Dorset Speed Camera Partnership yesterday gave up its four-year battle to hold onto the 60 pounds (US $100) tickets issued at a location where the speed limit had been unlawfully lowered.

9298 Bogus Speed Camera Tickets Refunded in The Netherlands

Excerpt:

The National Public Prosecutors Office in The Netherlands on Monday announced that it had ordered the refund of 9298 speed camera tickets because the agency was unable to guarantee the accuracy of the automated speed readings. Recipients of citations issued between April 23 and May 9 on the A12 in Arnhem will receive a letter from the Central Fine Collection Agency (CJIB) dismissing the notice of violation and providing a check repaying any amounts collected.

Close to two-thirds of photos taken by speed cameras tossed

Excerpt:

Motorists activated photo-enforcement cameras on Arizona highways more than 471,000 times from December through February - more than 5,200 times each day - but on average, only about one-third of those drivers received tickets from the state Department of Public Safety.

An Arizona Republic analysis of three months of records shows Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. and the DPS threw out more than 65 percent of the photos captured.

AZ Speed Camera Program Harasses Wyoming Couple

Because of a case of mistaken identity, my husband is being harassed by the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division. We are a quiet, middle-aged couple with clean driving records living in a small town in northern Wyoming and haven't been to Arizona in well over 35 years, yet we've received four photo- radar citation speeding tickets ($171.00 each) from Tempe and a parking ticket from Phoenix in the past six months.

The young male speeder pictured bears no resemblance to my husband. More importantly, the black pickup with the "bully" sticker on the back bears no resemblance to our older family van.

The problem lies in the fact that in Wyoming, both a car and a truck can have the exact same license-plate number. It's a very simple matter of checking for the distinctive "TRK" notation at the top of the license plate before calling it in - and to take a few seconds to see if the photo matches the vehicle description. It seems so simple.

According to the Wyoming dDepartment of mMotor vVehicles, the negligence is coming from Arizona. We've made many phone calls, sent the required letters, faxes, even enlisted the aid of our local chief of police - yet we continue to receive threatening letters. Please help by printing this. We've tried everything else!?

-Kelly Massine, Lovell, Wyo

Cameras Record Incorrect Speeds

Excerpt:

Police have been forced to waive speeding tickets - losing thousands of dollars in revenue - because their new digital speed cameras are clocking motorists at twice their actual speeds.

A police spokesman has confirmed the new mobile cameras, which were introduced nationally in January at a cost of $4 million, were wrongly clocking the speeds of larger vehicles. Some tickets were issued for twice the vehicles' true speeds.

Livingston Parish dismisses nearly 2,500 tickets from speed van

The Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office has ordered the contractor that operates the parish's speed van to dismiss 2,488 speeding tickets issued to drivers on Interstate 12, says Perry Rushing, chief operations officer for the sheriff's office.

All of the tickets were issued in late January and early February near mile marker 15, Rushing said, where the speed limit drops from 70 mph to 60 mph. After receiving several complaints from ticketed drivers, the sheriff's office reviewed all of the tickets issued during the first nine days the van was in service and determined the van operator had set up too close to the speed-zone change.

"There was some confusion out there," Rushing says, referring to the exact point at which the speed limit changes. Drivers who already paid their tickets will get refunds, he says.

The parish's speed van is owned by Redflex Traffic Systems of Arizona, part of the Australian company Redflex Holdings. Redflex has photo enforcement contracts in more than 230 U.S. cities in 20 states.

The Livingston Parish van began issuing tickets Jan. 26. A Redflex employee, not a law enforcement officer, operates the van. According to sheriff's office records, as of Sunday, the company issued 4,111 speeding tickets in Livingston Parish. -Chuck Hustmyre

Erroneous Ticket on Video

This driver was accused of going 88mph in a 65mph zone. If you look at the video and the relative speed of the other vehicles, either the entire freeway is going about 88mph, or the subject is going with the flow of traffic. Now the driver, if he is prudent, must spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on attorneys to ensure that he is not found guilty of criminal speeding.

Here's the video by itself with an overlay of the surrounding traffic.

If this was you, this video is the only defense you have. Do you think the judge will buy it? How confident are you?

Minnesota Attorney General Slams Illinois Over Bogus Photo Tickets

Excerpts:

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson (DFL) is fed up with the state of Illinois for issuing toll road photo tickets and collection notices to innocent drivers in her state. Swanson yesterday fired off a 75-page complaint to the Illinois Tollway, the Illinois Office of the Executive Inspector General and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D). Swanson enumerated the problems Minnesotans described by those calling her office for help:

In light of the issuance of so many tickets to people who did not own the vehicle alleged to have committed violation, Swanson called on Illinois officials to stop sending photo tickets to Minnesota residents until Illinois can certify that its vehicle registration database contains up-to-date, accurate information. She also insisted that Illinois call off the collection agencies threatening Minnesota motorists with license suspensions for failure to pay the bogus citations.

Court throws out 'questionable' speed camera ticket

Excerpts:

On April 9, Southport Magistrate John Costanzo found in favour of Margaret Nocon, from Burleigh Heads, who fought a $275 fine for allegedly doing 81km/h in a 60 zone.

She decided to take legal action when the photograph issued by police showed just the left hand side of her four-wheel-drive and another car.

"The cameras can show which direction the offending vehicle is travelling but a whole lot of other factors can interfere with the accuracy of the reading," Mr Cooper said.

"All the cameras are set to high-sensitivity which means any reflective surface can interfere with their calibration. Also the position of the speed camera van can affect the reading by up to 15km/h."

"They must be parked on level ground and parallel to the footpath. Then police are supposed to drive by in patrol cars to make sure it's registering correct speeds and the angle of the radar is correct.

"What usually happens is that the officer parks the van, turns on the camera and walks away," Mr Cooper said

Netherlands: 289 Red Light Camera Tickets Refunded

Excerpt:

Police in the Netherlands were forced last week to refund 289 red light camera tickets issued by a mistimed red light camera. The device, installed in the town of Hoogeveen in Drenthe on March 17, never had its internal clock set properly. The camera continued to issue citations until March 31 when officials noticed that the timestamp on the violation notices did not match the date and time of any actual offenses.

French Legislators Question Accuracy of Speed Cameras

The accuracy of the 2327 speed cameras blanketing French roads came under fire in the National Assembly Tuesday. At issue is the practice of allowing the private, for-profit company responsible for the ticketing programs to self-certify its own hardware as accurate.

"It appears that the automated radar speed control devices are not completely reliable or completely transparent," National Assembly Member Rudy Salles said in an exchange with the Interior Minister. "On every notice of violation, there is a box specifying: the location of the offense, the exact identity of the machine and the name of the agency responsible for its annual audit. However, for most of the installed photo radars, the auditor is also the one that manufactures and markets the devices, which would constitute a violation of the decree of 31 December 2001 which said that the agency responsible for regular checks must ensure conditions of impartiality."

A detailed set of regulations adopted by the French government require verification of camera accuracy by a neutral party.

"The impartiality of the [certifying] organization must be guaranteed," regulation 37.8 states. "Payment may not depend on the results of inspections. The remuneration of staff shall not depend on either the number or the results of audits."

The French speed camera company Sagem is responsible for the vast majority of the country's speed cameras. Sagem also certifies the accuracy Sagem radar devices (view ticket). Lawmakers cited a specific example of how self-certification creates a conflict of interest that calls into question the reliability of the entire certification process.

"We can read in a document sent to me by Francois Rochebloine... that the information was 'verified on 30 April 2009,' that is, next month," Salles said. "There is a problem!"

Government officials defended the system saying that the private company Sagem has an approved "quality assurance" program.

"There is therefore no need to challenge the reliability and regularity of the system," Secretary of State Christian Blanc told the General Assembly. "The government intends to expand deployment with an installation rate of about five-hundred cameras each year."

Winnipeg, Canada Caught Trapping Drivers with Short Yellows

The city of Winnipeg, Canada has shortened the duration of the yellow warning at intersections equipped with red light cameras. The length of the yellow is the single most important factor in determining the financial success of a photo enforcement program, according to documents obtained from a red light camera vendor in 2001 (view documents). Winnipeg's shortening has yielded positive financial results.

The city's signal changes came to light after a 64-year-old grandmother named Judy received a ticket in the mail claiming her minivan had run a red light on August 31, 2008. She contacted Larry Stefanuik, a former police constable who now helps motorists fight traffic tickets who began looking into the ticket. Judy's ticket shows the intersection had been set with a 3.9 second yellow and that she entered the intersection -- slowly -- just 0.1 seconds after the light turned red.

That did not match the city's stated policy of setting the yellow warning to last at least 4.0 seconds at every intersection, according to an email obtained by Stefanuik.

"So in reality she had not run the red because it still should have been yellow," Stefanuik said. "Her speed was 49km/h in a 60km/h zone [30 MPH in a 37 zone]. She was robbed of 1/10th of a second."

The local court was not interested in exploring whether the city had violated its own policies by shortening the yellow. On March 18, the court imposed a $135 CAD fine on Judy, reduced from the standard $190 fine.

These fines have been adding up at the red light camera intersection in question. By 2007 the camera had issued 173 tickets, but by 2008 it was on track to issue 324 -- an 87 percent increase. The majority of the red light camera intersections in Winnipeg have seen a similar increase in tickets issued that helped drive an overall ticketing increase in the city of 23 percent.

Teenager gets speeding ticket... while her car was parked outside her house and she was asleep in bed

When Emily Davies parked her car outside her house and went to bed at 10pm as usual, she had no reason to believe Merseyside Police would be on her case.

But by the following morning they had given her a 60 speeding fine - even though her car had not moved an inch.

The 'model' driver, 19, was apparently flashed by a speed camera travelling seven miles over the speed limit in a 30mph zone.

But her R-reg Fiat Punto was parked in a bay while Miss Davies was fast asleep in bed, she says.

The teenager was allegedly clocked speeding outside her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, on March 10. She received a speeding ticket in the post from Merseyside Police Camera Partnership last week.

The police only realised their blunder after she went to the local police station to dispute the charge.

The registration plate on Miss Davies's stationary car is believed have appeared in the frame with a speeding vehicle which triggered the camera. An over-zealous operator noted the number and a fine was duly sent out to the innocent motorist.

She had been held up as a model driver when she passed her driving test first time with just one minor error two years ago. Her RAC instructor described her as his 'star pupil'.

Miss Davies, a clinical receptionist at Fazakerley Hospital, in Liverpool, said: 'I looked at the letter and began to question myself. I was shocked because I'm such a careful driver and I never speed.

'I knew there was no way I'd be out at 10.22pm on a week night. I realised they'd made a mistake.

'When I first disputed the claim, I was told that mistakes are never made. That's just not true. If this has happened to me, it must be happening to other people. It's a waste of time and money and things should be changed.'

A spokesman for Merseyside Road Safety Camera Partnership said: 'All I can say is Merseyside Police make a sincere apology. There was a failure on the operator's side.

'She will be getting a letter of apology and the matter will be cancelled.'

Captain Gatso, the self-styled campaigns director for Motorists Against Detection, said: 'This is yet another example of the unfairness of speed cameras. Inordinate sums of money and swathes of technology are invested in policing by camera.

'Mistakes happen again and again. As is demonstrated by a motorist 'speeding' while in fact parked and doing 0mph, cameras offer absolutely no discretion or common sense.'

The AA has revealed that thousands of motorists have been wrongly accused of speeding because of glitches in the controversial speed camera system. Mistakes range from registration numbers being misread to the dates and times of the alleged offence being wrong.

Drivers have been accused of breaking the speed limit when they were miles away in another county.

Others received fixed penalty notices for speeding even though they were abroad on holiday when the offence was said to have been committed.

Nationally, around two million motorists a year receive a 60 fine from 8,000 speed cameras.

Switzerland: 3000 Bogus Speed Camera Tickets Refunded

Three thousand motorists who were victims of a miscalibrated speed camera in the town of Lausanne, Switzerland were issued full refunds along with a letter of apology on Wednesday. The photo radar device, which had been located at the intersection of Bethusy and Victor-Ruffy Avenues, accused drivers who were not speeding of exceeding the 50 km/h (31 MPH) limit during a four-month period between November 20, 2008 and February 13, 2009.

After innocent motorists began complaining to the local media, police began to look into whether the automated ticketing machine may have malfunctioned. The investigation concluded that a manufacturer's defect had caused a "technical problem" forcing the detected speeds to read high.

"After checks were carried out by the manufacturer and confirmed by the Federal Office of Metrology (METAS), it appears that a defective electronic component distorted the reality of the measurements, creating violations that did not exist," a Lausanne Police press release stated.

Despite the false readings, the device had passed all of the standard calibration and approval tests required for issuing citations. Police insisted all other speed cameras in the area were perfectly accurate and that a new test would be performed to ensure this error does not return.

The problem with the Swiss camera is not unique. Throughout the world, officials have been forced to refund tens of thousands of speed camera tickets issued to innocent motorists.

Netherlands: 2640 Photo Radar Tickets Refunded

More uncalibrated machines, and another photo program shrouded in secrecy... -admin

Authorities in the Netherlands canceled 2640 tickets last week after the accuracy of a pair of speed cameras was put in question. The first camera issued 2576 of the invalidated fines on the Fokkerstraat in Assen, Drenthe between May 1 and September 15. After learning that the device had not been properly calibrated, the department asked the Central Judicial Collection Agency (CJIB) to cancel outstanding fines and issue full refunds worth over 100,000 Euros (US $130,000) to anyone who had already paid the ticket. A second camera on the N919 in Veenhuizen issued another 64 fines, now canceled, between July 11 and 30, 2008.

Both speed cameras were quickly recalibrated so that ticketing could resume without delay, as the Netherlands relies heavily on speeding tickets for revenue. The equivalent of one speeding ticket is issued to every licensed driver each year -- 11,662,981 speed camera tickets in 2008 according to the Central Judicial Collection Agency (CJIB) statistics. That number is down about one million from the 2007 total because a three-month police strike that hindered photo radar deployments.

The cameras made by the Dutch firm Gatsometer BV require periodic adjustments and checks to ensure accuracy. Gatsometer is the world's leading manufacturer of automated ticketing machine. Drenthe Police did not disclose whether a legal challenge had forced the refund. As a rule, Dutch authorities reveal as little information as possible about any citation. Motorists do not even receive a copy of the photographs that serve as the evidence of any alleged speeding violation. Instead, the vehicle owner must specifically ask to come to a police station during a restricted set of hours to view the photos.

Motorist beats 98mph speeding charge - by buying back his car and proving it can only manage a top speed of 85mph

Cameras cost this motorist almost $1000 to prove his innocence. --admin

A motorist prosecuted for driving at 98mph has escaped a driving ban - after proving that his 14-year-old car has a top speed of 85mph.

Dale Lyle, 21, took action when he was told a mobile speed camera had clocked him at nearly 100mph in his 1.3 litre Honda Civic.

He contested the accusation in court so magistrates then challenged him to 'prove it'.

To gather evidence to back up his claim, Mr Lyle, from Staple Hill, Bristol, paid 600 to buy back the car he had already sold.

Then he paid a further 600 for an independent driving expert to take the car on a two-mile test circuit at top speed.

Dale Lyle, who was accused of driving at 98mph, holds up the test certificate which proves his 14-year-old Honda Civic has a top speed of 85mph. The results showed that even when driven flat out the Honda could only do 85.4mph in fourth gear and 81.3mph in fifth - proving his innocence.

The financial worker, who has a clean licence, presented his evidence in court which undermined the credibility of the Crown Prosecution Service's case and had the charge against him dropped.

A CPS spokesman said: 'We came to the conclusion that there was no longer sufficient evidence to provide a prospect of a conviction.

As regards the 1,200 paid out by Mr Lyle to prove his case, he added: 'Recompense is a matter between the defendant and the court.'

Mr. Lyle, who had faced a maximum 1,000 fine and six-month ban for the speeding charge, said: 'I'm really glad I fought the system and won but I think I will have trouble getting the money I spent back.'

He said of the one-year court battle: 'The whole thing has been a complete shambles and waste of money. It's shocking how hard it has been for me to prove my innocence.

'I was in total disbelief when I opened the letter because I've never driven my car over the speed limit let alone at 98mph.

'It's such a small car I wouldn't feel safe - it's a glorified Japanese shopping trolley.

'I told the magistrates "I'm not being funny but this car is ancient and has 130,000 miles on the clock - there's no way it will do that speed".

'I was very nervous and my heart was going 90 to dozen but they just turned around to me and said "prove it". So I did.'

Mr Lyle obtained the mobile speed camera footage of his alleged offence and believes the speed camera was confused because there are three cars in the frame at the time.

'The video evidence the Crown Prosecution Service sent me was just appalling,' he said. "They are just picking on innocent motorists.

'When the three-minute film starts the mobile speed camera is panning into the sky, then focuses on the middle lane but it doesn't take any readings.

'Then you see the operator point the camera at me as I pull out into the third lane but cars on the inside lanes obstruct the view.

'When the 98mph reading flashes up there is another car in the picture - I think the camera must have confused the distance with the other car.

'It makes you wonder how many people say "fine, give me the points" when they are not guilty.'

Australia: Speed Camera Accuracy Under Fire

Excerpt:

Speed cameras in Queensland, Australia have not been well maintained, according to documents obtained by the Courier-Mail newspaper. The investigation found numerous cases of electrical faults that call into question the underlying accuracy of the readings produced by the devices.

...

North of Brisbane on the Bruce Highway, for example, a document showed that a camera short-circuited during a heavy rain storm in January 2007. Cameras with similar problems continued to issue citations at the rate of 4000 per month, on average. Police Minister Judy Spence insisted that no citation issued by a speed camera in Queensland has been found inaccurate because each speed camera can verify accuracy internally.

UK: Motorcyclist Proves Speed Camera Inaccurate in Court

A UK motorcyclist disproved the accuracy of a speed camera in court last month by proving that the evidence that the camera produced disagreed with itself. A Brighton Magistrates Court judge agreed and found Peter Barker, 51, not guilty of the charge of driving 38 MPH in a 30 zone, despite the insistence of prosecutors that the automated ticketing machine in question was properly certified, calibrated and accurate.

Barker, a software engineer, had passed a fixed speed camera on Ditchling Road in Brighton on June 15, 2008. Some days later he received in the mail a notice claiming he had been driving 38 MPH and insisting that he pay 60 (US $90), but Barker knew he was innocent.

"The reason I contested this case is quite simply because I was not exceeding the speed limit," Barker told TheNewspaper. "I live locally to the gatsometer and pass it several times a week. On this occasion I checked my speed was 30 MPH as I approached and I confirmed it was 30 MPH just after the second flash."

Barker determined that the device was positioned toward an iron railing fence and a bus shelter that must have distorted the radar reading and created a false result. This would not be enough to prove his innocence in court, so Barker searched for the best experts in Northern Europe to evaluate the pair of photographs the machine took of him. The team included Tony Read, who headed the 1997 investigation of the Princess Diana car crash. They determined precisely how far the motorcycle could be seen moving in the images taken 0.5 seconds apart (view photo one, view photo two). They then performed a simple time-distance calculation which showed that Barker had been traveling far less than 38 MPH.

Under the UK law governing the type approval of speed cameras, anything greater than a 10 percent discrepancy between photographs and the radar reading is not allowed. Instead of accepting defeat, however, the Crown Prosecution Service decided use their own calculation of Barker's speed from the photographs to charge the motorcyclist with driving "slightly in excess of 30 MPH." The judge would not allow this, saying that the 10 percent difference proved that any evidence produced by that speed camera was "unreliable."

With "no evidence" against Barker, the judge dismissed the case. Despite this, local speed camera partnership officials insist their cameras are fully accurate and certified.

"It seems to be the first time in England that the reliability of the gatsometer was found to be questionable even thought the prosecutor and the police claimed in no uncertain terms that it was reliable," Barker said. "They refuse to believe there is any issue to concern them."

Maryland Students Use Speed Cameras for Revenge

High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras as a tool to fine innocent drivers in a game, according to the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. Because photo enforcement devices will automatically mail out a ticket to any registered vehicle owner based solely on a photograph of a license plate, any driver could receive a ticket if someone else creates a duplicate of his license plate and drives quickly past a speed camera. The private companies that mail out the tickets often do not bother to verify whether vehicle registration information for the accused vehicle matches the photographed vehicle.

Driver of photo-radar van arrested for DUI

SCOTTSDALE - 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'

A 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

PHOENIX -- 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

Arizona 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.

Police: Some photo-radar tickets could be invalid

Excerpt

Boulder police and city transportation officials are investigating the possibility that a photo-radar van was parked illegally when it snapped pictures of passing speeders -- possibly hundreds of them.

"Those that live out here know they either have to slow down or speed up past a car to get into that lane," Fraser said. "It's a great speed trap -- that's really all it is."

"The citizen's right," [Cmdr Robert] Thomas said Friday. "You can't have a van breaking the law and a citizen getting a ticket for breaking the law -- that's not right."

If it turns out the van was operating in an illegal spot, Thomas said he'll work with the city attorney's office and the Boulder municipal courts to dismiss all tickets given from that location. Anyone who already paid for or lost an appeal from such tickets would likely be issued a refund, he said, although the final decision on those actions would have to come from the city attorney's office and the courts.

Nearly 600 Scottsdale photo tickets tossed due to glitch

Scottsdale 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.

Tennessee: Refunds for Photo Tickets on Short Yellow

Chattanooga, 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

One 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

Scottsdale, 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

Officials 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."

Bungling speed camera operator sacked

MELBOURNE, Nov 23 AAP - A speed camera operator who wrongly booked 41 Melbourne motorists for speeding has been sacked by private traffic enforcement company Tenix Solutions.

The man mistakenly set his speed camera to 70kph in an 80kph zone in Sharps Road, Tullamarine, for three hours on the morning of October 27, snaring 41 drivers.

In August, more than 100 drivers had fines refunded after they were caught on an incorrectly set speed camera on the Hume Highway at Somerton, in Melbourne's north.

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

Fighting an erroneous ticket - You have to get the TV station involved to fight your ticket.

Radar Equipment Malfunctions Quite Easily