Sorry, maybe I should have been more clear.

When there is no photo, the department has no case against you. There should be no need for a driver to even have to contest the charge. By issuing a moving violation when there is no legal basis for doing so, the concerned department is banking on the fact that most people will simply pay rather than waste a day in court. Before I became a beach bum, I sure as hell wouldnt give up a day's wages to save a couple of hundred bucks.

What the government is doing is enforcing a law that they know to be unconstitutional. Technically speaking, you are right - this doesnt require the driver to prove his innocence, it merely requires him to defend himself. But bottom line is - the government has no business trying this in the first place.

V.

Yes says me.


Again it is the same boat as a parking ticket, or a speeding ticket. The judge is inclined to favor the officer, camera, meter maid if you do go to court, but that is the system we have. What is so hard to comprehend?

Is that really what you said? Right.

Your lack of knowledge is self evident in your posts as I will shortly demonstrate.

Actually, I didn't ascribe any motivation to you specifically, I mealy suggested that we view the "infringements civil rights or privacy" argument for what it is a distraction from the true issue at stake, one of personal responsibility. Apparently this struck a cord and you self identified. But if the shoe fits….

Since we are being all technical and legalish, "presumption of innocence" is a concept that applies to our criminal court system, and is not relevant in civil courts. Traffic violations (for the most part) are infractions and subject to civil penalties. So "Assumption of guilt" is a misnomer, and further evidence you lack basic knowledge of the facts at hand. Christ's sakes not to nit pick but the term is "presumption of innocence [or guilt]" at least get the phraseology right.

And still you haven't demonstrated how a red-light camera differs with other civil citations such as parking tickets, tax liens. The government (local/state/federal) has the power to fine you for infractions of the civil code. Anyone who has dealt with the IRS knows this. This is not a matter of innocent until proven guilty, wrong legal context.

Again criminal and civil courts are different animals, apples and oranges, failing to make that simple distinction proves that you don't know what you are talking about.

As I stated they are effective, in terms of harm reduction, you can continue to mischaracterize my argument, if you like, but isn't aiding your case. Examples have been posted of how traffic-cameras, reduce the number of violations and accident statistics for those intersections. If you want to deny facts out of hand I can't help you there.

I'll use your own quote "sez you". I just wish you had your stuff together, it would have been more fun to dissect you.

First kudos for at least knowing that there is a distinction between civil and criminal.

But your statements above that there is a constitutional basis for "xyz" still are incorrect. I'll just copy and paste the sixth amendment (the one you are citing) I think you'll be able to figure out why.


Seriously folks this stuff is online, and really, really easy to find.

EDIT: I plus one-ed you too fast, speeding tickets aren't criminal offences. So -0.5 for not knowing where infractions fall. Hey you are still 0.5 ahead of that other guy.

So are you saying that video recorded evidence should not be considered in any case? Or just that you feel the government is setting it up as a trap? If the former, I disagree completely. Many important criminal and civil cases have been proven beyond a doubt because it was video recorded. If you have a problem with government cameras in public, why not a problem with private cameras? If the latter, then your issue still isn't with the government enforcing a law (the law is not running a red light, a perfectly constitutional law), but the way in which they catch people doing it. Of course, I find less of a problem with it when they have big cameras with signs that tell you about their presence as well as the dollar fine. That should make people think twice. My only exception is like you said earlier: When the general public consents to this in the first place, they unwittingly vote approvals that allow the government to do similar things with different motives.

Some time ago I gave this considerable thought, and I ended up with the position that video evidence should be admissible only under certain narrowly construed circumstances....

Basically it should have to be a recordin specifically of a crime in progress. It should not be available for building a circumstantial case, such as wrong place wrong time. It should require a factory installed timecode, in GMT, which is encrypted and tamper proof. There was more, but those are some of the basics.

Kind of timely, but does this mean you disagree with the LAPD using people's personal videos of the riots after the Lakers game to make arrests for destruction of personal and public property? I personally want as many of those people arrested as possible, because they cost me tax money in all the public property they damaged and they cost my fellow human beings money in all their personal property they damaged. I'd hate to think these guys could enjoy fame on youtube with the immunity of a law that makes it inadmissible because it wasn't recorded with the right kind of camera.

Your considerable thought makes plenty of sense, and I can see plenty of cases where official GMT would be crucial to determining the facts (although those should be able to be argued by a half decent lawyer), but I think it still protects the guilty more than it protects the innocent.

I'm going to assume that we're all cyclists here, so those of you that oppose red light and/or speeding cameras answer honestly.

You're run down by a hit & run driver that ran a red while speeding, you're quadraplegic - never to ride or even walk again and never to hold down a full time job again due to the brain injury, and the camera which was the only witness snapped the pictures that proves your case. Would you demand that the DA not press charges and you not pursue the driver for compensation on the basis of the photographic evidence of what the hit-run driver did to you?

Be honest.

Of course I'd want to press charges, but I have to point out that the DA would file criminal charges while you would personally file civil charges. Evidence is always a little more open to interpretation in a civil suit. I took mycphotography's evidence criteria to be for criminal cases, but he can correct me if I'm wrong.

The only thing red light cameras do is increase revenue.

Want to solve a red-light-running problem at an intersection? Increase the time of the amber light.

Violations go down. What's that? The city/camera company loses revenue? Can't have that! We'll just keep the amber light time down. We'll even specify it in our contract.

That would be a recording of a specific crime in progress, right? So it would be allowable. Further, it would be accompanied by the testimony of the person who took the video as to when, where, and other circumstances.

The security camera a half block away that would only show when person was at a particular place... that should not be allowable. Barring any specific evidence of the guilt of the accused individuals, that evidence is far to dangerous as a vehicle for convicting the innocent. If specific evidence of guilt is presence, then that evidence is either redundant if the other evidence is strong, or prejudicial if it isn't.

I doubt that's true but I don't have anything to offer but my own opinion. You?

I'm thinking that as soon as people got used to the longer amber light, the folks who run red lights now would be right back at it.

I think I'm starting to understand a little at a time. The GMT is a suggestion and not a requirement, but it should be a video specifically of the crime, right? I understand the weak argument of a surveillance camera of a guy who happened to be walking in the area at the time of the crime, but the thing I don't understand is that red light cameras are supposedly taking a picture of the crime in progress (they even stamp the picture with the time and how long the light has been red), so I once again don't understand your objection to it.


I won't argue or agree with the first statement, but I think once word gets out about the increased amber lights, people will run them even more because they will think they have more time to race the red.

All I can say for the first comment is that I had my picture taken twice on lights which I felt I could not safely stop in time. I was in the intersection for far less than a second after the red. In both cases, I did not receive a ticket. They have humans reviewing those pictures to try and determine if the infraction happened or not. That doesn't mean it's not still a money making scheme and it doesn't mean the system is fair, but that is my experience so far.

I'm opposed to Red light cameras not because they're video / photo evidence.

I'm opposed to them as traffic enforcement method because they remove the element of judgement from the process.

However, I'm more strongly opposed to them on a much larger scale because until/unless we have constitutional protection from the misuse of electronic surveillance gathered without a court order supported by an established probable cause (ie a warrant), the evil far outweighs the good.

I'm also opposed not to most traffic enforcement, rather I'm opposed to the METHOD of most traffic enforcement. Traffic enforcement is almost never about safety. Rather it is the application of a rather arbitrary set of rules to generate revenue.

If the goal was actual safety, enforcement would have an entirely different approach, starting with the entire approach taken in training and deploying officers.

There's been numerous cities that have decreased the yellow-light time in order to increase revenues from red-light tickets. And well before the cameras came around, there's been numerous studies that show longer yellow-lights lead to fewer accidents at that intersection.

That's a good answer. Not that I'm going to jump on board with you, but it's a very good, sound answer.

Sorry, but I really believe the only ones really opposing them are those that have been or fear being caught and fined by ignoring the requirement to stop at a light. The same as many cyclists ignore stop signes and red lights while riding, that just carries over to the car. If one gets used to following the laws, how those that are caught that don't becomes a dull and boring point.

I like the analogy and complete turn around of some peoples thoughts on use of photographic evidence when it was used for the slightly different purpose of prooving guilt on creating a paraplegic. In that case, it goes directly to criminal as it's often vehicular assult that drivers hitting cyclists and pedestrians are charged with.

Bring 'em on, and put them on bike trails as well so they can take pictures of the cyclists faces. As an experiment while in Germany several years back, after a few cycle / pedestrian accidents at an intersection, they had a sensor camera with a cop sitting a few hundred yards later pulling people over issuing citations. Had a radical impact on how many cyclists ran the lights and stop signs on that trail.

While it may change the habits of riders and drivers, it's not always a bad thing

My wife is opposed to those cameras and she obeys all traffic laws. Not only that, but she gets annoyed when others push it too far (racing the red, using the right turn lane to go straight and pass the traffic, etc.). Her issue is with the invasion of privacy and the government taking liberty to watch you. If you let them install cameras to catch crimes, that lets them put the cameras anywhere.

While I'm not against red light cameras myself, I understand why a law abiding citizen would be against them for those reasons. The government takes liberties that it shouldn't. California charges a fee on your taxes if your withholdings did not take enough out, yet the taxes aren't technically due until April. So there's a fee for not paying taxes EARLY (and they don't give you interest back for paying too much). That's illegal, yet we all bend over and take it.

You can believe what you want, but all I see as an impartial observer is that you refuse to consider things that your opposition has brought up. Disagreeing with them is fine, but throws those points out and saying they can only have one reason is ignorant. At least respect the other points that have been brought up.

At least in Austin, TX, the red light cameras really don't have much to do with the police at all -- it's run by the city rather than the police department, and the tickets they mail out are civil rather than criminal things -- like parking tickets.

And as far as I know, they don't even try to ticket cyclists that get caught by it.

But the police, they certainly do ticket cyclists they catch running red lights and stop signs.

Are you also for a similar GPS system on your bike (at your expense) sending out tickets when you break the speed limit? Ride on the sidewalk (if not permitted)? Run red lights or roll through stop signs? Lock your brakes up when you don't pay?

To be fair, in general when you get a ticket based on a red light camera, somebody looks at the picture and makes the determination that a ticket should be sent out.

If you're in a cop car, no ticket. If you're moving to get out of the way of a fire truck and the fire truck is visible and it's pretty clear that this is what happened, probably no ticket, etc.

Ultimately, it's a person who decided to ticket you, not a camera or a computer. Not sure what difference this makes, but there it is. (I don't know what the credentials of this person are. I assume they've had some training on the relevant law, but I doubt they're an actual police officer. They might not even be an official meter maid.)

No argument there (and I even made your point about the person viewing the pictures later in the thread). I was responding to MattDC because it was unclear as to whether he was saying a human issued parking tickets or not.

I've started to wear my fake nose with mustache and glasses while driving...