Randy V

The photo shows I'm just at the first cross-walk line as the light is red - my indicated speed is 16 mph. Unless I'm missing something, sure seems they've got me dead-to-rights.

Kevin in Atlanta

So, if the clown in front of you slows you exiting the intersection, you get a ticket. How is that fair?

AO

How about a sudden loss of power? Your speed was 25 prior to the intersection, but then suddenly lost power. You thought about braking but were committed at that point. The culprit was a loose ignition switch - which has already been replaced with a used one from 928 International!

911Dave

I think you should pay the stupid ticket and don't run any more red lights. Yes, $351 is way too much but maybe that's what it takes to make people obey the law. I'll bet you won't run a red light at that intersection again.

I really hate to see all these suggestions of how you can weasel out of paying a fine for a ticket you earned, particularly the ones advising you to break another law (no front plate) in order to get away with breaking more important ones that endanger the safety of other drivers.

Jim bailey - 928 International

Technically you are not to enter an intersection unless there is room in front of you to safely clear the intersection ( anti-gridlock laws ) so you can get ticketed for getting stuck in the intersection. Randy was simply the last in a string of cars finishing a turn on "yellow". I find I have to be careful about stopping for yellow lights because the car behind me often is NOT !

MGW-Fla

Yeah I've almost been rearended cause the clown behind me was accelerating as he planned to run the red lite & didnt have as good of brakes as me! I usually make quick glance in the rear view mirror when I decide to stop on a yellow that may be a 50/50 instance just in case.

SharkSkin

Don't be an ***. The car in your avatar has no front plate! I never said I thought running red lights was OK. I said I don't accept that a trailer can convict me of wrongdoing, and I think that preventing that (especially speed cameras) is easy.

heinrich

There's truth in that ... Praevenire melius est quam praeveniri.

whitefox

Just cover your plate up and run the redlight 20 times a day to **** them off.

Cameron

Everytime I say 'donut guard', I can't stop laughing. Good one, Red.

Imo000

Yeah..... that's a smart suggestion and maybe in the process you'll end up killing someone!?!?!?!?!


Randy,

Unfortunately you are right, the camera caught you crossing the stop bar after the start of the red phase. This and the speed of your vehicle will make arguing the picture near impossible. Red light cameras systems are very accurate and fail safe. If anyone here tries to ague or come up with a “what if” scenario, I suggest to first learn how exactly the system works before coming up with an excuse.

The system knew that you’ll be entering the intersection even before you crossed the stop bar. It went into ready mode as soon as the speed was calculated and was just waiting for the vehicle to cross the stop bar to snap the pictures. As I said before, if the system was properly installed and maintained, it is very accurate and hard to beat. You can argue to the judge that you had technical problems with the car and he/she might take that into consideration. But the bottom line is, that you got caught going past the stop bar when the light was red. If you would have stopped, the second set of pictures would show that, but I’m sure in this case it showed that your car kept on going

At the end at least your driving record will stay intact. Consider yourself lucky that it wasn’t a police office that caught you doing this.

911Dave

Well, double *** on you.

The car in my avatar is my car, and I only remove the front plate when the car is being shown, as it is in the picture.

Also, my post was not directed at you personally, it was in response to ALL of the posters who recommended attorneys, research, and every other method of beating the ticket in addition to the suggestion by you (and others) to hide or remove the front plate.

Whenever I see these "I got a ticket - how do I get out of it" threads, I see a vision of a 4-year-old crying and lying to his mommy so he won't get a spanking. Have some maturity and stand up like a man and admit that you made a decision and sometimes you have to pay the price for such decisions. So pay it and think twice next time.

heinrich

Dave, I think most of us are somewhere inbetween the extremes. Most of us don't believe that speed in and of itself kills. Most of us don't believe that if you get stuck behind gramma in a turn at an intersection, that you have done anything wrong. Most of us believe that running a red light is dangerous and kills people and therefore most of us do not do this. BUT

Most of us believe that there is more to the story than just safety, in fact we believe that the way that laws are being selectively enforced or not enforced in pursuance of gaining government revenue (evidence the keep-right laws) .... is totally unacceptable.

Ron_H

And what about the evidence that red light cameras are proven to INCREASE accidents at intersections and are manipulated by the vendors contrary to laws passed to insure impartiality? You seem to think someone who seeks truth and honesty and fair play over tyranny and deceit is a "cry baby". The evidence has been posted already in this thread and elsewhere that sound engineering principles are being ignored both in speed related issues and red light camera issues in favor of generating revenue. I guess that slips your notice. People are dying on our streets because of the abandonment of such engineering principles and you prefer to "follow orders" like a good little boy obeying a misaligned parent lacking sound foundation. Now who really is the immature child???

911Dave

I'm in the same boat as the rest of you regarding the examples you gave in your first paragraph. The problem is not speed or gramma, the problem is the general attitude of selfishness and inconsideration of others that makes people try to get away with things like sneaking through a left turn when the light is "orange". My only beef with what goes on in threads like these is when someone is clearly guilty of the offense due to his deliberate act, and then tries to avoid responsibility for it. I strongly believe it is this pervasive attitude of selfishness and personal entitlement that is a huge contributor to this degeneration of society that everyone bemoans these days. Road rage is on the rise. Lack of respect, especially for authority, is on the rise. That's enough of that.

Okay, this notion about tickets being issued just for revenue purposes - nonsense! How much of a city or county's annual revenue is comprised of traffic fines? It has to be pocket change. They vast majority of the revenue comes from sales taxes and property taxes, doesn't it? If they need more money, they increase tax levys, they don't hire more cops to issue more tickets. Think how much money it costs the public hospitals for indigent patient care due to traffic accidents! FAR more than it costs to install cameras at intersections for the purpose of issuing $350 tickets to keep people from causing the accidents in the first place. The way the laws are written, some traffic fine revenue is necessary to pay for certain types of things, but I think this idea that seems to be running rampant that tickets are all about revenue and nothing else is absolute BS.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not on the government's side. I think it's full of waste and corruption. And lots of traffic laws are either stupid and/or unnecessary, as well as the way many of them are either enforced or not enforced.

My point has nothing to do with the cameras, or the traffic law. My point is about the law of personal responsibility, the law of consideration for others, the law of sharing the road, and understanding that if you try to get through the red arrow because you think you can get away with it, then you are being the same a-hole as the guys you honk at when YOUR light is green and they're doing it. When Randy ran his red light, he committed an act of inconsideration, and for that he should pay. That's all I'm saying.