You got caught at the intersection of Magic Mtn. Parkway and Mc. Bean, huh? My friend got caught there making a left from Magic Mtn. onto Mc Bean.. and I ALMOST got caught in the opposite direction 15 minutes later. He didn't have a front license plate... but they still got him. I hear that they need a picture of your face WITH your license plate on the same picture, but I guess not.

 

new ranch rd/ mcbean in valencia
I guss I,ll just pay it that money was going towards high flow cats..

 

Busted by Machines: Mechanical Law Enforcement
by Wendy McElroy

Mechanical law enforcement is a growth industry. And anyone who complains is immediately suspect. After all, if you are not a criminal, why complain about the New York Police Department using information encoded on the city's Metrocard (transit pass) to make arrests based on 'whereabouts'? If you don't speed, why object to Europe's experiment with traffic control via satellite surveillance of vehicles? If you don't plan to mug anyone, what's wrong with the thousands of spy cameras the British government has posted on public streets?

Mechanical law enforcement is nothing new. In 1998, Steve Dasbach, National Chairman of the Libertarian Party warned, "High-tech military equipment that was once used against foreign armies is now being used against American citizens on a routine basis." For example, county governments in North Carolina use satellite photographs to search properties for taxable improvements. The Arizona Department of Water Resources uses such photos to monitor the water use of farmers in order to ascertain the violation of irrigation licenses. Georgia spies on illegal timber cutting in this manner. The list goes on.

Fourth Amendment outcries against unreasonable searches arise. But, to be effective, the backlash against governmental monitoring of daily life must focus on what has made the average person comfortable with mechanical surveillance -- photo radar. Arguing against satellite surveillance aims too high and misses too many steps in the protection of privacy. People must be made uncomfortable with the low-tech radar van parked on their street.

Fourth Amendment concerns are appropriate to raise. Photo-radar photographs constitute an unreasonable search and, therefore, should be subject to probable cause and warrant requirements. But much more should be argued.

For one thing, photo-radar raises questions of due process. When a police officer pulls you over for a traffic offense, you can defend yourself effectively in court at a later date because the circumstances remain fresh in your mind. For example, was the stop sign you ran hidden from view by a tree? Did your speedometer and the policeman's radar disagree, causing you to question the accuracy of his device? Was the speed limit posted? It is important to consider factors such as traffic and weather, to which the driver might have been reacting. Moreover, passing strangers who might be witnesses to the alleged infraction will be lost forever to the mists of time.

Some states try to solve the 'memory problem' by mailing citation as quickly as possible. This solves nothing. Do you remember the particulars of last week's uneventful drive to work any better than those of a month before? Yet remembering such circumstances is precisely what you must do to defend yourself in court against a photo-radar ticket. In short, photo-radar denies you the reasonable opportunity to defend yourself adequately in court.

You are further denied the right to face your accuser. Indeed, photo evidence is often not included in the mailed citation but must be claimed, usually at the office of the issuing agent. In many states, if a policeman does take the stand against you -- usually to testify that the photograph is an accurate representation of relevant facts -- the officer does not need to be the one who actually operated the device.

As well as denying the basics of due process, photo-radar tickets assert an odd position under law. The ticket accuses your car of committing a moving traffic violation, not you. Your license plate is cited, not your driver's license. As owner of the car, you must pay for its misdeeds even though there is no proof that you were at the wheel. This is comparable to trying the owner of a 'guilty gun' for murder even if there is no evidence he was the shooter. In short, photo radar defies the basic legal principle of punishing the wrongdoer by punishing the object instead.

Too often, these fundamentals are lost in debates about utility. It is tempting to debate efficiency, especially when the speed variance and driving techniques (e.g. sudden braking) encouraged by photo-radar are inherently dangerous. But this obscures the real issue. It assumes that photo-radar would be valid if only it were efficient. Too much is at stake to permit this intellectual sleight-of-hand.

The ability to defend oneself against photo-radar is more than a matter of justice. The tickets can be hundreds of dollars and payment results in at least one point on your driving record, as well as increased insurance premiums for several years. If you refuse to pay, the matter is turned over to a collection agency and your credit is ruined.

Fortunately, another strategy is available: you can co-operate with a vengeance. Take the photo-radar citations to court but, beforehand, demand all relevant information from the prosecutor's office. For example, "what is the make and maintenance/repair record of the photo-radar machine?" "Did the operating officer receive training? -- when, where, and has it been renewed as required?" Repeat these questions to the officer on the stand. Overwhelm the system with the same red tape it is using to choke your liberties.

But never -never- stop hitting on the fundamentals.

www.americanpartisan.com

 

In OR, if you weren't driving, they used to say tell us who was driving or pay the ticket. That has changed now, they don't require you to point fingers anymore. So if you know your getting busted, put your hand over your face so it doesn't show up in the picture.

 

ive learned to just leave the paper dealer plates on. sure you have a white piece of paper in the window but they cant give you a ticket if theres no license plate to go off of. ive gotten flashed at least twice and still no ticket.

 

and they won't even give you a "reacharound"

 

The cameras in CA take pictures of the driver and the plate.

 

Majority of these cameras have two setups - one facing you and another behind you to take pictures from both front and back, including the driver and license plate. Regardless of who was driving, the ticket would be issued to the registered owner of the vehicle.

 

Sell the car and go to court dressed in drag...

 

Virginia stopped its red light enforcement system because of constitutional and procedural problems in how they work, and a net increase in accidents where they were installed. The more immediate reason was that the state legislature did not renew the law that allowed them, probably because of the accident numbers. This pissed off the police because they lose a cheap source of revenue, but it makes for a more just system.

One of the major problems is that most of the cameras are operated not by police but by companies that get a cut of every citation issued. (And guess how often they show up in court -- right to face your accuser: denied.) The contractor has an incentive to push the city to reduce the yellow light time because it increases the number of violators -- and, incidentally, the number of accidents, but they don't have to pay for those. There is an interesting series on DC's traffic camera experiment at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...1/078ftoqz.asp, and http://www.motorists.com/issues/enforce/ presents a motorist's side of the story.

 

Go to http://www.motorists.org (this organization SINGLEHANDEDLY got the nationwide 55MPH speed limit repealed!) read everything you can there about beating tickets. Join the organization and order some of their materials. They can point you towards lawyers in your area or you can choose to represent yourself. While some of the advice here is valid much of it is not. Don't take chances, DON'T JUST PAY IT. Take it to court and challenge the ticket.

Challenge the timing of the light - there are standards for these things laid out in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Devices put out by the DOT and the NHTSA and if a sign or signal does not conform to the code it is an illegal sign/signal and therefore cannot be enforced. One thing this manual does state is that ALL signs/signals need to be supported by an engineering study and in the case of a speed limit sign the posted limit also needs to be supported by an engineering study. If not, illegal sign, unenforceable. That very same thing could be true about the timing of the yellow at this intersection.

DO NOT lay down for this stuff, this is simply fleecing motorists to support budget deficit situations. It's easy money because over 95% of people just pay the ticket. If everyone went to court the system would grind to a halt and they'd be forced to change.

This isn't about "you broke the law - pay your fine" - the LAW IS UNJUST and potentially unsupported. FIGHT IT.

If you think this kind of stuff doesn't work, consider this:

There is a law in Pennsylvania that all parking meters must be certified annually. Only 2 cities in the state certify their own, Pittsburg and Philly. Every other town/city in the STATE has to send their meters, one at a time to the state DOT. Most don't because it's so expensive to do. Someone (like you?) challenged their ticket, found out about the law and got the ticket dropped. The story made the news, people all over the state are challenging parking tickets - the DOT is swamped as cities scramble to certify their meters. Some just haven't bothered and are taking their chances that most people won't challenge tickets.

Find out about these things - use them to your advantage - MOTORISTS HAVE RIGHTS!

 

Those Photoblocking sprays for your plate don't work.

I performed an independant test on one of those spray products, and it made no visible impact to the picture quality of the plate. The tinted photoblocking plate covers supposdly do a pretty good job of hiding your plate number though... unless the camera angle happens to be exactly dead on from perfectly straight ahead of you. The only problem with these is that they're illegal in most states.

Your best bet is to just drive with a state of mind that "If I commit a traffic infraction, I will get caught.... every single time", rather than trying to beat the yellow light and risking a huge fine in order to save 20 seconds of time.

Good luck fighting that ticket though.

 

HA I got one of these in NC 2 years back. It was just a picture of the back side of my car going through/sitting at a red light... along with 3 other cars. Weird thing is that all of our front tires were lined up at the line. Needless to say I didnt pay it, and they didnt give me an option to argue it.

Never heard back from them until I checked my credit and yup they got a collection agency on me for a month and I was never notified.

So i call them and the red-light traffic office was in a law suit and shut down, b/c they could not prove who was driving is what I heard....pretty dumb. i'm still fighting to get that thing off my credit.

 

In defense of the cameras, I've noticed that people are a lot more cautious when approaching an intersection. In MD they take a picture of your front and rear plates with the red light in the same frame. So if you are approaching the intersection and the light is red, the camera flashes and they've got you. Prior to the installation of the cameras, drivers at busy intersections would brazzenly go through lights after the light was red for several seconds.