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Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

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Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#141

Post by [deleted] »

b112 wrote: post #106
burkaman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person is not articulating it well but I think they are complaining that the person identified as the driver is random. Presumably the camera can impartially identify a car running a light, but not necessarily who is driving. "I've been ticketed here twice, and it's ridiculous because they - it's just not fair. The person that - [let me start over] - the determination when you ran the light [of who is responsibl…

Everywhere I've been, the owner of the car gets the ticket, and it's up to them to figure out if they were driving, or if not them, collect from whomever they loaned the car to. No camera I've ever seen tries to figure out who the driver is. The logic is, it's your car, you're responsible for loaning it/owning it, so you get the fine. Don't like that? Don't loan your car out. The trade off is no points are deducted f…

[deleted]

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#142

Post by bluefirebrand »

spankalee wrote: post #69
bluefirebrand wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If policing is done by robots, then humans are expected to be infallible The reality is that the people doing the policing are counting on humans not being infallible Fines have become an important revenue stream, that's why they are being automated. Now that this is becoming more widespread, there's a perverse incentive for governments to maximize the difficulty in avoiding fines. Lower the speed limit on roads de…

> that's why they are being automated There are many citizens, like me, begging for red light cameras so something can be done about the rash of crashes and killings from willfully reckless drivers.

Why would a willfully reckless driver care about a camera?

In my experience preventative measures only work on people who are conscientious, they do not work on people who do not give a shit

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#143

Post by crote »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #109
crote wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your car, your problem. Either get someone to fess up, or take responsibility yourself and stop loaning it out. There really is no difference between "who drove through a red light" and "who scratched the bumper while parking" here - how do you currently solve the latter one?

Except no, that is not how it works. People get moving violation tickets, not cars.

This is exactly how it works in plenty of countries, actually! The US is the outlier here. In practice people have zero trouble figuring out which family member was driving - just like they have no trouble getting a kid to fess up to scratching the bumper while backing up into their own garage.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#144

Post by quickthrowman »

spankalee wrote: post #69
bluefirebrand wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If policing is done by robots, then humans are expected to be infallible The reality is that the people doing the policing are counting on humans not being infallible Fines have become an important revenue stream, that's why they are being automated. Now that this is becoming more widespread, there's a perverse incentive for governments to maximize the difficulty in avoiding fines. Lower the speed limit on roads de…

> that's why they are being automated There are many citizens, like me, begging for red light cameras so something can be done about the rash of crashes and killings from willfully reckless drivers.

Is there proof that red light cameras increase safety? I would expect an increase in rear-end crashes after red light cameras are installed, with a slight decrease in fatal t-bone accidents.

I wouldn’t expect them to make driving safer for anyone, as enforcement doesn’t do anything to moderate the behavior of people that just don’t give a shit.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#145

Post by hrimfaxi »

SoftTalker wrote: post #94
elteto wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to explain anything to the government, that's why we have the 5th amendment. It is the government's job to bring charges against you and prove them beyond reasonable doubt. The government is right to investigate and ask questions to accomplish that and I am right to refuse to answer anything. It's basically "innocent until proven guilty". Red light cameras turn that assumption around since if your car…

I think the argument is generally: nobody has a right to drive a car, it's something we permit by issuing a license and other regulations. One of the conditions is that the owner of a vehicle is ultimately responsible for it. The judge in this case disagreed, because the red light infraction was not a simple civil fine but quasi-criminal, e.g. points on drivers license, possibly resulting in suspension, etc.

You can own a car and not drive it. It can be stolen from you, anything.

The structure of this whole thing is to avoid having to do an actual investigation. They could subpoena the car owner's phone records for instance. Instead they choose to hide behind bureaucracy and offer you an off ramp in the form of a lower payment to make it all go away.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#146

Post by crote »

Vaslo wrote: post #80
cromka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the same. They know the car was yours so, by extension, you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment. If it wasn't you driving, you know who. An illegal activity was committed using your tool and you know who did it. They have every right to question you. If you do not know, you testify as such, but then again you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware…

Even if I know who, why would I ever give that information to the court?

Let's say your friend borrow your car and drives through a red light. You don't have to tell the court that it was them, but as the car owner you'll be held responsible for what the car was used for if you don't.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#147

Post by Retric »

crote wrote: post #129
Retric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems don’t necessarily react based on the legal situation. A red light camera that’s improperly installed, poorly maintained, etc could essentially act randomly from a drivers perspective.

... which is why they are supposed to be regularly calibrated by an independent third party - with tickets automatically being void if law enforcement can't prove that it was functioning properly.

Sure in theory, in practice the incentives don’t align for local governments to particularly care if these things actually work well.

Here there was no attempt to photograph the driver rather than just assume the owner was responsible or would point to the responsible party.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#148

Post by brigade »

cromka wrote: post #90
elteto wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to explain anything to the government, that's why we have the 5th amendment. It is the government's job to bring charges against you and prove them beyond reasonable doubt. The government is right to investigate and ask questions to accomplish that and I am right to refuse to answer anything. It's basically "innocent until proven guilty". Red light cameras turn that assumption around since if your car…

> You don't need to explain anything to the government, that's why we have the 5th amendment. As someone else said, this only works against self-incrimination? If you say it wasn't you then you need to testify or get prosecuted?

First, you have the right to say nothing at all; there is no requirement to incriminate someone else to protect yourself.

Second, you can still generally invoke the 5th amendment during testimony even if you already claimed someone else did it. You aren't under oath until said testimony, so it still protects against you having to choose between committing perjury or self-incrimination, and doing so cannot be used as evidence of either.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#149

Post by 0x3f »

crote wrote: post #140
0x3f wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it doesn't! It's 2 to 10 times more! It's literally not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... > Belgium 7.3 > Slovenia 7.0 > US 6.9 > France 5.8 Never mind all the other countries that do have presumption of guilt, which are also comparable in per-mile road deaths. And the ones with presumption but which _are_ 10x worse. Allowing the presumption is very clearly not well-correlated wit…

You are conveniently leaving out some European countries, such as Norway being at 3.0 per 1B km. You are also conveniently leaving it the per-capita figures, with US being at 14.2 per 100k while countries like Norway, Sweden, and Finland being at 2.x, and Europe as a while being at 6.7. So sure, "10x more" might be an exaggeration, but "2x more" is fairly accurate and even a claim of "7x more" is arguable.

I haven't conveniently left out anything. I wrote my previous comments intentionally, and specified which statistic I was talking about. If you misread it, that's on you.

I used this statistic because yours is like saying the US is richer than Switzerland, if you don't divide by the number of people. Pretty irrelevant.

There is no point comparing a country that drives everywhere with a country that doesn't using a metric that doesn't account for this difference.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#150

Post by crote »

floren wrote: post #50
n8cpdx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could ask your friends who borrow your car not to be dipshits who run red lights. If you get a ticket for your teen running a red light, you can have your teen pay for it. Might be a good learning lesson.

But the reason for the ruling is that if your teen runs a red, YOU get points on your license.

Not if the teen takes responsibility. So don't loan out your car to people who aren't willing to take responsibility for their actions. Surely that's not a massive burden?
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