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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

#211

I know this is not related to the legal merits of the case being discussed, but who runs a red light? In my experience, this is an infarction that occurs very infrequently. Speeding or illegal parking happen all the time, but running a red light? Most people are not suicidal. Edit: Nevermind, I think crossing on yellow and catching a tenth of a second of red counts as running a red light. If it does, it’s something I…

Depending on where you live it is very common. In chicago when they installed the cameras they lowered the yellow duration to like half a second so people were constantly running them for a while. Then running yellows became normalized, and just ignoring lights from bikers which drivers noticed, and now when traffic is low its not uncommon to see people just treat lights as stop signs if they think no one is coming.

Yep, the states acted like aunts to get more money and have made the whole system more unsafe for everyone.

Anyone involved in those yellow light lowering schemes should have been criminally charged.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#212
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four people in my family drive my car. I'm supposed to track that? sure.

The standard for this in the UK is that you should make a reasonable effort to work out who was driving. e.g. checking your calendar/diary, looking through receipts or bank statements to work out where you likely were. There's also a requirement that a request for information is sent within 14 days for minor incidents like speeding or red light violations, so it's not like you have to work out who was driving on a Tu…

That’s not how it works in the United States. I was driving my (female) partner’s car and received a citation. I gave the cop my license but he pulled the owner’s (my female partner) driving record using her vehicle’s license plate (is what I’m guessing happened) and issued her the citation instead of me. I was very excited since this meant I was going to get away without a citation.

I gave her the citation and she called the cop who issued the citation and asked him who was driving at the time. He answered that a man was driving, and she told him he issued the citation to her, a woman. Her first name is one letter away from a male first name, so I’m guessing the cop saw it and assumed it was me and not her.

He got frustrated and told her to go ahead and rip the citation up since he wrote it to the wrong driver, she told him she’d show up to court and the judge would instantly dismiss the ticket due to the officer pulling over a man and issuing the citation to a woman, so he canceled it. He didn’t want to look like a complete fool in front of a judge.

Not once did he ask who was actually driving because he knows she is never going to tell him and he can’t force her to reveal that it was me.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and they don’t show leniency. If policing is done by robots, then humans are expected to be infallible. This is bad when applied to laws that were written with an exception of leniency and selectivity in enforcement, which is quite a lot of them. For running red lights though? I don't mind if the robots take you off the road automatically.

Running red lights? That's not all the cameras are used for. If are making a right turn on red and didn't come to a complete stop first you can get a ticket.

> If are making a right turn on red and didn't come to a complete stop first you can get a ticket.

As you should.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#214
post #149
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 me…

You named the two European countries higher than the USA, and ignored the 12 that are lower.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#215
post #111
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic lights can be tuned to create "green waves" that allows for efficient flow of traffic along arteries through a city. You can adjust the timing throughout the day to help alleviate congestion. In rural areas, heavy machinery/commercial vehicles may need to make a very wide turn through the intersection. Traffic circles are fine for a lot of applications but they aren't strictly better than lights in all circum…

I don't see how that could possibly be true. The same flow has to be achieved either way, and lights will always have some margin of inefficiency in switching. Seems lights will always be strictly worse than roundabouts in this sense. There are also solutions for large vehicles where the center is raised but not impassible.

You over estimate the intelligence of the average American. I've lived in a few cities with a number of roundabouts and while I love them, the number of stupid people that panic and..

-stop in the roundabout

-stop before the roundabout and let their brain buffer for 30 seconds.

-somehow go the wrong way in the roundabout

-fail to yield to traffic in the roundabout

Is way too damn high. It makes traversing one a high stress situation since you have no idea if grandpa grunt and run in to you is about to perform a confusion based terror attack on the traffic control device.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#216
post #198

After reading the 21 page order, I do tend to agree with the judge The judge frames the red light camera scheme as a revenue generating scheme, not a public safety measure. Additionally, "A distinctive feature of the statutory scheme is its assignment of guilt to the registered owner rather than the driver of the vehicle". and "If there are multiple registered owners, the citation is issued to the 'first' registered…

Doesn't the same logic apply to parking tickets?

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#218
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems extremely unreasonable, cops can prove who was driving at the time of the violation or they can not bring a case. If I lend my car to someone and they break the law, it’s not the car’s fault. I’m glad my state found these unconstitutional as well.

Well, objects used in the commission of a crime are frequently confiscated. That's not outrageous. If I lend someone my gun and they rob a bank, I will likely not get my gun back though "it's not the gun's fault". Automated machinery has the advantage that it is impartial and effective, and given that law enforcement costs a lot in these circumstances, and that chasing cars for small enforcement violations creates wo…

Yep. Cars are horrifically dangerous and we treat them like toys. It's part of driver culture in the US and why we'll never design for public transportation.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#219
post #198

After reading the 21 page order, I do tend to agree with the judge The judge frames the red light camera scheme as a revenue generating scheme, not a public safety measure. Additionally, "A distinctive feature of the statutory scheme is its assignment of guilt to the registered owner rather than the driver of the vehicle". and "If there are multiple registered owners, the citation is issued to the 'first' registered…

Doesn't the same logic apply to parking tickets?

And speed light cameras

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#220
post #198

After reading the 21 page order, I do tend to agree with the judge The judge frames the red light camera scheme as a revenue generating scheme, not a public safety measure. Additionally, "A distinctive feature of the statutory scheme is its assignment of guilt to the registered owner rather than the driver of the vehicle". and "If there are multiple registered owners, the citation is issued to the 'first' registered…

Doesn't the same logic apply to parking tickets?

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