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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

#331

Post by angry_octet »

This is a great argument for fines indexed to the price of the car, and non-linearly with speed and value and repeated occurrences.

Fine = 2 ^v^2 ^n^2 ^p^2

Where v is velocity % higher than the speed limit, n is the number of speeding occurrences in the past 12 months, p is the normalised price of the vehicle. Obviously these parameters could be tweaked.

The result should be that frequent violations cost much more, cost is proportional to the increased danger, and rich people feel the cost of violations.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#332

Post by hamdingers »

sejje wrote: post #323
hamdingers wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California's new speed camera pilot (AB 645) explicitly solves for this. Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance. Hopefully other states can…

Hopefully other states don't follow this pattern; I don't think the government should be installing surveillance arrays, even if it's "for the children" or public safety. Trading a little liberty for a little safety and all that.

These cameras are by definition still cameras triggered by radar or laser systems, they're inactive unless a speeding vehicle is present. Hardly the surveillance array you're imagining.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#333

Post by ggiigg »

sejje wrote: post #322
ggiigg wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, that would be great then I can completely ignore them as I am not poor. It just turns speeding into something you can buy.

Well, it's red-light running. But I don't think even rich people will just breeze through every red and pay the fines; it'll add up quickly.

Yea, I think the chance of death will encourage them not to run every red light making mass surveillance unnecessary. The money is a noop for the rich in thus case.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#334

Post by cucumber3732842 »

paulddraper wrote: post #203
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I see your point, but these are civil tickets rather than criminal charges. Yeah that's what they said when ICE was unilaterally kicking in doors. The way I see it anything that would prompt the government to use violence upon you without you taking action to escalate deserves the same level of protection for the accused as a "real" criminal matter. Yes I'm aware this includes just about everything beyond library la…

Criminal offenses are punishable by incarceration. Civil offenses are not. --- Mild speeding, no seatbelt, broken taillight are civil. DUIs, reckless driving, hit-and-run are criminal. All vehicular offenses, but different punishments. --- Unauthorized immigration to the US is NOT punishable by incarceration. (It can result in deportation to the nation of origin.)

>Criminal offenses are punishable by incarceration.

And what happens if you don't pay civil (or criminal) fines? A bench warrant gets issued and you get arrested. And if you get a contempt charge in all this guess where you can go?

The only "real difference" between a criminal offense where they "can" jail you but usually just fine you is procedural.

I would rather catch a bullshit DUI than have a local building commissioner coming after me for some violation. They're both $10k problems, but with one of them you have "real rights"

>Unauthorized immigration to the US is NOT punishable by incarceration.

The problem wasn't what the statutory punishment is or isn't.

The problem was the unilateral nature of it. Hence all the hoopla over warrant types, sloppy behavior, etc.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#335

Post by observationist »

hamdingers wrote: post #253
fusslo wrote: 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…

California's new speed camera pilot (AB 645) explicitly solves for this. Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance. Hopefully other states can…

Or maybe not have automated surveillance robonannies playing gotcha games and pocketing money, often impacting those who can least afford it, over technicalities and arbitrary rules made up to benefit the people doing the collecting.

The idea that AI enforcement won't be just as corrupt and capricious as any other form of government run extortion is bonkers. You're talking systems with less oversight than openclaw being run by people whose entire goal is to make as much money as possible, no matter the source. Private, unaccountable companies with effectively no oversight with the legal right to send you invoices for things you might or might not have done, and the cost for disputing it might well exceed the cost of just paying it and getting it over with.

Why are Californians so hellbent on giving their money to the government, given the absolute shitshow that is their budget and track record? The only good things that have happened in California for decades comes out of private enterprise, but all the crazy nonsense is fostered and maintained, apparently quite vigorously, by elected governments.

I'm furious that 10% of my federal income taxes end up going to California's bullshit, I can't imagine what it would be like having to live there.

Seriously, it's bordering on levels of insanity right up there with thinking that Jefferey Epstein would make a great babysitter. Do people just not pay attention? Does the weather just make everyone complacent and docile?

Speed cams and automated gotchas allowing the government to raid your pocketbook are a bad thing. There's no framing or circumstances where that's good.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#336

Post by triceratops »

advisedwang wrote: post #319
triceratops wrote: post #210

Red light camera fines, like all sin taxes, should be made revenue neutral.

Where does the fine money go? Building more red-light cameras?

Back to taxpayers. Subtract only the cost of installing and maintaining the cameras and aggressively audit that annually. Cut everyone a check at the end of the year. Buy each household a pony. Have a really good 4th of July fireworks display. It doesn't matter, as long as the government can't spend it for any government program. (And actually the pony and fireworks programs might be susceptible to corruption - just send a check)

Or in the case of a private company contracted to run the cameras, don't give a private company a contract to run the cameras. At least not a contract where they get paid in proportion to the fines collected.

No one should profit off bad behavior. No government program's funding should have to depend on people driving badly.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#337

Post by giantg2 »

kshacker wrote: post #316
giantg2 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The objective evidence indicates that accidents tend to go up after red light cameras go up, generally because the operators lower the yellow light time to increase fees.

can this not be regulated? yellow light timing must not have changed for the last 12 months before adding cameras

Better to set it using a standard such as 1 second per 10mph of speed limit.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#338

Post by Detrytus »

0x3f wrote: post #43
t1234s wrote: post #32

Having driven in the UK and coming back to the US I miss all of the roundabouts. Any reason (aside from contractor profits) towns use 4-way traffic light systems vs a roundabout and some yield signs?

Having driven in both, Americans don't take naturally to roundabouts and it would be difficult to teach all the existing drivers about them. Same in the UK when they add new rules: most drivers remain completely unaware of them.

There’s nothing complicated about roundabouts: entering it is like joining the traffic from a parking lot/your own driveway, exiting it is like exiting a highway.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#339

Post by dmix »

angry_octet wrote: post #331

This is a great argument for fines indexed to the price of the car, and non-linearly with speed and value and repeated occurrences. Fine = 2 ^v^2 ^n^2 ^p^2 Where v is velocity % higher than the speed limit, n is the number of speeding occurrences in the past 12 months, p is the normalised price of the vehicle. Obviously these parameters could be tweaked. The result should be that frequent violations cost much more, c…

Or they can just hire more police and deter crime with actual hard work instead of building a nanny state running social experiments based on how nice your car appears.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#340

Post by cucumber3732842 »

hamdingers wrote: post #253
fusslo wrote: 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…

California's new speed camera pilot (AB 645) explicitly solves for this. Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance. Hopefully other states can…

>Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.

So what does this say about the legitimacy of having those fines affect your license and insurance when issues by a real flesh and blood cop?

Sounds to me like that by default they shouldn't be affecting squat because there's an implicit "the cops will mostly only pull people over if it's unconscionably bad" filter going on.

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