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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

#391

Post by vkou »

zoky wrote: post #325
vkou wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone used the car without permission, they are guilty of theft. If they used the car with your permission, you should either be responsible for what they do with it, or be able to point to the person who was using it.

Except that requiring you to testify in order to absolve yourself of guilt violates your Fifth Amendment right not to testify in a trial against you. It is up to the government to prove you did something, not up to you to prove you didn’t.

You can not testify all you want, but you should still be on the hook for your vehicle getting tickets, just like you are on the hook for your vehicle accruing toll fees.

If your car was magically stolen and returned, and you have no idea that it happened, or who could have done this... Well, that's certainly an interesting legal argument that you could make to a judge. I doubt he'll believe you.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#392

Post by tschwimmer »

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…

>It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.

If this is the case, what are the consequences of not paying the fine? I interpret your statement to mean that they can't prevent registration of your car. Can they tow you in SF for unpaid fines?

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#393

Post by giantg2 »

empressplay wrote: post #385
giantg2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if it's established as unconstitutional, couldn't you file a criminal complaint of official oppression against the members of whatever government approved the cameras since they are levying unconstitutional fines?

If they invalidate every contested fine nobody has any standing to make a legal complaint.

They're only invalidating it if you fight it. The people who paid it and later realized it was unconstitutional may have standing.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#394

Post by bombcar »

tschwimmer wrote: post #392
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…

>It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance. If this is the case, what are the consequences of not paying the fine? I interpret your statement to mean that they can't prevent registration of your car. Can they tow you in SF for unpaid fines?

I assume they meant you can't lose your license (or get "points" that your insurance company can use to charge you more). I would fully expect that any unpaid fines would be added to next year's registration, and if you don't register and pay, you're driving an unregistered vehicle.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#395

Post by stephen_g »

SteveNuts wrote: post #355
Larrikin wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is ever since COVID the cops don't do their job and everyone drives terribly.

I am constantly amazed at how many people blatantly run red lights now. It used to be that people would sometimes press their luck on a yellow a little bit, but now it'll be red for several seconds and people will still just drive right on through. I'd love if the police enforced this insanely dangerous behavior instead of trying to catch people going 10 over on the highway.

I see this a lot too here in Australia now, and yes it used to be pretty unusual but now I see it every day. I've sometimes wondered if it's just a frequency illusion but I'm sure it has got much worse, maybe since the COVID times?

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#396

Post by hunter2_ »

seemaze wrote: post #195
litoE wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida must be using cheap cameras. My daughter got a red light ticket in Beverly Hills a couple of years ago. They mailed the ticket to her as the registered owner of the car, including the photographs from the cameras which showed that a) she entered the intersection on a red light, b) her car front and back showing the license plates and c) the face of the driver, establishing it was her. From her expression on t…

Same here; tickets always include the photo of the driver. If the photo is unclear or differs from the registered owner, tickets are easily dismissed. However, I agree with Florida on this; the onus should be not be on the accused to prove innocence after a citation is issued. Feels like a 'call us to unsubscribe' time-wasting dark pattern.

If the law is such that the owner is guilty regardless of who was driving, but the owner can opt to reassign the fine to the driver if they have the willingness and the evidence to do so, then proving innocence isn't really what's happening if the driver opts to do it.

That said, if merely being the owner of a tool is sufficient to be guilty of whatever infraction someone else performs with said tool, that has 2 problems beyond the whole "proving your innocence" debate:

1. Why stop climbing up the chain at the current owner when you could keep climbing and say it's all the fault of the manufacturer? I jest, but this illustrates why, despite my first paragraph, it's indeed only sensible that the driver be at fault, so the government must prove who was driving.

2. Why treat cars differently from, say, weapons?

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#397

Post by bombcar »

qingcharles wrote: post #359
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've followed a few cases surrounding traffic cameras that have been ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that individuals have the right to face their accuser. The question in those cases came down to if the operators of the cam can be considered "accusers." They widely considered that of course the cam itself didn't count as an accuser, but the question was how "automated" the system was. If there was a human who…

Couldn't you say the same of drug testing spectrometers etc? The end operator of the equipment has to appear in court to testify to the proper operation of the machine. [0] [0] Unless the defendant waives that right and stipulates to the prosecutor's statement about the machine.

This literally occurs; one of the reasons that the drug testing lab is usually somewhat local. The prosecution called the individual who ran the test as a witness, and he had clearly been called for similar things many times before.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#398

Post by t1234s »

pixl97 wrote: post #215
0x3f wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#399

Post by t1234s »

wffurr wrote: post #206
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?

Come to Massachusetts, we have a lot of roundabouts and even a few old style two lane rotaries.

I've driven them.. fantastic and no technology to go wrong.

Re: Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional

#400

Post by andrepd »

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.

That's ridiculous, a radar that snaps a photo when a car goes over the speed limit is not, by any conceivable definition, a surveillance array.

There are real surveillance arrays, please worry about those instead.

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