Dear Reader: As this website begins to ramp up our coverage of the issues facing motorists and commuters across the country, we’re expanding our scope and we hope you find posts like this one interesting:
by Sarah Schoonover - TicketKick
On a nice Saturday afternoon, you decide to take a quick stroll down to your mailbox to grab the postman’s deliveries of the day. You flip through a few bills, a little junk mail, a three month late birthday card from your crazy aunt, and then you stumble upon something from the Superior Court of California.
Perplexed and puzzled, you cautiously open the letter. You are surprised to see four photographs of you driving your vehicle, and what appears to be incriminating evidence of you running a red light.
“It’s Okay”, you tell yourself, “I got caught for running a red light from one of those camera things, how bad can this be?” Your eyes scroll down to the section marked “Fine Amount”, and you gasp as you exclaim aloud, “Five hundred dollars!?” It’s a commonplace scenario that happens to thousands of drivers every month.
All too often, drivers think they’ve hit the end of the road, figuratively of course, and are just going to have to pay the consequences. They say, “They’ve got me on video, how can I get out of this?” It’s a question we get asked at TicketKick.com all the time.
The simple truth is that the photographs may not be enough. Just as your neighbor can’t walk up to you and hand you a legitimate speeding ticket, not just any camera system can issue you a ticket that holds up in court. There are numerous requirements that a city must adhere to when citing drivers in such a way, and more often than not, the city is not fully compliant with these laws.
A disobedient city means a cited driver has a pretty good shot at persuading a judge to drop the case. So what exactly are the requirements for a city that uses the red light camera tickets system? The main ones are as follows: Warning Period: For 30 days after a system goes live, drivers “caught red-handed” can only be issued warnings, not actual citations.
Public Announcements: A city needs to let its residents and visitors know about the system 30 days before it is installed. While there are no specific requirements, a city will generally issue a press release or public campaign.
Signage: A city needs to put up either signs warning drivers of the systems at either 1) all major entrances to the city or 2) all approaches to the specific intersections that have the systems installed. Public Hearing: A city has to hold a public hearing before approving the installation and activation of red light cameras.
No Performance Based Contracts: Cities cannot compensate their red light camera vendors based upon the number of citations issued or the amount of revenue generated from fines. The contract rate needs to be a “flat fee.” Even if all of these requirements are met, there is still one last ditch effort. A proper witness must submit photographs of the driver allegedly running the red light. This witness must be trained on the workings and operations of the system.
Sometimes, cities will send random police officers to testify, who are not the appropriate witnesses to the photographs. It’s a rather lengthy and deep legal argument, but case law suggests that a judge must ignore the photographic evidence if it isn’t properly submitted by a qualified witness.
Without photographs, the judge can’t convict a driver of running a red light. It can be a battle, but red light camera tickets can be successfully beaten. Throughout the two years that TicketKick has been helping drivers contest their California traffic tickets using trial by written declaration, we’ve seen hundreds of drivers successfully beat their red light camera tickets using our defenses and assistance.
Sara Schoonover is Vice President of Ticket Kick, a California company that helps drivers get red light tickets, speeding tickets and other traffic tickets dismissed by helping drivers through the trial by written declaration process.The company, which formally launched in 2010 after providing similar services since 2006, is the leading company in this space and growing rapidly.
