Posted on 02/08/2017 12:47:05 PM PST by nickcarraway
Outside the Hall of Justice in Fremont, they line up before dawn, waiting to get into traffic court, many hoping to get a break on an expensive red-light camera ticket.
“I am definitely not looking forward to paying the $500,” said Rohan Kapuria, who got a ticket last October. “The yellows turned so fast to red that I didn’t have a chance to react,” he said.
That happened at Mowry and Farwell, a Fremont intersection that caught the attention of red-light activist Jim Lissner. “Sometimes you see something going on,” he said.
Lissner has made it a hobby to monitor red light cameras across the state. Recently he noticed a pattern of citations at Mowry and Farwell that he considered suspicious. It all started when a new state law required cities to lengthen their yellow lights for safety reasons, based on the actual speed of traffic rather than the posted speed.
On August 1, 2015 when the new law took effect, ticketing at the intersection dropped dramatically, to an average of 54 red light runners a month. Then, suddenly, the camera started churning out an average of 280 tickets per month from February through October 2016. Just as suddenly, the ticket count took a nose dive back down in November.
Lissner noticed a similar pattern up the street at Mowry and Blacow, where an average of 17 tickets per month spiked to an average of 177, then also dropped back down. “That raised alarm bells. Why did that happen?” Lissner wondered.
Sifting through documents he routinely requests from cities, Lissner discovered two sets of timing charts for the two intersections which he considers suspicious.
One shows the yellow lights timed at 4.7 seconds. There’s a line across the chart and the words “superceded.” The second set of charts shows the yellows timed at 4.0, with a handwritten note that the change was made on February 1, 2016. That happens to be the very same date the cameras started cranking out red light citations in record numbers. “They shortened the yellows. That is the smoking gun,” said Lissner.
Shorter yellows can lead to more red light tickets and potentially more revenue for the city. But, if they did shorten them here, there’s no sign of it now. We came here with a stop watch: both yellows are 4.7 seconds long.
So what happened?
“We had student interns that were helping us update the records,” said Hans Larsen, Fremont’s public works director. “Unfortunately, in a few cases, some of the information that was on those pieces of paper wasn’t accurate and doesn’t represent what was actually done out in the field at the traffic signals,” said Larsen.
He says even though it may look that way, the yellow lights were never actually shortened. People will hear that and say ‘oh really? Blame it on the intern?’ But Larsen insists: “What we are talking about is what is written on a piece of paper. I mean the issue here is, is the yellow timing out at the intersection in compliance with state laws? The answer is yes.”
As for the spike in tickets over nine months last year Larsen says it’s partly more traffic but also what he describes as the “rebound effect.”
“People will get used to ‘OK, well there’s more yellow time now, I will use as much of it as I can,'” he said.
Back at the courthouse, Rohan Kapuria wasn’t too hopeful the judge would give him a break when we checked in with him.
“If worse comes to worse I can do community service,” he said.
But who knows? After this report things could change.
-PJ
Brecksville, Ohio. Intersection of routes 82 and 21.They had a cop running the light. He didn’t like the looks of my work truck, and gave me a 2 second yellow. I slammed on the brakes! Tool boxes, pipes and fittings, etc, all slammed into the back of my seat! I was extremely pissed off!
A couple of years back I got a red light camera ticket in a situation in which a traffic cop *waved me through* the red light. I beat it in traffic camera court, but had to waste a whole morning dealing with that stupidity.
Town here in Tennessee (Millington) has the court set up in Arizona to challenge the tickets.
You're lucky. I've heard others weren't.
One man got a summons and they included a copy of the picture of his car going through the red light. He responded with a "picture" of his fine written on a check. Things didn't go well after that point.
Any licensed engineer who authorized such a thing would face disciplinary action from their state licensing board. I would file the complaint myself.
I have yet to have anyone take me up on the offer.
They are boo chit and unconstitutional....
Simply shorten each green light by 3 or 4 seconds and add that time onto the yellow light, then have a countdown timer next to the yellow light letting all drivers know exactly when the light will turn from yellow to red. Drivers will never have to worry about a "short" yellow again.
I saw it in Vienna back in 2008 and thought it was a great idea.
Are these still operated by private companies that split the revenue with the cities? Of course the city bureaucrats will face pressure to raise the number of citations in order to bolster city coffers. But so too does a private company have incentive - and a private company is not open to FOIA or other checks and balances.
I’d be curious if the private companies don’t require a certain minimum number of citations just to cover overhead, beneath which it is not worth it for them to keep operating. They could pressure the city to change the timing - and this suspicious “blame it on the intern” event is suggestive of something more - since when does an intern have authority to “supercede” the timing of traffic lights in defiance of a court order?
That’s generous of you to offer. Maybe there is a business to be had - $500 for a red-light violation seems awful high. The business opportunity is that drivers pay you 20% of the value of the fine if you get the case dismissed. “Pay no fee until you are free!”. Heck you could ask for more than that but seeing as how you’re so generous... ;-)
Well, couple of things. You become obligated to pay the ticket and accept the demerit on your record and/or show up, so that is a cruddy Hobson’s choice but the decision is made for you.
The last traffic ticket I got was for running a stop sign (I maybe made a slow rolling stop; this was on an airport service road in the air freight area at midnight = 100% deserted...not that that matters.....but I prolly woke up the cops sleeping on the sidestreet)
The kicker was that my proof of insurance (req’d in CA) had expired the previous day and I neglected to get an updated card.
The bail for the stop was about $400 and for the insurance was about $1000. See, I’m white. This was in Oakland CA. So it was not a nothing.
So, I paid bail & set a court date. On that date, I found a street parking meter and put $5 in quarters into the meter and walked into court. The first thing the judge did was to take attendance and the officers in my case weren’t there, so my case dismissed. That took 15 minutes.
I walked back to my car and there in the gutter was a $5 bill. I kinda felt like a character in a Dilbert cartoon.
Anyway; I generally contest traffic tickets because IMO, there is a solid 40% chance the cop won’t show up and your case will be dismissed.
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