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The Minnesota Supreme Court delivers a unanimous decision striking down the legality of red light cameras. The supreme court found that Minneapolis had disregarded a state law imposing uniformity of traffic laws across the state. The city's photo ticket program offered the accused fewer due process protections than available to motorists prosecuted for the same offense in the conventional way after having been pulled over by a policeman. The court argued that Minneapolis had, in effect, created a new type of crime: "owner liability for red-light violations where the owner neither required nor knowingly permitted the violation." The court also...

drivers are celebrating after they fought their automated tickets for running red lights and won. This week, a Prince George's County judge threw out more than a dozen red-light tickets taken by a camera on Annapolis Road because the drivers never actually drove through the intersection. Now, transportation officials are demanding the cameras be removed. mobile red light cameras do not comply with federal and state standards. "This program is illegal, it is illicit and it is illegitimate because it's charging people for running red lights they have not run," Townsend said. Last June when the controversial cameras first went...

Traffic cameras billed as answer to Chicago's budget deficit Red-light cameras have been combined with short yellow lights to catch drivers and raise city revenues across the country. Now an insurance-checking camera company has presented Chicago with a new twist on the idea—instead of speeders, go after the uninsured. The Windy City, like a lot of other metropolitan areas of late, is facing major budget deficits in the face of the recession's strong bite. State and local governments alike have been hunting for additional sources of revenue, so it's not surprising that a Chicago alderman would entertain the possibility of...

CLIVE, Iowa - Minutes after Neel Manglik illegally turned right on a red light in the Des Moines suburb of Clive, a video popped up on a computer at an office park outside Scottsdale, Ariz. The $75 citation arrived in the mail weeks later, making Manglik one of the millions of Americans ticketed as part of a growing industry that is making handsome profits for companies that operate video cameras at busy intersections throughout the nation. As more cities sign up and others invest their profits into more cameras, those companies expect increased revenue for years to come. What's less...

If you run a red light, you could get a ticket. A few legislators want to change that equation. Their idea: If your car runs a red light, you will automatically get a ticket. A pair of Bedford Republicans, of all people, have introduced another red light camera bill. Sen. Sheila Roberge and Rep. John Graham want to allow local police departments to install cameras at intersections. If the camera photographs your car running a red light, you will be sent a ticket. Click for Editorials & Op-EdsSo much for being innocent until proven guilty. With red light cameras, you...

A Duncanville City Council member wants to re-evaluate how the city issues citations to red-light runners and make it easier for suspected violators to request a jury trial. Paul Ford questions the nearly 45,000 citations issued in 2008 at four intersections monitored by cameras. Compared with Duncanville's population of 38,500, he said, the number of citations seems excessive. Ford will ask fellow council members to vote on a proposal at tonight's council meeting that would allow suspected violators to ask for a jury trial in municipal court. But City Manager Kent Cagle said Duncanville already allows for jury trials. Ford...

Lilburn, Georgia suspends red light camera program after extended yellow time cut violations by 80 percent. On January 1, a new Georgia law kicked in forcing a one-second increase in the duration of the yellow warning light at intersections with red light cameras. The result has been devastating for red light camera makers as violations -- and revenue -- immediately plunged for the months of January, February and March. Last week, the city of Norcross dumped photo enforcement. Now the UK-owned red light camera maker Lasercraft is offering its customers a 90-day suspension of service to prevent cities from dropping...

Revenue trouble may end red light cameras in Upland, California. Officials prepare for possible refund of illegally issued tickets. The Upland, California City Council is expected to vote Monday to stop using red light cameras because the program has not only failed to improve safety, it has also failed to generate sufficient revenue. In a memorandum to the city council, Upland Police Chief Steve Adams recommended canceling the city's contract with Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company that has been issuing tickets on Upland's behalf since November 2003. "The monthly revenue from the service has not covered the salary and...

Kansas City is about to put the pedal to the metal on its first red-light camera. Beginning Saturday, red-light runners at 39th Street and Southwest Trafficway can expect to receive a letter in the mail with instructions on where they can send their $100 fine plus $13.50 in court costs. Visa and MasterCard will be accepted. *****SNIP***** Sensors in the road are linked to the cameras, which capture still and video images. One photograph captures a vehicle as it nears the intersection after the light has turned red. The system tells the monitoring officer which lane the vehicle is traveling...

Police in Houston, Texas put pressure on a Rice University professor to alter negative data compiled while studying Houston's red light camera program, according to documents released in a lawsuit against the city. Houston Mayor Bill White had selected Urban Politics Professor Robert Stein to create a report on the engineering safety performance of the first fifty automated ticketing machines installed (view study released in December). Stein represented an ideal choice because his wife, Marty, is employed by the city of Houston as a top aide to the mayor. In a November 2007 email, White emphasized his personal interest in...

A bill introduced last week in the General Assembly quietly seeks to eliminate a significant motorist protection built into Virginia's existing red light camera law. The proposal of a pair of Democratic state delegates representing Virginia Beach, Joseph F. Bouchard and Robert W. Mathieson, would delete just three words from that statute, but the change would have wide-ranging effects. Under current law, cities that want to install traffic cameras must first submit a detailed engineering justification to state transportation experts. "A locality shall submit a list of intersections to the Virginia Department of Transportation for final approval," Virginia Code Section...

Two New Hampshire GOP House members have added their names to a Legislative Service Requestion seeking to introduce a bill allowing red light cameras in the Granite State. House members Ken Hawkins (R-Bedford) and John A Graham (R-Bedford) have joined NH State Senator Sheila Roberge (R-Bedford) in sponsoring LSR 2009-S-0874-R, titled "authorizing the electronic enforcement of traffic signal violations." Red light cameras snap a digital photo of vehicles caught inside the intersection when the the signal changes from yellow to red, not just those entering the intersection after the signal changes to red. With no video to contest the situation...

Longer duration for yellow signals in Denver, Colorado brings 90 percent reduction in violations. Increasing the duration of the yellow signals has had a greater safety impact than the use of red light cameras in Denver, Colorado. These facts emerged from a Rocky Mountain News investigation that also discovered that city officials and police made no effort whatsoever to track the performance of their public safety program beyond counting the 11,200 tickets worth $840,000 that had been issued between June and November. Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company that operates the automated ticketing machines at four intersections in return for...

Voters in Arnold, Missouri will likely vote in April on whether to ban red light cameras. Activists in the city of Arnold as early as this week expect to secure the number of signatures required to hold a referendum that would outlaw Missouri's first red light camera program. Organizers for the political action committee calling itself "Don't Tread on Me" need a total of 835 signatures to give voters a say on the April 7, 2009 ballot on whether photo enforcement should continue in the city. "These cameras were never about safety," Arnold City Councilman Matthew Hay said. "They are...

Denver has failed to enforce its red-light camera contract, collecting the $75 fines but not collecting the data necessary to determine whether the program actually is reducing red-light running. More than 11,200 tickets were mailed out through November. Denver police officials in charge of the program refused to be interviewed by the Rocky about the problems; Redflex failed to respond to several interview requests and written questions. After stories in the Rocky last spring disclosed that Denver uses the legal minimum three seconds of yellow, despite an engineering formula calling for more, the city agreed to add time at all...

Study finds accidents doubled at Houston, Texas red light camera intersections undermining the conclusions of a statewide report. Accidents more than doubled at the Houston, Texas intersections where red light cameras are installed, according to a study released Monday by Rice University and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). This result posed a dilemma for TTI and the city of Houston which had requested the study. Houston Mayor Bill White was furious when he saw the report's draft text in August. He banned the document from publication and ordered a re-writing of the text that would reflect a more positive result....

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) _ A group of Santa impersonators are on the naughty list of Arizona law enforcement officials. A YouTube video posted Monday shows four people dressed as Kris Kringle, white beards and red hats included, covering three speed and red light enforcement cameras in Tempe. Two are covered with boxes - one decorated with Christmas wrap - and the third is blocked with what appears to be a red sheet. The Jackson 5's ``Santa Claus is coming to town'' plays during the more than two-minute video. At the end is a message that reads: ``Ho Ho Ho! Death...

Denver's red-light cameras were anything but picture perfect in their first month of operation. More than 60 percent of the 2,545 suspected red-light violations caught on camera ...have been tossed out. The reasons vary, but police said that most of the citations were rejected because the "threshold speed" that helps trigger the cameras was set too low, generating hundreds of false readings. "The cameras fired, but the picture clearly showed all of the vehicles in compliance," ... Since then, the threshold speed was reset ... In Denver, police officials expect the city's $838,800 red-light camera system to perform more smoothly...

Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the US, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients.... The technology would be integrated with the Australian company's existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard...

LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The mayors of Lafayette and West Lafayette say they'll ask state lawmakers to allow the use of cameras to catch motorists who run red lights. Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter issued an opinion Friday saying the legislature must create a law before municipalities can use the cameras to catch drivers who run red lights. Both Lafayette and West Lafayette have installed cameras at intersections, but they've only been used to see how many drivers run red lights. At one busy Lafayette intersection, a camera recorded 135 violations out of nearly 8,500 vehicles. A camera set up near...