Photo radar ticket sent to the wrong car owner

Richard Philbrick was surprised to find a $40 photo-radar ticket from Boulder in his mailbox in Orleans, Mass., last week.

"I remember Boulder well, from when I was stationed at Lowry field," said Philbrick, who was training at the Lowry Air Force Base prior to World War II. He was stationed in Colorado in 1941 and has not been back since.

He noticed some clear discrepancies when he looked at the photos provided as evidence for the Nov. 5 speeding ticket. Not only was the car not a car he owned, but the driver looked like a teenager.

Philbrick contacted his local police chief to make sure the ticket was not a scam.

"He looked at the citation and spotted right away that this wasn't a Massachusetts plate," Philbrick said. But when the police chief called the contractor that administers photo-radar tickets for Boulder, he found them to be unresponsive, Philbrick said.

Philbrick is not alone in his predicament. People who think they should not have been sent a photo-radar ticket can fill out a form and send it to the city along with a copy of their driver's license to contest it.

"We compare the photo on the driver's license with the close-up photo-radar picture," said Jill Spencer, a legal assistant in the city attorney's office. If the two photos do not match, the ticket is dismissed, she said.

Cameras fixed on traffic-signal poles first started shooting pictures used to ticket drivers running red lights in Boulder in late 1998. The photo sent to Philbrick was taken from a photo-radar van, and the driver was going 35 mph in a 25 mph zone. Speeding near the mobile van, speeding through school zones, running red lights, and, since September, speeding through green lights can all result in a photo-radar ticket.

The picture and notice are sent to the registered owner of the photographed vehicle. But sometimes the owner is not the one driving the car. Most of the complaints the city attorney's office receives fall into that category.

"If a friend of mine was driving my car, then it would be dismissed, unless I give them up," Spencer said. The attorney's office does not keep statistics on complaints, but only a handful of them, like Philbrick's, involve a ticket sent to the wrong car owner, she said.

Two employees of the city's contractor look at the license plate photo separately to make sure that they agree on the state and plate number. If the picture is too blurry to use or the employees are not able to agree on the license number, they do not issue a ticket.

"Obviously it is not 100 percent fool-proof, but they do have a double-blind test," said Lynne Reynolds, municipal court administrator. "There's an awful lot of pictures taken that do not result in tickets."

But the picture did result in a ticket in Philbrick's case. He is not worried about paying the ticket because it was obviously a mistake, but he would like to know why it was sent to him.

"They'd have a hard time getting me to pay the fine," he said. "I expect to get an explanation."

I was in a neighboring city in Colorado. I got one of those photo radar tickets. The whole photo radar system is a scam. They are not moving violations, in which they can take your driver's license or points from your driver's licenses. They are regarded the same as parking violations. In fact, the only meat in the ordinance at all, has to do with sending the unpaid violations to a credit agency so that if you do not pay them you will have bad credit.

I didn't get the ticket until one month later. Try to remember where you were and what you were doing a month ago. They did not send any picture with it, just an explanation of where to view the picture. "Between the hours of 10:00 am and 4:00 pm Mondays-Fridays. If you feel you should not have received the ticket after viewing the picture, you have to make an appointment with the City attorney or take it to court. Well that was two days off work to find out if I owed the money or not. They did give a location "in the 200 block of College avenue".

I went by the location and realized that just in front of the van the speed limit increases 10 miles per hour. I had always been taught that you begin increasing or decreasing your speed when you see the sign, so that when you pass the sign you are at the correct speed. A point some little camera in an unmarked van doesn't take into consideration.

At any rate, because of my business schedule, I didn't have time to persue it before leaving town. I had not made up my mind whether or not to take the two days off to fight the ticket. When I got back a second notice was waiting for me. This time it stated that if I didn't pay it I would be issued a summons to appear at court. I was again leaving town for business and decided to wait until I got back. I decided that I should at least have been given as much time as they took to first send the ticket.

When I was called out of town again, I thought "screw it", I just pay the 40 dollars and be done with it. Next time (if there is a next time) I will fight the darn thing.

When I got back to town, a letter was waiting for me. Inside was my check, and a letter stating that they did not have the authority to summon me because I did not live inside the city limits and their officers couldn't issue summons outside of the city limits. Therefore, since I had not paid the ticket within the 45 days, they could not pursue it.

In other words, this is a revenue generating thing for the cities that use it. After all, if they were really interested in the safety of the citizens they wouldn't wait 30 days to stop someone from speeding or running a red light.

Living in Denver, I avoid anything to do with Boulder at all costs. Anyplace that can ticket you for walking on a sidewalk and smoking a cigarette is a menace to me.
That said, did you know that the newest thing is for the lights to be rigged to encourage folks to run red lights? They installed cameras at an intersection I used on my way to work. Before, when you pulled up to a red light, the pressure sensor would activate and you'd get a green. NOW, you can sit there staring at a pointless red light at three in the morning for 3 minutes with no cars for miles wishing you had a .22 rifle to kill the cameras. When it finally does change, it gives you only 4 seconds to get through the intersection. If there's 4 or more cars there waiting with you, the 4th guy NEVER makes it through. If he tries, he's nailed by the cameras.

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