The issue is, that accuser would need to go to the court date for every ticket they issue and face their accuser.
It's not practical. The municipalities that decide to do this could decide to keep doing it, and just not have the accuser show up, and thus get every ticket that is contested automatically dismissed.
You do have the right to challenge the camera ticket in court. If it comes down to it, you can even get the officer who signed your ticket to face you in court. But for most people it's not worth it....the camera provides pretty compelling evidence of your guilt.
There is a case where a defendant refused to pay the ticket and argued that the state had to prove that he was in fact driving the car at the time. Eventually the state dropped it because it wasn't worth it. But for the defendant, it was a very time consuming process and if I recall correctly, he was a lawyer. All that time and effort was spent to get out of $100-200 ticket.
Uh, so lets say you get carjacked by a guy who just robbed a store. Are you now an accessory to the crime? I mean you are legally responsible for your car after all.
Or how about a gun. Lets say you own a gun. A person you thought you could trust knows where you keep it. He takes it without your knowledge and kills a man. Are you also a murderer?
The problem is the carjacker and person are using your property without your knowledge and/or consent.
It's when you consent to someone using your car/etc that it can become your problem
You’re not obligated to answer snitch tickets. In CA, they were printed to look like real tickets (ie a summons to appear), part of why they removed red light cameras in many cities.
Biggest problem was that the vast majority of tickets were rolling right turns at low speeds, something most people find to be “okay” and don’t associate with running red lights.
A family friend, who happens to be a judge that decided one of the two cases that declared them unconstitutional, told me that it'd "be a cold day in hell" before he allowed them. He said they're blatantly unconstitutional then gave a lengthy reply why. Won't deny I sorta zoned out halfway through ... damn ADHD.
From what I did manage to gather, though, the local governments were trying to argue that the cameras made the streets safer despite study after study proving this was wrong. IANAL but apparently that means they're used solely for tax collection purposes and, as such, they have to prove the money is being used to make the streets safer. Not surprisingly, the governments were unable to do that so the court said, "go fuck yourself" and last I heard they were working their way through the appellate process.
In my area rear endings at red lights went up because people slam on their breaks and because of many reasons that prevented the tickets from being pursued to a fine and had to be thrown out the city still had to pay a huge fee to the camera companies that would have partially been paid by tickets. A lot of the tickets during the afternoon were at an angle where the suns reflection covered up the drivers face was one reason
Well, iirc that was the whole point of challenging them in court. Not only did they not lower accidents, in many, they increased them.
The corner in which the plaintiff received their ticket the accidents went up. He was sorta laughing about that. I'm one of those where I only remember bits and pieces of conversations but I remember him saying something like, "Some attorneys choose losing cases just because they like seeing their names in print."
In Springfield Mo. they are not able to use the cameras for traffic tickets anymore. There are cameras at every major intersection and they used them for literally just a few months. Public had an uproar and they fairly quickly just stopped using them. After all that money and time (our money as taxpayers) wasted... they're still up and they're still active to spy on us, but they can't use them for Traffic Court.
In my state, it reads right on the back of the citation received in the mail, if you do not pay this ticket, nothing will happen. I'm not quoting, but that is the gist of it.
Usually the person the car is registered to is considered responsible for it.
I think tickets from red light cams are a civil fine since some don't count against your license
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u/WorkoutProblems Oct 14 '17
Just curious, how do camera tickets work then?