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Amen to that. My Dee Vorce will be final in 3-4 weeks. Life is good.

(sorry for the hijack - back to regularly scheduled programming)

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Maybe marriage will also have to be banned.

Marriage was found to be the primary cause of 100% of all divorces.

SIA

boomerang wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:Maybe we should ban highways.

I heard APD is going to close down the ones in Austin using nuisance laws.

NICE!

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Maybe marriage will also have to be banned.

Marriage was found to be the primary cause of 100% of all divorces.

SIA

Free at last Free at last.

How are these legal under the constitutional right to face your accuser? Have they been tested?

frazzled wrote:How are these legal under the constitutional right to face your accuser? Have they been tested?

Yes, they have been tested and have been in use all over the country for a couple of decades now. This isn't anything new. And, you still have the right to face your accuser. You can go to traffic court and challenge the ticket; but unless you can prove that isn't you in the photo and prove that the radar gun was out of calibration, your accuser is going to win — just like with a real live officer.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

frazzled wrote:How are these legal under the constitutional right to face your accuser? Have they been tested?

Yes, they have been tested and have been in use all over the country for a couple of decades now. This isn't anything new. And, you still have the right to face your accuser. You can go to traffic court and challenge the ticket; but unless you can prove that isn't you in the photo and prove that the radar gun was out of calibration, your accuser is going to win — just like with a real live officer.

Interesting. Sounds like you should bring a real lawyer and not fight this ala Judge Wapner (oh man just dated myself).

The Annoyed Man wrote: ... but unless you can prove that isn't you in the photo and prove that the radar gun was out of calibration, your accuser is going to win — just like with a real live officer.

There is my whole problem with this process: guilty until proven innocent. I'm pretty sure the American legal system is supposed to be based on exactly the opposite.

The difference between a real life officer and the camera is that the officer actually looks you in the eye and can verify you were driving. If you've ever seen one of the films of a red light incident, they dont show who is at the wheel.

Imagine gettig convicted of armed robbery because they had a picture of your gun, but not who was wielding it. How outraged would we all be?

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Maybe marriage will also have to be banned.

Marriage was found to be the primary cause of 100% of all divorces.

SIA

mymojo wrote:If you've ever seen one of the films of a red light incident, they dont show who is at the wheel.

I can't speak for the Red Light cameras, but I can tell you from personal experience that the photo radar speeding cameras generate a pretty clear picture.

Back when Hector was a pup, I was operations manager at an industrial supply company. One day I got a ticket in the mail, written to one of our vehicles, on a street on which our drivers had no particular business. Given the day and time of the infraction, I was able to determine who the driver had to have been. When I questioned the driver, he denied having our vehicle on that street on that day. I didn't want the company to have to pay the ticket, particularly when this guy was obviously lying to me, so I phoned the Pasadena PD, and they offered to send me a copy of the photo, which they did. When I got it in the mail, there was absolutely no denying that it was our vehicle, and that it was the driver in question. The picture was quite clear, and both the license plate and his face were clearly seen. I confronted him with the photo, and I told him that we would not be paying for his ticket. I gave the Pasadena PD his name and driver's license number and other information, and they transferred the ticket to his name.

On another occasion, I got tagged myself by that same photo radar unit, on that same street. I clearly saw the flash, and there was no other vehicle around me, so it had to be me that it was targeting. I waited and waited and waited for the ticket to come in the mail. It never did. I can only conclude that a conscientious officer at the PPD concluded that the picture was not clear enough to be usable, and so no citation was mailed.

Those things work.

I got a red light ticket in the mail last year from the city of Humble. I haven't been in Humble for years and I knew my truck had not been there. It turned out to be the same type of truck, but the wrong color and wrong tag by 1 character. I called them and told them they had the wrong person. They said that they agreed and would take clear of it. I called back in 2 months to check and asked if they would send me some documentation. I never received the documentation. IMO they should have to ticket the person not the vehicle ........Oh Wait! Then the red light cameras would not work. As you can tell I am not a fan of them.

I have no problem with photo enforcement if the picture is clear and I can show up and get it dismissed at no cost to me for the false accusation if it's not me in the picture.

Again, the problem is: the cameras DO NOT show who's driving - at least not the ones in Plano.

They show a camera pointed into the intersection and all they capture is an angle from the back of the vehicle. Trust me, I've seen two of the tapes in the past year, and like I said earlier I can absolutely 100% guarantee that the person who got the tickets was not the person driving the vehicle.

Have you asked yourself why a moving violation is a civil offense? Could it be so that the burden of proof required in a criminal case doesn't exist? (something to think about)

Are they being deprived of property without due process of law?

Recently someone on the radio was asking if all the cars
in a funeral procession would get tickets for running the red lights,
since the funeral procession doesn't stop for lights.

The reply was that many times there are motorcycle officers that
accompany these and the MC's motion for the non-funeral traffic
to stop.

Since a real LEO is supposed to OK the ticket before it goes out, he
can clearly see from the photos/videos that it was a funeral line,
and no one will get a ticket.

SIA

Here's a collection of articles about red light cameras:

http://speedtrapahead.org/wordpress/ind ... mit=Search" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Disclaimer: Yep, this is ALSO a cheap plug for my website!