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Systems don’t necessarily react based on the legal situation. A red light camera that’s improperly installed, poorly maintained, etc could essentially act randomly from a drivers perspective.

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Which is why they are supposed to have a sworn officer review the camera footage. I have certainly had a camera flash me while waiting to turn right on red, still outside the intersection. They never sent me a ticket however since I had clearly not done anything illegal.

There are too many examples of them rubber-stamping.

... which is why they are supposed to be regularly calibrated by an independent third party - with tickets automatically being void if law enforcement can't prove that it was functioning properly.

Sure in theory, in practice the incentives don’t align for local governments to particularly care if these things actually work well.

Here there was no attempt to photograph the driver rather than just assume the owner was responsible or would point to the responsible party.

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