Judge Throws Out Red Light Camera Tickets As Program Declared Illegal | Hacker News Reader

Judge Throws Out Red Light Camera Tickets As Program Declared Illegal

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33 pointsravindra198227 comments

Fines levied against anyone/any corporation ought to go into a fund that is divided up in some manner independent of any individual jurisdiction's propensity to levy them. The problem with allowing a municipality to enforce laws and then profit from that enforcement is the obvious incentive to optimize on revenue instead of the public good.

Let's pretend that all fines from red light cameras had to be divided up among 100 municipalities. The free rider "problem" would kick in. Why bother to purchase expensive cameras when you only see on cent per dollar in fines? Only at the most problematic intersection would one find such devices.

I would believe claims that law enforcement was for the public good if those entities doing the enforcing did not profit significantly from their propensity to enforce.

Why do not lobby for legislation that allows you to drive over a red light? Instead of arguing indirectly against applying that law.

Because I don't like people who run red lights. I've gone so far as to chase them down, knock on their windows, and ask them why they were trying to kill me.

If the motive for enforcement is not profit, then the overall revenue derived from enforcement would not change if the distribution method became more indirect. If my suggestion changed behavior, it is sufficient proof that governments' motives are not pure.

There's nothing wrong with providing incentives for local governments to enforce the rules.

There is, however, something wrong with providing incentives for local governments to manipulate rules to turn people into criminals, particularly when those manipulations actually make driving (in this case) more dangerous. Seriously -- do you not see the potential danger in giving local government an incentive to shorten yellow lights just to catch more people in a ticketable offense?

One problem (of many) is that there are so many laws that everyone probably breaks a few every day. Did you cross the street to talk to your neighbor? Jaywalking. $50 fine. So, a system of laws has been created that allows local governments to almost arbitrarily tax their citizens at will simply by choosing which laws to enforce.

I believe there are restrictions on the work that prisoners can be forced to do because there's a fine line between incarceration as punishment and enslavement. If the government has an incentive to incarcerate, it will seek to find ways to acquire more prisoners. I see this as a parallel to fine collection.

All of my comments in this thread are US-centric, obviously.

Perhaps we change the underlying laws? Not enforcing unjust laws seems a second best.

Better yet, make it revenue-neutral, perhaps by paying money to those found not guilty.

After all, even if revenue gets split up, there's still a moral hazard.

Out here in California the state is broke and to balance the budget the state reneged on funding some local programs, confiscated county and city money (as a forced loan back to the state) and other chicanery -- so the local cities are stepping up issuing traffic citations to make up for lost revenue. I hear that cops used to let you slide on doing 5 mph over the speed limit but not any more. I recently got a totally unjust parking ticket for not curbing my wheels on a street that was flat and unsloped and this a-hole cop ticketed every other car as far as the eye could see. So be careful or you will become the source of budget-balancing revenue.

There are good reasons I not only don't live in CA any longer, but intend to never visit the place again. What a hole. . . .

Yes, but the good weather and the fine wine make my little hole quite nice -- even if it is a little expensive and overcrowded....oh wait, I take that all back... don't come to California, it really sucks like apotheon said.

Why does the money from this go back to the police or people enforcing it? Giving all the revenue from tickets to say, the library or education system seems like a far better idea to me.

I don't like these stories much because in most of these cases, the red light runners really were running red lights and they were jeopardizing other safe drivers.

If you see a yellow light you should stop. If you think the risk of running the light is worth it, suck it up and pay the ticket.

Everyone knows it is illegal to run a red light and everyone who does it is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk for their greed.

If you have, from prior experience, a particular expectation of the duration of a yellow light, and then the city intentionally shortens that time in order to give more tickets, it jeopardizes everyone’s safety. The explicit reason for traffic tickets is to make the roads safer by discouraging unsafe driving: cities who prioritize revenue over safety are abusing the whole system, and should absolutely be shut down.

Everyone knows that yellow has been morphed into meaning, "Speed up!" When really people should be stopping. They don't stop. They should stop.

And they should be punished for not stopping.

Round abouts, when first introduced cause more accidents in america as well. Doesn't mean they aren't better.

American drivers need to be taught that yellow means stop. In this case, the judge is teaching us, "Hey, run the light, if they catch you, maybe you can weasel your way out of the ticket by blaming the system."

I hear your points and i understand the little guy against the state perspective, but it's like blaming the highway patrol in the speed trap because he hid his car so you couldn't see it and slow down before he saw you. You were speeding and you should have gotten a ticket. In this case, people in fact, did run the red light and they should be punished for it because it is more dangerous to try to make it through. Most people don't make it through, even if the yellow is 4.4 seconds.

In my experience, yellow lights are different times in lots of different cities. When I see one, I slow down, i don't speed up. Unless it's raining and I know I'll lose traction. Then I just go through.

We exist in a world with others, not only ourselves. We need to live like it.

From the actual article linked to by the submitted post:

"Schwartz saw the error in the announcement timing as more than a technicality, citing the false assertion of Police Chief Paul Walters that motorists would be given 4.4 seconds of yellow time at enforced intersections. Records show that seventeen of the city’s eighteen camera intersections had yellow times of 4.0 seconds or less. The vast majority of red light tickets in the city were mailed to vehicle accused of entering an intersection less than half-a-second after the light had turned red."

And again, yellow doesn't mean stop. It means "stop if it's safe". If yellow meant unequivocally stop, then everyone would be slamming on the brakes - a recipe for accidents.

That's not really sound logic - if you see a yellow light and there's enough time to safely stop, you should stop. That's an important qualifier. Indeed, that's why the duration of yellow lights differs based on the expected speed that people will approach them - because it's not, in fact, always safe to stop when you see yellow. (As a thought experiment, ask yourself why we have yellow lights at all, and why they're not instantaneous).

What the city did in this particular case was deliberately shorten the yellow light to a lower time than is actually legal or safe - just to make a few extra bucks.

Now, if your argument was more that "well, the city's wrong, but most of the people who ran the lights are still guilty", then the argument is really similar to the one about the exclusionary rule (evidence in criminal cases can't be used if obtained through an illegal search). Without some way to punish the city, there's no disincentive for them not to keep screwing over people - in this case, in a way that actually increased the accident rate. There's got to be some pain felt for malfeasance, and it sounds like that's exactly what's going on here.

Careful there.

The article doesn't state that the city shortened the yellow lights. They promised to not use cameras with yellows shorter than 4.4 seconds. They then started moving the cameras around to other intersections. It is possible that these different intersections had light programs with yellows shorter than 4.4 seconds.

I also don't see any mention in the article of increased accident rates.

Not disagreeing with the rest of what you said, but I just wanted to point out that the article does state that the city moved the cameras to intersections with yellows shorter than 4.0 seconds.

That's what he said. There's a difference between shortening a time interval of a light with a camera and moving the camera to a light which already has an interval that's too short. Both are wrong and breaking a promise, but the latter can happen by just being dumb, instead of bad intentions.

I don't think "being dumb" should be rewarded, either -- especially when, if allowed to flourish, such accidental stupidity can lead to willful ignorance and worse.

If you brake really hard, you're probably going to decelerate at around 7 m/s2.

25 MPH / 7 m/s2 ~= 1.6 seconds.

If you get caught running a redlight, you went through the intersection > 0.5 seconds after the light turned red, which is at least > 4 seconds after the light turned amber.

If you can't stop safely in that time, you weren't driving safely, or there were exceptional circumstances (eg. an ambulance, or a tailgating semi-trailer). The video footage of the event will exonerate you in those circumstances.

The total number of accidents increase, but the number of severe accidents decrease.

I love seeing people running red lights getting flashed. It makes my day.

If you brake really hard, you may get rear-ended -- particularly if you're driving a gigantic beast of an SUV and the car behind you is a Geo Metro. I never assume someone's doing something wrong just based on the law; I also check for other factors like who's around them, what those other people are doing, whether the street is wet or oily, et cetera.

. . . and whether the speed limit in a particular area is artificially low to increase ticketing revenue.

In furtherance of your point, a friend of mine worked for as a civil engineer involved with traffic planning in a medium city. A relevant tidbit (which I only assume to be true as, while it is perfectly logical, is not something I've ever heard taught, so take with salt) is that the solid white lines approaching an intersection are measured, and designed to act as guide markers for yellow lights, at least as originally timed.

The way it's supposed to work, is that if you're doing the spped limit and the light turns yellow, you should not stop if you are within the solid white lines, but should stop if you are outside of them.

Again, I don't know if this is 100% true, or if it is, whether it applies to all metro areas or just in Memphis, TN.

I think thats a good rule of thumb at the very least and it works for me in California.

I know lots of people who've been caught on red light cameras, but as far as I know, none of them entered the intersection more than 0.5-1 seconds after the light turned red.

Obviously, if you're able to stop safely, you should. But the point is that for lights with short yellows, it's sometimes hard to stop before the intersection without slamming on the brakes.

So how about those who weren't? "Let god sort them out", or what?

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