Smile, your on candid camera
How many Juice readers know of someone who has received a citation by a red light camera?
In fact, this is such a heavy penalty that there is a Bill in Sacramento, introduced by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, that would reduce fines from $450 to $250 for a red light camera catching you turning right on a red light without fully stopping. Hill said: “It tends to be more of a ‘gotcha’ type of ticket than what you would consider a real dangerous violation.”
To read the full San Mateo County Times report go to http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_15187157
Red light tickets are not the only fines imposed on motorists ticketed within city limits. Did you ever question how the fine is divided up among the different public agencies?
Apparently distribution of traffic citation funds has now becomes another tug of war between cities and the state legislature as we look for any source of revenue to retain services.
The SACBEE just reported that “The State Senate voted unanimously yesterday to prevent California cities for citing errant motorists under city ordinance rather than state law, thereby allowing cities to keep the resulting fines. Roseville has been doing that for more than a year, with a flat $100 fine for a range of traffic infractions, far lower than the state vehicle code imposes with various fees and other add-ons. Several other cities, including Oakland and Long Beach, have adopted the same practice.
Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, introduced legislation, Senate Bill 949, to outlaw the practice. It cleared the Senate yesterday on a 28-0 vote without debate, sending it to the Assembly.” Source:
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/2010/05/senate-vote-wou.html
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/2010/05/senate-vote-wou.html#ixzz0pLwJzDxL
A respondent to the SACBEE story writes: “When you are cited for violation of a state vehicle code 5% of the fine goes to the agency that cites you which is about the cost to employ the person that wrote you the ticket for the amount of time spent stopping you and writing the ticket. The idea is policemen are supposively hired to protect the public safety, not to generate revenue. It used to be it was thought unethical for law enforcement to be a revenue generator for the general fund. Most honest people think it is still unethical.”
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/2010/05/senate-vote-wou.html#ixzz0pL00q616
Just received from a MV taxpayer.
“Larry, I received one of these $400 citations for the good camera work at El Toro and Moulton. That will never happen again. I felt the fine was ridiculously steep. XXXX”
People are still running red lights?
then the fines needs to be raised.
Not only that, but after 2 tickets, the drivers license needs to be taken for a period ot time.
These bad drivers are in the same group that kills over 30,000 people a year with their bad habits.
Cook.
While it is not the topic of this post, I can’t begin to tell you how many people I see every day with a cell phone in one hand and their other hand on the steering wheel.
As tempting as it is to answer I simply ignore the calls.
I hand my cell phone to wife or kids to answer. Or voice mail.
Because Hill missed the May 7 deadline (by 20 days!) AB 909 cannot become law until 2012. So we will have to suffer the $500 tickets for another 19 months. And of course by that time the legislature will have tacked on so many new fees and surcharges that the promised $250 rolling right ticket will be $350, and the now-$500 tickets will be $650. (The SM Times article talks about a new $40 fee.)
Could it be that Mr. Hill is just pretending to do something, so that his SF Peninsula constituents won’t throw him out of office?
But there is good news.
On Friday, AB 2097 made it out of committee. It is the bill to require that the owners of the million private cars having confidential license plates file a “service” address with the DMV, so that they will begin to receive their red light camera tickets. (The existence of the protected plates was revealed last year by the Register.) Right now they (politicians, bureaucrats, cops – and their family members) are effectively immune, because Redflex has no way to look up their mailing address.
The Anaheim City Council has voted NOT to install red light camera in the city. I agree wholeheartedly with this decision and hope that other city’s will follow suit. The Bee has it right. Law enforcement should be there to protect us, not drive revenue for the general fund.
In Fullerton we selected a crappy red light camera vendor and wrote an illegal contract with them (twice!). The vendor went bankrupt and our cameras were taken down. Wooo hoo!
I sat outside cooking burgers and watching the cars drive by.
This one car drives up to the RED LIGHT and goes right thu without even slowing down. A second car a couple hundred feet behind the first car steps on the brakes after entering the intersection but to late to stop at the RED LIGHT so he goes thu it too. (NO yellow light, it was RED as the cars approached a block away)
If some one was riding a bicycle racing for the GREEN LIGHT and entered this intersection at the same time as the RED LIGHT car driver did, then the bike rider would have been killed.
Running RED LIGHTS kills people.
So you RED LIGHT runners need to stop complaining about the high fines you get for getting caught red-handed violating policy safety laws and be happy you are not in jail.