No WhiteWash!

Ohio Appeals Court allows constitutional challenge to speed camera program in Cleveland to proceed.

Ohio’s second highest court on Thursday ruled that a constitutional challenge to photo enforcement should proceed. Attorney Jeffrey Posner had appealed a speed camera ticket he received from a private contractor operating in Cleveland on the grounds that the way the private firm handled the evidence undermined his right to due process. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eight Appellate District found merit in his concerns and reversed the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court decision that previously had found no problem with the system of automated ticketing.

Read more via Ohio Appeals Court Green Lights Traffic Camera Suit.

Oregon driver accused of running green light, Texas man falsely accused and Georgia motorists trapped by illegally short yellows.

A red light camera accused a man of running a red light in Portland, Oregon even though the light was actually green. Mark Ginsberg received the $287 ticket that had been mailed by Affiliated Computer Services for the alleged February 2 offense, The Oregonian reported. Instead of merely paying the citation, the attorney took a closer look and noticed the ticket claimed the light had been red for 24.9 seconds when the camera flashed. The red phase of the traffic signal only lasts 25 seconds, meaning the light was green by the time he had entered the intersection. The prosecution dropped the case to avoid having the Multnomah County Circuit Court issue a ruling.

A man in living in San Antonio, Texas received a ticket in the mail for a crime allegedly committed in Houston. Douglas Bond was nowhere near that city when the incident happened, KENS-TV reported. Although Bond drives a Chevy Silverado, the Silverado in the citation photograph was distinctly different from his own. Houston police did not care that Bond was falsely accused and said he should just pay the ticket, threatening to place a hold on his vehicle registration if he did not. Only after KENS reporters got involved did American Traffic Solutions and the city relent.

In Atlanta, Georgia and its suburbs, three out of four signals tested by WXIA-TV had yellow signals shorter than the amount required by law. Signals with short yellows generated thousands of citations. The intersection of Freedom Parkway at Boulevard in Atlanta had a 4.2 second yellow when 4.7 was required. It generated 49,322 citations worth $2,404,010 in revenue. In January, the Georgia Department of Transportation ordered the city to shut down the red light camera as a hazard.

via Georgia, Oregon, Texas: Innocent Drivers Mailed Photo Tickets.

Red light cameras shut down across Italy in massive fraud scandal involving 109 public officials and contractors.

Red light cameras are shut down across Italy as the largest ever government investigation into the illegal use of photo enforcement expands. Carabinieri yesterday placed the inventor of the "T-Red" brand of red light camera, Stefano Arrighetti, 45, under house arrest. Another 63 municipal police commanders; 39 mayors and other public officials; and red light camera distributors including Kria, Ci.Ti.Esse, Maggioli, Traffic Technology and Open Software are under investigations. Documents and automated ticketing machines have been seized from 54 municipalities

Read more via Italy: Red Light Camera Makers Arrested for Fraud.

Missouri takes a step toward becoming the sixteenth state to ban automated ticketing machines.

The Missouri state Senate on Monday voted overwhelmingly to ban the use of red light cameras and speed cameras. The measure’s champion, state Senator Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis), had failed in previous efforts to convince his colleagues to end the use of automated ticketing machines. This year, however, he was emboldened by the state supreme court’s decision last month to strike down Springfield’s photo ticketing as illegal (view opinion). Lembke successfully attached the red light camera prohibition to a broader, 106-page transportation measure that included a number of miscellaneous provisions. The vote was 23 to 8 in favor of the ban.

"No county, city, town, village, municipality, state agency, or other political subdivision of this state that is authorized to issue a notice of violation for a violation of a state or local traffic law or regulation, shall use or employ an automated photo red light enforcement system at any intersection within its jurisdiction," Lembke’s amendment stated.

Read more via Missouri Senate Votes To Ban Photo Enforcement.

South San Francisco motorists to receive red light camera ticket refunds within sixty days

Red light camera program troubles continue to grow in South San Francisco, California. On Wednesday, the city council will meet to discuss how to pay the $250,000 bill submitted by the San Mateo County Superior Court to cover the administrative costs of processing $3 million worth of red light camera citation refunds. Because the city failed to properly ratify its contract with American Traffic Solutions, the company in charge of automated ticketing, the 6800 tickets issued between August 14 2009 and February 28, 2010 were declared invalid by the court.

Read more via California: City Fined $250,000 Over Botched Red Light Camera Program.

Engineering solutions and an extra second of yellow duration made red light cameras a money loser in San Carlos, California

The San Carlos, California City Council voted Monday to cancel its red light camera program after intersection engineering improvements made use of the devices unprofitable. The city had installed a red light camera at Brittan Avenue and Industrial Road on November 27, 2008. As soon as the private contractor Redflex Traffic Systems began mailing out citations there, drivers complained about the shortness of the yellow light. The city checked and found that they were right — the 3.0 second yellow timing was illegal.

Read more via California City Dumps Red Light Camera After Increasing Yellow

California: Red Light Camera Refunds Reach $3.1 Million
South San Francisco, California red light camera refunds expanded to cover 7000 illegally issued tickets.

Red light camera refunds will now reach $3.1 million in the city of South San Francisco, California. City officials decided this week that it had no choice but to refund tickets issued between January 28 and March 10 after being confronted by potential lawsuits over the city’s failure to abide by state law.

Read more via California: Red Light Camera Refunds Reach $3.1 Million.

League City, Texas refunds 1740 red light camera tickets after being caught with illegally short yellow times.

Texas has lost $130,500 in red light camera ticket refunds and cancellations after a local motorist discovered the city had been ignoring state law. Byron Schirmbeck drives through the intersection of Interstate 45 and FM 518 every day on the way to work. He noticed the amount of yellow time given to motorists seemed a bit on the short side, so he decided to check. Armed with a stopwatch, Schirmbeck clocked the interval between the green and red lights at just four seconds — 0.7 seconds shorter than the minimum required under Texas Department of Transportation TxDOT regulations at an intersection with a posted 50 MPH speed limit.

Read more via Texas: Short Yellow Brings $130,500 In Red Light Camera Refunds.

Missouri Supreme Court strikes down the red light camera program run by city of Springfield.

The supreme court of Missouri sent photo enforcement companies scrambling on Monday after it declared the red light camera administrative hearing process in the city of Springfield to be void. The high court moved with unusual speed, handing down a strongly worded, unanimous decision about one month after hearing oral arguments in the case.

"This is a $100 case," Judge Michael A. Wolff wrote for the court. "But sometimes, it’s not the money — it’s the principle."

At first glance, the court’s decision appeared to be limited to a technical legal issue regarding Springfield’s authority to adjudicate a photo ticket against motorist Adolph Belt in an administrative hearing. The court indicated that this was plainly not permitted under state law. Section 479.010 of the Missouri Code requires ordinance violations of this type to be heard in a circuit or municipal court. Springfield had argued that its administrative hearing officer was the first and last word on all judgments, with no appellate courts — not even the supreme court itself — having any jurisdiction over the matter.

A closer look at the ruling shows that the high court judges expressed a dim view toward the legal arguments often cited by municipalities to justify their red light cameras programs. For example, the court made it clear that no city had any authority to treat red light violations in the same manner as a parking ticket.

Read  more via “The Newspaper.com”

Speed cameras burn in UK and Tennessee while an Arizona photo radar van mysteriously crashes.

A speed camera van in Mount Carmel, Tennessee burst into flames at around 3am on February 21, burning down a barn near which it had been parked. Officials did not immediately blame vigilantes for the incident, instead suggesting the van, owned by Australia’s Redflex Traffic Systems, may have caught fire on its own.

“There’s a lot of wiring in that vehicle, and there’s a chance it wasn’t arson,” Mount Carmel Police Chief Jeff Jackson told the Kingsport Times-News.

There is no question that vigilantes were behind ten attacks on speed cameras in Dorset, England in the past year. Automated ticketing machines in Ferndown, Bear Cross, Longham, Verwood and Three Legged Cross have all been burned, the Bournemouth Echo reported.

Even a fake speed camera has felt the wrath of vigilantes. Former police officer Bill Angus, 64, constructed a faux automated ticketing machine and mounted it outside his home in Sunderland, England. Angus was upset last week when his false device was smashed with a hammer.

In Phoenix, Arizona, the group CameraFraud.com spotted the mangled wreckage of a freeway speed camera van being de-striped in the Redflex parking lot on Friday. The Australian company has issued no statement on the cause of the van’s destruction, but the anti-photo organization offered the suggestion that perhaps another of the company’s employees has been driving under the influence of alcohol. Roderick Ruffin was charged with DUI in 2008 while behind the wheel of a Redflex van.

via Arizona, Tennessee, UK: Speed Cameras Catch Fire, Crash.