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More and more City governments are using photo radar cameras to raise revenue. These cameras work at stop lights, and also along side the road to catch people speeding. It is an unconstitutional scheme that makes a machine, without an officer present, your accuser that you can not make answer to a judge in a court of law.

Some cities using photoradar include:

• Fremont California,
• Albuqerque New Mexico
• Phoenix Arizona

Some facts about red light cameras:

• The City doesn't own or operate these stop light cameras.
• The photo ticket cameras are owned by a private company called http://www.photonotice.com located in Scottsdale Arizona that is printing tickets using City government logos.
• When you receive one of these tickets and pay it, the private company gets a large percentage of the ticket.
• These photo tickets violate your right to be "innocent until proven guilty"
• Even if you are not driving your car, you may still get a ticket since all they need is the license plate to "convict" you of speeding and send you a notice to pay a fine

Try this: take your digital camera out on the side of the road, take a picture of a car going by and then sending the registered owner a bill for speeding. Of course they wont let you make money doing this, because you dont have an agreement with the city. The city or state probably wont give you the address information for the license plate of the car you photographed. But this information is freely shared with photonotice.

How does it work to get a ticket by a police officer?

A ticket from a police officer states that you are not guilty and that you are only signing the ticket to show that you have received it. If you choose to go to a Hearing, then it is the Officer's duty to prove to a judge that you committed the offence. There is a thing called "Due Process". The Officer has to show up in court, testify that he (or she) witnessed you committing the offence, and in the case of speeding, caught you with a means such as a radar gun that he has been trained to use and is within current calibration standards.

How is getting a ticket from a photo radar different?

With photo radar, there is no Due Process. They go strait to conviction and make it your burden to prove otherwise. There is no City or State official to witness the offence, and the equipment used to record it is not owned and maintained by the appropriate law-making or legal statute system like a radar gun is. Since photo radar equipment is owned by a private company, then it is subject to defective calibration, malfunction, or even willful adjustment or tampering by it's owners so that it shows an offence being committed when there was none. They can "photo" you going 100 mph if they want to, they own the equipment and have a financial interest in it showing the results they need to make money. This new way of "law enforcement" is purely financially based, and the numbers are an overwhelming success for the cities who use it, and for Photonotice.

How much money are the photo radar companies making off of you?

How much money do they make? In an average day, there are about 4,000 photos taken of drivers doing everything from running red lights (sometimes yellow lights ) to speeding. There are vans with cameras parked in various places throughout the city just snapping away at drivers as they go by. By the end of the day those images will be transmitted back to Photonotice in Phoenix and approximately 4,000 "citations" will be mailed out to the owners. When each citation ranges anywhere from $100.00 to $300.00, then that means that they are generating around $500,000.00 a day. Half a million dollars a day, folks. And how do they get this much money? Because you're paying it- and you don't even know that you don't have to. Furthermore, you can commit as many red-light running and speeding offences as you want with this system and it won't ever go on your driving record or your insurance. You just keep sending the money in. Is this the design for safety? It would seem that taking away someone's license or restricting their driving privileges would be a solution to multiple-offence drivers. After all, that's why these laws exist right? Well, the fact is that the City and Photonotice want you to keep speeding or running red lights because it makes them rich, and taking away your driving privileges would only reduce their profits.

Myth: "They have to see my face in the photo to send me a ticket"

Not anymore- all they have to have is the license plate of the vehicle and they send the 'bill' to whomever the registered owner is. It doesn't matter who committed the offence, the owner is getting shafted. This is another travesty of the constitution. Since when does a city government get to just convict someone who may have not even been in the vehicle and committed any crime??? It points again toward a private business and the City just making it 'legal' to take someone's money, regardless if they even had anything to do with breaking the law. How would you feel if you lent your car to a friend from our of town and they went and robbed a bank with it, and since you own the car then the police just came put you in prison?

So don't think that because you have a helmet on with a dark visor that you are off the hook. If they can photograph the license plate, you're going to get the bill in the mail. For the time being, we motorcyclists can get away with a nice under-tail license plate bracket that mounts forward of the rear tire, making it impossible for photo radar to get the plate. But there may come a time soon when we can be violated for this, since it would cut into the millions of dollars that the City and Photonotice are raking in.

Others claim:

• they won't send tickets to persons that cannot be identified, as in wearing a helmet/mask, etc. They don't send tickets to commercial vehicles, there's a whole list.. - So this might vary by jurisdiction.
• As far as I know if you get caught from the cameras it doesnt count as any points on your license unless it is criminal speeding, 20 mph over, they just want your money. Ive heard if you ignore it you can get out of it in 120 days. Dont know if they ask you who it was driving if you can prove it wasnt you. guess you could always say I dont know who it was I was trying to sell the vehicle and they took it for a test ride. I am not listed on any vehicle other than the bike and i always wear my helmet, hopefully I dont have to worry about it, and I have all the permanent camera positions on my gps so it warns me when i am getting close to one. Yeah those ones in and out of Star Valley past Payson are hidden really good, painted to match the hillside behind them. Almost caught me there too, but I was able to read the photo enforcement warning signs before i got to the cameras.

How to beat them at their own game

When it's your turn to get a bill in the mail for something that Photonotice's cameras say you did, then do not just immediately pay it. There is an option in the letter they send to schedule a hearing. This is what you must do. The City has from 90 days of the violation to schedule your hearing, if they can't schedule you within 90 days then your citation is dismissed. If everyone who gets these bogus bills in the mail requests a hearing, then the courts will become so bogged down that they won't be able to get you in within 90 days. So step 1 is you must schedule a hearing. Step 2, and you can do this without a lawyer, but it helps to have one, show up to your hearing and tell the judge that you want to know how this equipment is legitimately proving your guilt. If you were caught running a red light, this is where your luck will most likely run out. They will play the video of you running the red light. In the case of speeding, they will show a video of you going by and the camera showing the number of the speed you are allegedly traveling. There will be an APD officer present to act on behalf of the cameras, but he/she will have no knowledge of how they work, when or how they are calibrated, if they are accurate, etc. There is no way that they can prove that you are traveling at the speed that the camera shows. It's just some companies' equipment who makes money off having their equipment say that you're speeding. It's not a cop, or a state or city-owned and operated device. It's a private business that has a vested financial interest in making sure you are portrayed as doing something illegal. That is enough of an argument to show that their is a possibility that Photonotice could be altering their equipment to show whatever they want, or that it is possible that their equipment isn't working accurately. That's a reasonable doubt, and reasonable doubt results in inability to prove guilt. Many cases have been dismissed with this argument, but you have to know it to be able to use it.

Can I just ignore the ticket and throw it away?

This is a great way to owe even more money, and maybe even lose your vehicle. I am not sure if they issue failure to appear warrants for unpaid photo radar tickets, but you can end up with your car impounded, or youe registration suspended. In some states, the unpaid tickets may even be refered to taxing authorities for collection.

What about just paying the ticket?

When people just pay the fine without fighting it, it just supports this unconstitution money grab by city governments and a private company.

Yes it takes time to get off work and go to a hearing, but without that fight by the citizens, these cameras will continue to multiply.

A company has no right to force you to pay them without rendering a service or goods of some sort. This is an example of an enterprise that doesn't really cash in on violations of the law, but rather people's ignorance of the law and their laziness to fight for themselves. Most people have more money than time or intelligence, and this is where a company like Photonotice sets the trap. If people refuse to put up with this "big brother" approach to capital gain disguised as law enforcement, then it will go away. But as long as people are paying, it will continue to get more powerful. Just because our system is designed to vote our elected officials into office doesn't mean that they have to do what we want them to when they get there. They are making laws and policy based purely on their own financial gain and power, and not on what is best for you. The choice is yours, either do your part to make this kind of injustice go away, or let it slowly get worse and worse, until you have no power or say at all. There's an old saying, "If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out. But if you put him in a pot of water and then slowly turn up the heat until it boils, he'll stay there until he dies." Photo radar cameras are the latest example of how lawmakers are taking away our rights and our constitution. And the heat is only getting turned up.

Another option out of the ticket

Taking a driving class may get you out of the ticket for insurance and points purposes. You will usually still have to pay the fine, and you'll have to pay an administrative fee and the fee to take the class. Most of the driving classes to hide a ticket on your record can be completed in a few hours, some are available online to be completed in as little as four hours.

• you're not bound to disclose the person in the photo if it is not you. You'll go to court and have to plea "not responsible" based on the fact that "its not you in the photo" and it will be dismissed as such. They won't even ask who it is in the photo.

Technology to block photo radars

• http://www.buyradardetectors.com/products/tiger-lily/equalizer-vf2.aspx - Emits a bright flash when it detects a photo radar camera flash, obscuring your license plate in the photo.
  • Also includes motorcycle photo jammer - As you can see, the VF1 detected the flash of the digital camera and blocked the license plate numbers with its powerful light. This is exactly what a photo radar or red light camera would see. If the camera is not able to read your license plate, it will not be able to mail you a ticket!
  • Extremely fast acting - defeats all analog, infrared, and digital photo cameras, day or night

Some other headlines

• Story not found - Photo enforcement loophole dismisses 1 in 5 tickets - Phoenix Arizona news, breaking news, local news, weather radar, traffic from ABC15 News | ABC15.com
• Funny speed trap camera photos - http://english.controleradar.org/funny-speed-camera.php
• Photo radar van driver shot to death - http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/photo_radar_van_driver_shot_041909
  • Rage against cameras taken to another level - Published : Sunday, 19 Apr 2009, 10:46 PM MDT
  • PHOENIX - A suspect was arrested Monday in connection with the shooting death of a man operating a photo radar unit in Phoenix, but police said it's too soon to know the motive.
  • Thomas Patrick Destories, a 68-year-old Phoenix man, was booked into Maricopa County jail on suspicion of first-degree murder after he made "incriminating statements," Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said. It's unclear whether Destories has a lawyer.
  • Doug Georgianni, 51, was shot Sunday night as he operated a photo radar van on a Phoenix freeway and later died at a hospital.
• Republican Rep. Sam Crump of Anthem, who is seeking to ban speed cameras on Arizona state highways
• Arizon officials misleading on photo ticket radar reviews - http://goldiron.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/arizona-officials-mislead-public-on-photo-radar-ticket-review/

Companies that do photo radar contracts for cities

• Scottsdale-based Redflex Traffic Systems is a unit of Redflex Holdings Group, based in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.