• Got the Contributing Memberships stuff finally worked out and made up a thread as a sort of "How-To" to help people figure out how to participate. So if you need help figuring it out, here's the thread you need to take a look at -> http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3581 Thank you, everyone! Rich Z.

Photo radar in Pinellas County?

MADN3SS

MADN3SS

New member
A friend of mine was speaking to one of her friends who happens to be a LEO, in Pinellas I believe and he brought up this topic. He said that they had photo radar in a few places that would just mail tickets to you. Not that this is something that is advertised, but I'd like to find out if they do and where. I know Largo Police have a "stealth box" that tracks speeders, but it only keeps track of the number of speeders and then corrective action is taken (officer deployed with radar/laser gun).

Anybody hear anything?
 
Havn't heard anything about it. There are several intersection cameras that people mistake for ticket cams.

Don't think the Florida legislature has approved the use of them yet. I'll check it out and post up the findings in thi section.
 
Thanks Gordon.

By the way, I got the info from Carol...do you remember her? From Great Western/First Union. Also married to Maria's son Frank.

I thought I remembered hearing that about the legislature. It would have made a big splash I'm sure.

Scott
 
I remember her well. I don't think the citizens will put up with it here, but since when did that matter?:lmao:
 
Shadow said:
I remember her well. I don't think the citizens will put up with it here, but since when did that matter?:lmao:
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Oh I don't know. I know some pretty *interesting* people here. Do they make the cameras bullet proof? :D
 
I know someone who has received 2 photo radar cites in Ohio, and a second person who got one in Arizona, but none in Florida. I know there are 2 or 3 photo red light cameras in Manatee or Sarasota County, but no photo radar.

There's a big deal about the photo red light camera company donating the several thousand dollar cameras to the county. This is to show voters and county commissioners how many people actually run the lights each day. The voters will be told of the lives it saves while the cities and couties will be thinking of the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ involved. Imagine, (we'll just estimate a road like US19 or Dale Mabry) 1,000 red light runs a day (by a few inches not a car length or two), + 183 bucks a pop = CHA-CHING !! And once the cameras paid of in a few days there's no more police salary to pay. Free $ after that. Very scary and in the not the too distant future. Realize that 3 of these babys in a 12 month period and your walking your suspended license around town. :banghead: Not to mention car insurance having a hey-day raising the rates. No more freebies or officer discretion to say that it was not that bad or such. Just thousands of tickets each day.

It will also cause more crashes. More people will slam on the brakes and cause rear end crashes in situations that they could have safely made it, but are now afraid of the ticket they would get. As soon as the numbers are in, FL will be put to a vote on whether or not to let photo tickets (red lights 1st then possibly radar) become legal in this state. I for one like the cat and mouse game with the cops sitting at problem intersections and the citizens policing themselves everywhere else.
 
Rich Z said:
Oh I don't know. I know some pretty *interesting* people here. Do they make the cameras bullet proof? :D
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They might. I know of some places where the streetlights were being shot out so the drug dealers could work in the dark, and now the glass covering the light is bullet proof.

If they are not bullet proof It would only take a time or two before they install a 2nd camera to watch the first one and get a good pic of the guy shooting it out. BIG BROTHER AT ITS BEST FOLKS!
 
I for one am happy to see you chime in on this one:thumbsup: It proves theres still reasonable LEOs in the business. We're on the same page as well.

Photo laser and red light cams are a revenue generator and remove all officer discretion from the scene.

I wasn't even aware of the red light cameras in Manatee, thanks for the info.

There's a big deal about the photo red light camera company donating the several thousand dollar cameras to the county.

Smell a little corruptions scandal in the works?:hehehe:

This is to show voters and county commissioners how many people actually run the lights each day. The voters will be told of the lives it saves while the cities and couties will be thinking of the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ involved.

Thats the entire problem. The voters are so easily led that it's not that difficult to see this becoming a reality:(

... no more police salary to pay. ...

Thats the other thing. The TOP Cops (chief/Sheriff'etc) will tell the citizens how much time will be freed up for the officers to patrol "crime ridden areas" and how it will reduce response times, yada, yada, yada...then next year at the budget hearing, they'll tell the public how they don't have enough manpower and are having to work off duty hours to fill in the gaps and ask for more $$$ from the commission:rolleyes:

It's all about the $$$ The counties/cities/the private enterprise (cam company), all have thier hands out.

Not to mention car insurance having a hey-day raising the rates.

Don't even get me started on these maggots!:mad:

It will also cause more crashes. More people will slam on the brakes and cause rear end crashes in situations that they could have safely made it, but are now afraid of the ticket they would get.

Bet on it. And seeing as how the camera can't work the crashes, it'll be the patrol officer or CSO that has to respond. More human ticket writing, additional time spent on non-crime preventing activities and longer response times to calls...yeah, that worked out well...:rofl1:

As soon as the numbers are in, FL will be put to a vote on whether or not to let photo tickets (red lights 1st then possibly radar) become legal in this state.

You need to keep your eyes and ears open to the legislature folks. They see $$$ and they do stupid things. Personally, I'd rather have the shot at officer discretion than some automated ticket writer from out of state!!!! IF one gets through, you can almost bet the other will follow:(.
OF course, this opens up additional private enterprise (attorneys's, mfg's of tag covers, etc:hehehe: ) hum, maybe it's not so bad after all:hehehe:

I for one like the cat and mouse game with the cops sitting at problem intersections and the citizens policing themselves everywhere else.[/QUOTE]

Right there with on that one too:thumbsup:
 
If it becomes a REAL public issue, I think most people would balk at the "big brother" overtones of it. People generally like the idea of cops being around to keep the peace and enforce the laws but I doubt anyone would want to have a cop assigned to be with them 24/7. Which is where this sort of thing would be heading.

Personally I think it would become an administrative nightmare. What happens when someone disputes the charge? Are tapes kept from all the cameras to be retained as evidence? What about management, storage, evidence retrieval and everything else this will require? Someone will have to go to court to present the evidence. So of course each photo image would have to be stored, presumably indexed off of the tag number. Which means the camera would necessarily all have to be tied into a central computer somewhere along with the expenses of maintaining a data center.

And there will ALWAYS be glitches and failures. The most common defense would likely be that there was an apparent equipment failure. So how would the prosecution counter that claim? Periodic tests and calibrations? Even more expense involved.

Sounds like a boondoggle in the making to me.
 
Unfortunately, the sytems have been working in many northern states for several years and seem to have gone about unattacked. Mainly because the people allow this to happen.
 
Scottsdale, Arizona Refunds Nearly 2000 Photo Tickets
Nearly $175,000 in bogus speed camera tickets in Scottsdale, Arizona will be refunded or canceled.

The city of Scottsdale, Arizona is being forced to refund nearly two thousand photo radar tickets that were improperly issued over a period of more than three months. The city has been busy preparing to expand its photo radar program by installing fixed speed cameras on the Loop 101 freeway. Last year, the city issued $9.3 million in photo tickets causing a near doubling in the city's fatality rate.

The latest setback to the city's plans began on July 28, when a mobile speed camera van operator for Australian contractor Redflex Traffic Systems made a change in the software that removed date, time and speed information from every alleged violation issued from that device. Over the course of fourteen weeks, no police officer or Redflex employee verified that the required information was actually present in any of the 1964 citations mailed out. The problem was not discovered until November 7.

So far, 580 refunds worth $51,000 have been processed and Redflex has paid back $33,548, its cut of the camera profit. Redflex will also refund the cost of traffic school for those who have paid to attend as a result of a faulty ticket.

Source: Photo mix-up gets drivers city refunds (Arizona Republic, 12/31/2005)
 
Excerpt from this story.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0605tickets0605.html

However an Arizona Republic analysis found that of the nearly 46,700 tickets generated by speed cameras on Scottsdale streets last year, 412 defendants went to court and 13 percent, or 52 people, walked out with no fine.

By comparison, officers wrote 13,106 speeding tickets last year on Scottsdale streets. Of those, 411 took their cases to court and nearly 7 percent, or 27, won.

Motorists speeding through Scottsdale are not alone in beating the odds on a photo-enforcement ticket. Speeders in Mesa are nearly twice as likely to wiggle out of camera citations, and the odds are almost even in Phoenix.

But be wary in Tempe, where drivers are more than twice as likely to beat a ticket issued by an officer than one generated by a speed camera.

Scottsdale judges would not discuss why they dismiss cases, and court records don't give a reason.

But a review of taped hearings shows that Scottsdale judges have dumped photo-enforcement tickets for a variety of reasons, including bad brakes, wet streets and an unsteady foot on the clutch.
 
4,000,000 cameras in UK...1 for every 14 people.

I had watched a special on Discovery channel about this. Of course this is George Orwell's homeland. The most cameras per capita. Go figure.

From this site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-circuit_television

CCTV was developed partly in response to IRA bombings in the United Kingdom. Experiments in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s (including outdoor CCTV in Bournemouth in 1985), led to several larger trial programs in the early 1990s. These were deemed successful in the government report "CCTV: Looking Out For You", issued by the Home Office in 1994, and paved the way for a massive increase in the number of CCTV systems installed. Today, systems cover most town and city centres, and many stations, car-parks and estates. The exact number of CCTV cameras in the UK is not known but a 2002 working paper by Michael McCahill and Clive Norris of UrbanEye [1], based on a small sample in Putney High Street, "guesstimated" the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London as around 400,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK as around 4,000,000. The UK has one camera for every 14 people.

Traffic monitoring
Many cities and motorway networks have extensive traffic-monitoring systems, using closed-circuit television to detect congestion and notice accidents.

The London congestion charge is enforced by cameras positioned at the boundaries of and inside the congestion charge zone, which automatically read the registration plates of cars. If the driver does not pay the charge then a fine will be imposed. Similar systems are being developed as a means of locating cars reported stolen.

Speed cameras are ostensibly to deter speeding, although critics have claimed they are often installed to generate revenue for the installing agent, who collects the fines.
 
Rich Z said:
If it becomes a REAL public issue, I think most people would balk at the "big brother" overtones of it. People generally like the idea of cops being around to keep the peace and enforce the laws but I doubt anyone would want to have a cop assigned to be with them 24/7. Which is where this sort of thing would be heading.

Personally I think it would become an administrative nightmare. What happens when someone disputes the charge? Are tapes kept from all the cameras to be retained as evidence? What about management, storage, evidence retrieval and everything else this will require? Someone will have to go to court to present the evidence. So of course each photo image would have to be stored, presumably indexed off of the tag number. Which means the camera would necessarily all have to be tied into a central computer somewhere along with the expenses of maintaining a data center.

And there will ALWAYS be glitches and failures. The most common defense would likely be that there was an apparent equipment failure. So how would the prosecution counter that claim? Periodic tests and calibrations? Even more expense involved.

Sounds like a boondoggle in the making to me.
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Yep, but in this digital age the storage of the information / pics would most likely be done on digital media. They would e-mail it right to the court. It could hold millions of pictures in a small hard drive somewhere. All of the expenses (hardware and software) are one time hit, and the tickets keep rolling in with no police salary to pay. Also no OT for court. Even if theres a failure they will be like the insurance and power companies. They will be so far ahead it will be sickening. They will pay back a few cites then it will be business as usual.

I for one, as I am sure Shadow can attest, think officer discretion is a GREAT thing. I know I do not and even if I wanted to, could not stop every red light violation. When I do, I have the choice to write the citation or give a warning. The cameras will take that away. Think of how may times you may have buzzed a yellow light and were glad you didn't see a police officer, or if you did that he gave you a warning. No more of that when cameras are around. A few feet miss of the red light and your toast. Insurance spikes way up and your walking if you get more than one in a 12 month period since the points add up.

I for one will vote NO anytime it comes up.
 
Hot Pursuit said:
...I for one, as I am sure Shadow can attest, think officer discretion is a GREAT thing. I know I do not and even if I wanted to, could not stop every red light violation. When I do, I have the choice to write the citation or give a warning. The cameras will take that away. Think of how may times you may have buzzed a yellow light and were glad you didn't see a police officer, or if you did that he gave you a warning. No more of that when cameras are around. A few feet miss of the red light and your toast. Insurance spikes way up and your walking if you get more than one in a 12 month period since the points add up.

I for one will vote NO anytime it comes up.
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Amen, I'm right there with ya bro:thumbsup:
 
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