Netherlands — Dutch lumber merchant Martin Robben no longer believes the camera never lies. As reported by De Telegraaf, the man was falsely accused of speeding forty-five times on August 25 while his vehicle, a commercial truck, was parked on the side of the road in Oldeberkoop village. “Sometimes there were only three seconds between the tickets,” Robben told the Dutch paper. “That’s impossible . . . Nobody can be flashed dozens of times in an afternoon.” As is the common practice in Europe, tickets sent in the mail do not include photographs of the alleged offense, just a demand for payment. In Robben’s case, the demand amounted to thousands of euros, which forced him to retain the law firm of Anker and Anker to help him prove his own innocence. Defendants must make a special request to see the evidence against them. The Netherlands is home to Gatsometer, the top manufacturer of speed cameras worldwide. The same device that falsely accused Robben is currently used in a number of US cities, including Silver Spring, Maryland. Speed cameras around the world have accused stationary vehicles of speeding, as documented in Australia as well as France and the UK.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled last Thursday that police officers need to obtain a warrant before using a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) device to track a motorist. The ruling was handed down in the case of Everett H. Connolly who was convicted of cocaine trafficking after police traced his activities using a GPS device five years ago.For more than a year, police suspected that Connolly was a drug dealer and used traditional surveillance and investigative techniques to gather evidence. On August 30, 2004, state police took the next step by obtaining a warrant to place a GPS tracker on Connolly’s minivan. Using data from the device, police believed Connolly was on his way back from a drug buy in New York. On September 9, officers armed with a new search warrant arrested Connolly in Cape Cod. A search uncovered 124 grams of cocaine hidden in the vehicle.
Since May, the red light cameras in the city of Corona, California have issued a total of 6511 citations worth $2,903,906. This money has been split between Corona, Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia, the state and Riverside County. On Wednesday, the Corona City Council discussed the possibility of cutting the state and county out of the program entirely. This would allow Corona to keep more money while giving the city a chance to claim it is lowering the pricey $446 automated ticket. “I voted for the program, but I made a mistake,” Mayor Steve Nolan said. “I didn’t ask the cost… We are killing people with the fines.”
Like most states, Washington uses an implied consent statute to punish anyone who refuses to submit to a breathalyzer test upon being accused of drunk driving. In a ruling last Thursday, the Washington Supreme Court upheld the right of police to use force to remove blood from a motorist even after an informed decision to refuse the test has been made. The high court argued that recent changes to the law essentially eliminated the need to seek consent when a warrant is obtained.
According to the Chattanoogan.com, a recent traffic study performed on Signal Mountain roads revealed that more than 90 percent of drivers exceeded the posted speed limit. Can you guess what the city’s response was to this fact? If you guessed “let’s install speed cameras and ticket everybody,” then you’re absolutely right: “Signal Mountain Police Chief Boyd Veal, who presented the report to the council, said he believes the town should consider using traffic cameras mounted on trucks to catch speeders, as Chattanooga and Red Bank already do.” This is how speed cameras have spread across states. If a city hears that another city nearby is making a bunch of money after installing cameras, you can bet that cameras are going to be first on their list when a “speeding problem” shows up. Not everyone is on board though . . .
Got a heads-up from the PR Newswire re: Florida DUI Attorney John Musca. Mr. Musca wants you to know that he’s fighting for your (i.e., his clients’) constitutionally-guaranteed rights and freedoms. Musca’s press release trumpets the dismissal of a recent DUI case, where a careful reading of the law saved his client’s pickled bacon. NB: if the Florida po-po let you go after three minutes, remember: even though you’ve only got one minute to save the world, please observe all posted speed limits.
The state of Florida concedes that DUI checkpoints are constitutional and valid. The Supreme Court acknowledges that DUI checkpoints do in fact constitute a “seizure” relative to the Fourth Amendment yet are constitutionally acceptable with evident effectiveness and minimal intrusion. Hence the three minute rule where every vehicle that enters a designated checkpoint site cannot be detained in traffic for more than three minutes. In the event of exceeding the three minute time allowed, the officer in charge must temporarily suspend the diversion of vehicles into the checkpoint lanes and begin a systematic selection of vehicles to be stopped at the discretion of the checkpoint commander. Vehicles will then proceed back into the checkpoint lanes when the period becomes less than three minutes.
The city of College Station, Texas is planning to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on advertising that could save the city’s red light cameras. A citizen-led initiative has put the program’s future up for a public vote on November 3, but documents obtained under freedom of information laws by College Station resident Jim Ash indicate the city intends to spend thousands to saturate local television with pro-camera commercials and run full-page advertisements in the local newspaper. These ads would run in addition to those paid for by the for-profit companythat operates the cameras. “Could the City of College Station go so far with this voter eduction program they end up violating spirit or letter of the Texas Election Code, by the nature, size, timing, and aggressiveness of their planned ‘educational program?'” Ash asked. “Is this the same city that could not find even one more dime in spending cuts last week?”
The number two photo enforcement company in the United States has expanded, as its arch-rival faces an internal power struggle and financial difficulties. On wednesday. American Traffic Solutions (ATS) announced that it had acquired the bankrupt photo ticketing company Nestor Traffic Systems for $7.1 million. ATS will take over Nestor’s existing contracts boosting the number of cities and counties in which ATS controls traffic enforcement from 170 to 200. Nestor recently went into receivership after the company’s debt became unsustainable. Despite heavy annual losses, top management at the Rhode Island company continued to enjoy lavish salaries and bonus packages. Nestor’s future came into sharp doubt earlier this year after subcontractors began complaining that the company was not paying for services rendered. ATS will now take over Nestor free of these debts.
Special interest groups continue to battle a pair of anti-photo enforcement ballot initiatives in Ohio and one in Arizona. In Ohio, officials are so desperate to prevent the public from deciding whether or not to keep the cameras that the city’s legal department moved to block a citizen-led ballot petition before the Ross County Board of Elections. Last week, the board rejected the city’s demand outright. Representatives from Citizens Against Photo Enforcement (CAPE), which collected the signatures, were thrilled at the outcome. Voters will now decide for themselves whether or not to kick out Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company that runs the cameras. “We believe that this protest was a Redflex move,” Rebekah Valentich told TheNewspaper. “The assistant law director did not even know how many cameras we had . . . Just the comments he used during his back-to- the-people speech seemed very rehearsed and reeked of Redflex.”
Officials in charge of red light camera and speed camera programs claim it is “rare” for erroneous tickets to be issued because a human police officer diligently verifies each and every citation for accuracy before it is issued. If confronted with clear evidence that their cameras have made a mistake, the camera companies insist that it’s an “isolated incident.” Here are seven of the more ridiculous “isolated incidents” from across the country:
7) It’s Never Too Late to Attempt a NASCAR Career
In 2008, a Montgomery County, Maryland, speed camera accused an elderly man of racing through a busy neighborhood at 100 MPH — during rush hour. The automated ticketing machine snapped two photos of a Toyota Echo economy car belonging to Silver Spring residents Terence Brennan, 68, and Helga Brennan, 76. Only after the local media got involved did Montgomery County admit that the camera, which had all the usual certifications of accuracy, was flat out wrong when it came to measuring speeds.
According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Redflex Traffic Systems, a stringent review process guarantees the accuracy of every citation issued under the statewide photo radar program introduced last year. Evidence obtained this week from a confidential Redflex ticket processing manual, however, suggests that the state police and its Australian contractor may be misleading the public with such claims. “Redflex employees under our contract review the civil queue,” DPS Lieutenant Jeff King explained in a written presentation on the photo ticketing program. “If a driver can be identified based on comparisons of the license description and ‘flash photo,’ they accept the violation and a Notice of Violation is automatically printed and mailed. If photo quality is poor or face is blocked, etc., it will be rejected and placed in dormancy.”
A photo enforcement company is going all out in an effort to keep College Station, Texas voters from banishing red light cameras when the issue appears on the November 3 ballot. American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the private company in charge of the cameras, is fighting the grassroots referendum effort with paid political advocacy. ATS last week established a group called “Keep College Station Safe Political Action Committee” (PAC). With millions in revenue at stake from the exclusive twenty-year contract with College Station, the Arizona firm turned to Jessica Colon and Emily Reiter, a Weight Watchers employee, to form the core of the public relations effort. The PAC’s first move has been to conduct what is known as a “push poll” of local residents. Members of the myBCS.com community forum described their perspective on the telephone survey.
The National Motorists Association (NMA) released its list of the top seven locations to avoid over the Labor Day holiday. This year, the drivers’ rights group highlighted areas where heightened use of automated ticketing machines threaten those who are just passing through.
Doubts over the accuracy of the speed camera equipment led to the dismissal of a Washington, DC photo radar ticket last month. On May 7, a 34-year-old engineer from Alexandria, Virginia had been driving on Interstate 295/395 near 9th Street on a sunny morning when a mobile speed camera operated by American Traffic Solutions snapped a photo of the engineer’s car. The camera claimed that the Audi was traveling at 51 MPH, 11 MPH over the District’s 40 MPH interstate speed limit. Read More >
AZ Central reports that the usual logic—the worse the economy the higher the crime rate—doesn’t apply to this current, uh, economic downturn. Especially when it comes to grand theft auto. “Automotive theft stands out as having decreased most sharply,” the e-paper reports. “Thefts are fallen by about a fifth. So far this year, 243 autos have been stolen in Peoria, down from 305 in the first half of 2008.” Obviously, there are LOTS of variables in this sort of thing: population trends, policing, etc. But at least one insurance biz guy reckons car thieves are losing the battle between genetics and anti-theft technology.
Frank Scafidi, a spokesman for the National Crime Insurance Bureau, said the decrease in auto thefts is consistent with national trends and signifies that the market for stolen cars is changing.
As newer cars become harder to steal, “fewer garden-variety knuckleheads” are going to be able to take them, Scafidi said.
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