This is the opposite of my understanding of red light cameras. I always considered the supposed impartial application of the traffic law as the main benefit.
Here there was no attempt to photograph the driver rather than just assume the owner was responsible or would point to the responsible party.
Maybe they just stop running red lights?
Sometimes lights are just so poorly implemented, and drivers pass through them so often, it feels like whoever designed the intersection was actively goading drivers into running the light.
There are standards for this kind of thing, like if a light is on a road with a speed limit of X, then a yellow light has to last Y seconds. Imagine a yellow light that lasted .5s: you'd have to stand on your brakes and risk causing a rear end collision from the car behind you to even have a chance of not getting fined. That's the opposite of safety. My place wasn't that bad, but a defendant successfully demonstrated that the yellow light he was tricked by was illegally short, and a judge basically threw out all the tickets from it and others.
I mention this as just one example of specific light setups that suck. I bet you're right, and this is just a money grab from the local gov't.
Read this if you want to be angry today: https://ww2.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-sho...
This does mean that if you're in the front of the pack and go about 15 over the speed limit, you won't catch the red light.
When you're not in the front of the pack it's freaking infuriating trying to travel just 3 or 4 miles with the red lights not even a full half mile from each other.
If they didn't do this to generate red light revenue, they could have done this to generate more revenue from the gas tax they collect by making people start & stop more often, and from sitting in traffic longer. But I suppose both things could be true. And no, I won't accept any other plausible explanations (/s, but holy heck is government awful here).
If the registered owner wants to claim that someone stole their car or was operating it without permission then there can be some very hefty punishment for making false statements if it can be proved that it was actually the owner in the car.
Some lights change timing depending on the time of day so e.g. rush hour might have different timing than midday or late night.
I also believe there are and likely still are cases of malicious short yellow lights at camera intersections to increase revenue.
I agree the automated systems are impartial, but they cannot ID you without it becoming super invasive.
In Europe and places with more omnipresent cameras, the laws are such that they can ticket you without needing to ID. The car gets the ticket so to speak.
For a criminal case, yes, they need to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" - which would require that you are positively identified as the driver.
For a civil case, they only need to prove by a "preponderance of the evidence" - which is a much lower standard.
This is why tickets from red-light cameras in many states are zero-point citations. You're still charged a fine, but there's no finding of guilt attached to the offense, which keeps it away from being considered a criminal matter. (This is the same way parking tickets work.)
I don't know what happens if the other person denies it though.
I'm in Canada and they issue you a fine without any ID. It goes straight to the registered car owner. Simple as.
The issue is that currently in FL there are points / demerits issued for violations, and these can cause the loss of a license, increases to insurance, etc. This is not a problem if an officer can ID you directly.
"I've been ticketed here twice, and it's ridiculous because they - it's just not fair. The person that - [let me start over] - the determination when you ran the light [of who is responsible], it's just a random whoever they want to pick ... [they] pick you to say, okay, you're gonna pay the ticket."
Obviously it's not actually random, it just defaults to the vehicle's owner, but with a generous reading I think you can interpret the quote this way based on the context of the article.
I think it's kind of irresponsible and lazy for the publication to use a verbatim verbal quote like this, when it isn't from someone notable who really needs to be quoted. If you don't understand what they're saying then don't put it in the article, and if you do understand then put in a sentence explaining what they're saying.
No camera I've ever seen tries to figure out who the driver is.
The logic is, it's your car, you're responsible for loaning it/owning it, so you get the fine. Don't like that? Don't loan your car out.
The trade off is no points are deducted from a driver's license. It's a pure fine, because they can't prove you were driving.
So the person just seems to be speaking gibberish to me.
edit:
More context...
The same logic applies for parking tickets. No one cares who parked the car, the car's owner gets the ticket... not the person who parked it. While I dislike red light cameras, the logic holds.
One interesting point is that the Judge also spent some ink criticizing the law because paying the ticket removes the ticket from your driving record. This means that habitual bad drivers can get away with the same infractions over and over again as long as they pay the fines quickly. This bypasses the State’s points system that was designed to punish repeat offenders by taking away their license.
I wonder how other state’s red–light camera laws hold up? Do they have the same flaws or are they written better?
FWIW, despite all this the speed cameras have been effective at reducing average speeds at problem points.
[1] https://www.wmar2news.com/homepage-showcase/how-md-drivers-w...
It's very common to just have fake plates / registration, with the plan in the case of an accident to just bail out and run.
[1] https://www.wmar2news.com/homepage-showcase/how-md-drivers-w...
There is a driver in NYC who gets almost 300 speeding tickets per year. They've paid their fines, so they're allowed to keep driving. Apparently, since the fines come from speed camera, they can't revoke their license.
https://www.jalopnik.com/1836395/worst-driver-in-ny-563-tick...
Also, I think at that time some questionable arrangements surfaced between the operators of the automated ticketing system(s) and the towns and/or counties involved.
I live in a city where red light running is an epidemic. Drivers flagrantly just don't stop, and it kills people all the time. Red light cameras - plus actually revoking drivers licenses, and then actually throwing people in jail for driving on suspended licenses - are the only way to fix this.
It's far past time that drivers are no longer immune to consequences for violent, sociopathic behavior.
The reality is that the people doing the policing are counting on humans not being infallible
Fines have become an important revenue stream, that's why they are being automated.
Now that this is becoming more widespread, there's a perverse incentive for governments to maximize the difficulty in avoiding fines. Lower the speed limit on roads designed for higher speeds for "safety", etc
There are many citizens, like me, begging for red light cameras so something can be done about the rash of crashes and killings from willfully reckless drivers.
In my experience preventative measures only work on people who are conscientious, they do not work on people who do not give a shit
I wouldn’t expect them to make driving safer for anyone, as enforcement doesn’t do anything to moderate the behavior of people that just don’t give a shit.
This is bad when applied to laws that were written with an exception of leniency and selectivity in enforcement, which is quite a lot of them. For running red lights though? I don't mind if the robots take you off the road automatically.
There are many places that don't even allow rights (or lefts) on red.
I got a right on red ticket once, and then I made it a point to obey the law -- especially at the intersections with the robots.
For things like traffic laws especially (where there are very simple cut and dry rules), why is it okay to break the law, and why is it not okay for robots to enforce the law?
As you should.
Besides, it's not a "the machine says so and not even the Supreme Court can overturn it" scenario. If there's genuinely a reason to cross into the intersection while the lights are red (such as there having been an accident, and a cop is temporarily managing traffic) the ticket will be waived. Heck, there will probably even be photographic evidence of it!
Most countries even have cops judge the tickets, just to already filter out those weird cases. The registration is done by a robot, but the policing is still done by a human.
Besides, it neatly solves the whole responsibility problem for self-driving car!
There are also solutions for large vehicles where the center is raised but not impassible.
-stop in the roundabout
-stop before the roundabout and let their brain buffer for 30 seconds.
-somehow go the wrong way in the roundabout
-fail to yield to traffic in the roundabout
Is way too damn high. It makes traversing one a high stress situation since you have no idea if grandpa grunt and run in to you is about to perform a confusion based terror attack on the traffic control device.
1. No parking minimums 2. Less free parking (e.g. street parking) 3. Policy supportive of self driving cars 4. More aggressive removal of driver licenses for human drivers with repeat violations 5. More aggressive penalties for driving without a license.
Reporting vehicle theft etc. can provide immunity from points on the car.
I’m glad my state found these unconstitutional as well.
One side issues the judge brought up is that no points go on the driver's record with a red light camera offense. The entire point of the points system is to get bad drivers off the road. But people can have numerous red light infractions and still keep their license.
Edit: Nevermind, I think crossing on yellow and catching a tenth of a second of red counts as running a red light. If it does, it’s something I did myself a few times (of course, all in the distant past, the statute of limitations has pased now …)
In fact, it's so bad that parts of the metro are reinstating red light cameras this year despite having decommissioned them years ago for similar legal reasons as what Florida has run into.
Then the state needs to start doing immediate impoundment of these vehicles. Add on massive fines before release of the car for repeat offenders and you'll see this dry up pretty quick.
Anyone involved in those yellow light lowering schemes should have been criminally charged.
I'm actually all for impartial enforcement of traffic rules via camera systems, but there are problems that need to be solved.
- There need to be standards for evidence required to assign an infraction to a driver.
- There need to be standards for setting yellow light durations to avoid municipalities reducing them to increase revenue
- There needs to be protection against municipalities outsourcing the whole project to a private entity where there is a combined financial incentive from the private entity and the municipality to issue more tickets without adequate oversight.
My town implemented red light cameras around 15 years ago and then took them back out. Locals noticed shortened yellow lights, and there were multiple issues found with how the private operator issued the tickets and with their contract with the municipality.
You can often do it pretty safely - stopped at a light with good visibility to see that there is no cross traffic. But also some people are just insane and blast through lights at 45 without stopping.
Cops haven't cared to enforce it for going on a decade.
The judge frames the red light camera scheme as a revenue generating scheme, not a public safety measure.
Additionally, "A distinctive feature of the statutory scheme is its assignment of guilt to the registered owner rather than the driver of the vehicle". and "If there are multiple registered owners, the citation is issued to the 'first' registered 'owner'". and the person whom the citation was issued to must sign an affidavit that includes the name, address, dob, of the person who was actually driving. The judge says this "...abandon(s) centuries time honored protections of hearsay as substantive evidence.".
"It is a foundational rule of constitutional due process that the government must prove every fact necessary to constitute an offense beyond a reasonable doubt before a person may be adjudicated guilty of a crime".
"Although nominally civil, traffic infraction proceedings retain every substantive hallmark of criminal prosecution..." "under Feiock, such proceedings are sufficiently criminal in form and function to invoke the full protections of due process..." - that's probably the core of the reasoning here.
"Section 316.074(1) provides in relevant part that "The driver of any vehicle shall obey..."" - the driver, not the registered owner.
I highly recommend reading the order. It's easy to follow and aligns with my understanding of the law within the USA.
> Although nominally civil, traffic infraction proceedings retain every substantive hallmark of criminal prosecution...
Is going to matter here. A moving violation (ex: red light) is quite different from a non-moving violation (ex: parking) in how they're handled, and often how they're classified.
Ex - my in state, a moving violation is a criminal misdemeanor, while a non-moving violation is entirely civil.
The question in those cases came down to if the operators of the cam can be considered "accusers."
They widely considered that of course the cam itself didn't count as an accuser, but the question was how "automated" the system was. If there was a human who flagged it, the system was fine, if it was fully automated, they were unconstitutional.
Many states don't share this opinion, but an interesting argument nonetheless.
So in essence, if you know this is what they're doing, you're good. But they're not telling people so the money grift continues unabated and in place.
Sources:
1. yes I got them before when I was driving a lot in Queens, New York City had legal counsel regarding fighting these red light camera tickets.
2. NYC government is quadrupling those cameras as it's a really cheap way to increase municipal revenue and reduce traffic speed. It's working if you drive in Queens NYC you will notice most traffic obey to the speed limits. https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1q8fm89/nyc_to_quadrup...
embedding-shape•3h ago
> The defendant argued the statute unconstitutionally requires the registered owner to prove they were not driving — instead of requiring the government to prove who was behind the wheel.
Bit like having to prove you weren't the one breaking in, rather than the police having to prove you were guilty.
In light of this, seems like a no-brainer no one could disagree with.
californical•2h ago
In the same way, if your car fails emissions tests, you can’t register it and it’s the responsibility of the owner to ensure that their car meets emissions standards.
true_religion•2h ago
wat10000•1h ago
bluefirebrand•2h ago
Shift the problem onto individuals, make it a burden for the public. Typical HN attitude
n8cpdx•2h ago
floren•2h ago
crote•1h ago
smelendez•2h ago
It doesn’t seem that different to extend this to camera tickets.
californical•20m ago
It is commonplace to drive, but has high potential for danger and death. It seems ok to me to have a level of care required for owning a vehicle, and that includes being mindful of who you share your vehicle with.
Same thing with guns - if you blindly lend a gun to an acquaintance and they shoot a school, you will absolutely be charged with some crimes, either accessory to murder or manslaughter, where you have to prove that you weren’t being negligent by giving it to them. Guns are dangerous and owning them bears a higher level of responsibility to the owner.
Vehicles kill more people, they also deserve responsibility to own. If somebody breaks laws with your vehicle, it’s your responsibility by default unless you prove otherwise.
freediddy•2h ago
cucumber3732842•2h ago
Yeah that's what they said when ICE was unilaterally kicking in doors.
The way I see it anything that would prompt the government to use violence upon you without you taking action to escalate deserves the same level of protection for the accused as a "real" criminal matter.
Yes I'm aware this includes just about everything beyond library late fines and would break the system at least for awhile. Worth it. The government shouldn't be able to assess the same penalties (fines) and threaten the same enforcement actions (forfeiture of property, arrest for nonpayment, etc, etc) as they do in criminal matters and side step people's rights simply because they say it's civil. The rights and procedural protections are what they are not to prevent the application of a label, but to prevent abuse at the hands of the government.
paulddraper•40m ago
Civil offenses are not.
---
Mild speeding, no seatbelt, broken taillight are civil.
DUIs, reckless driving, hit-and-run are criminal.
All vehicular offenses, but different punishments.
---
Unauthorized immigration to the US is NOT punishable by incarceration. (It can result in deportation to the nation of origin.)
joecool1029•2h ago
Some other thoughts: An illegally parked car can be fined, impounded, booted. Car with outstanding parking tickets can also have all of the above. But typically the driver wouldn't see points or a moving violation for any of these offenses. For example: NYC you can get blocking the box tickets written by parking enforcement but they don't carry the weight of a moving violation like a police officer's ticket would. (and if you don't pay it, it's not the driving privilege that's suspended in the state, it's the car itself that would be targeted for booting/impounding, etc)
dolni•2h ago
spullara•2h ago
dolni•2h ago
yjftsjthsd-h•2h ago
brewdad•2h ago
HDThoreaun•45m ago
riquito•56m ago
cromka•2h ago
> In light of this, seems like a no-brainer no one could disagree with.
If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further? Not very no-brainer, is it?
This is how it works in Poland and, I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.
0x3f•2h ago
As usual, Europe doesn't care about internal consistency when it comes to rights. They just legislate (or rule) whatever 'works' for the current definition of 'works'.
> If someone shot a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question you further? Not very no-brainer, is it?
Nobody has said you can't be questioned.
throwaheyy•2h ago
arijun•2h ago
0x3f•2h ago
Europe is a nonsense in this regard: you have rights, except all the special cases when you don't. You have a right to free speech, except for all the ways in which you don't. You have the right to silence, except when you don't.
Which is also true in the US, after all they restrict obscenity as a form of speech. It's just that they have much fewer exceptions.
elteto•1h ago
cromka•2h ago
Sure. And you advocate that in exchange in US you get havoc on the roads because anyone can say "it wasn't me speeding 50 miles over the limit, bite me"? Is that the freedom you want?
0x3f•2h ago
cromka•2h ago
0x3f•2h ago
It's literally not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
> Belgium 7.3
> Slovenia 7.0
> US 6.9
> France 5.8
Never mind all the other countries that do have presumption of guilt, which are also comparable in per-mile road deaths.
And the ones with presumption but which _are_ 10x worse.
Allowing the presumption is very clearly not well-correlated with safety.
crote•2h ago
You are also conveniently leaving it the per-capita figures, with US being at 14.2 per 100k while countries like Norway, Sweden, and Finland being at 2.x, and Europe as a while being at 6.7.
So sure, "10x more" might be an exaggeration, but "2x more" is fairly accurate and even a claim of "7x more" is arguable.
0x3f•1h ago
I used this statistic because yours is like saying the US is richer than Switzerland, if you don't divide by the number of people. Pretty irrelevant.
There is no point comparing a country that drives everywhere with a country that doesn't using a metric that doesn't account for this difference.
Symbiote•33m ago
db48x•2h ago
archontes•2h ago
It is enough to say absolutely nothing, and request the government to prove its case.
If someone shot a person with my gun, I would invoke the fifth amendment, and ask the government to prove who did it beyond a reasonable doubt.
SoftTalker•2h ago
You're not going to roll on whoever really did it (assuming you know), and trust your fate to a jury understanding presumption of innocence, and being convinced of "reasonable" doubt, without you saying a word in your own defense? Most people would not unless they had an iron-clad alibi, but if they did, they wouldn't be getting charged in the first place.
0x3f•2h ago
pclmulqdq•2h ago
0x3f•1h ago
crote•2h ago
Sounds nice on paper, but unless you have an absolutely airtight alibi that's a great way to end up in jail. Oh, you were alone at home all night? Well, your neighbor is pretty sure they heard you come home unusually late, and a witness saw someone who kinda-sorta looked like you run away from the crime site, and the victim was sorta-kinda involved in your social circles, and there's video of victim bumping into you a few weeks ago in a bar and you reacting in what could be interpreted as an aggressive way - and it is your gun...
Or you could tell them who you loaned the gun to. Your choice.
archontes•2h ago
And sounds like a great way to plead guilty to a lesser crime, but IANAL.
KingMachiavelli•2h ago
archontes•2h ago
cromka•2h ago
pclmulqdq•2h ago
cromka•1h ago
seemaze•41m ago
singleshot_•2h ago
Is it appropriate to compare murder and running a red light given what you know about the civil implications of 5A?
SoftTalker•2h ago
joshuamorton•2h ago
Only in criminal contexts. In civil contexts your silence can absolutely be an adverse inference. Usually these red-light cameras are civil penalties, not criminal (fines with no points). The judge here seems to be saying that these are "quasi-criminal" because, uhh, I guess there are penalties.
pixl97•55m ago
limagnolia•23m ago
(EDIT: I should note that you also have a right to remain silent when questioned by the police- and since they won't know who to charge, there will likely not be a court case to call you to testify at)
bluefirebrand•2h ago
Running a red light is not remotely equivalent to shooting someone with a gun, get a grip
cromka•2h ago
multjoy•1h ago
Unlike the US, the EU is a collection of fully sovereign countries.
Rapzid•2h ago
Why shouldn't we?
some_random•2h ago
cromka•2h ago
hypeatei•2h ago
That's not necessarily true. What if it's a shared car in your family and you weren't home to see who took it?
This comment is the tech equivalent to "falsehoods programmers believe about <thing>"... real life does not fit into such neat boxes.
izacus•2h ago
hypeatei•2h ago
I'm not arguing it isn't, but the thought exercise is: does it make sense for the government to take people's money if the accused can't prove it wasn't them driving the car based on a police accusation (also with the threat of jail time if you don't pay)?
I don't think that's "normal", personally.
multjoy•1h ago
brewdad•2h ago
eweise•2h ago
daveoc64•2h ago
e.g. checking your calendar/diary, looking through receipts or bank statements to work out where you likely were.
There's also a requirement that a request for information is sent within 14 days for minor incidents like speeding or red light violations, so it's not like you have to work out who was driving on a Tuesday morning three years ago.
quickthrowman•34m ago
I gave her the citation and she called the cop who issued the citation and asked him who was driving at the time. He answered that a man was driving, and she told him he issued the citation to her, a woman. Her first name is one letter away from a male first name, so I’m guessing the cop saw it and assumed it was me and not her.
He got frustrated and told her to go ahead and rip the citation up since he wrote it to the wrong driver, she told him she’d show up to court and the judge would instantly dismiss the ticket due to the officer pulling over a man and issuing the citation to a woman, so he canceled it. He didn’t want to look like a complete fool in front of a judge.
Not once did he ask who was actually driving because he knows she is never going to tell him and he can’t force her to reveal that it was me.
crote•2h ago
There really is no difference between "who drove through a red light" and "who scratched the bumper while parking" here - how do you currently solve the latter one?
HDThoreaun•2h ago
crote•2h ago
stronglikedan•2h ago
Why? IMHO, I shouldn't have to. It's the police's job to make sure they have the right person.
circuit10•2h ago
For speeding there's a website where you can view photos and a certificate showing the equipment was calibrated recently, and you can admit or nominate another driver (or you can do it via paper forms)
brigade•2h ago
stefan_•2h ago
But also traffic cameras here generally take frontal pictures, so typically the only way you can get away with claiming it wasn't you is if they are very lazy / not interested in investigating further.
elteto•2h ago
It's basically "innocent until proven guilty". Red light cameras turn that assumption around since if your car gets ticketed it is assumed you are "guilty until proven innocent".
cromka•2h ago
As someone else said, this only works against self-incrimination? If you say it wasn't you then you need to testify or get prosecuted?
brigade•1h ago
Second, you can still generally invoke the 5th amendment during testimony even if you already claimed someone else did it. You aren't under oath until said testimony, so it still protects against you having to choose between committing perjury or self-incrimination, and doing so cannot be used as evidence of either.
IncreasePosts•59m ago
And you plead the 5th after going under oath. And you can't just plead the 5th to any question. If the prosection puts you under oath and asks you your name, you can't plead the 5th to that
brigade•16m ago
5th amendment protections can include questions of identity, if the question of identity is relevant for incrimination. Like, if the government has a warrant for "Joe Smith", you're not required to testify whether that's you. It's usually a waste of time since they'll just prove it with the non-testimonial evidence that lead to your arrest, but the protection does exist.
SoftTalker•2h ago
The judge in this case disagreed, because the red light infraction was not a simple civil fine but quasi-criminal, e.g. points on drivers license, possibly resulting in suspension, etc.
hrimfaxi•1h ago
The structure of this whole thing is to avoid having to do an actual investigation. They could subpoena the car owner's phone records for instance. Instead they choose to hide behind bureaucracy and offer you an off ramp in the form of a lower payment to make it all go away.
pixl97•53m ago
youarentrightjr•52m ago
Do you know you can be licensed to drive a vehicle without owning one, and similarly, own one without being licensed to drive it?
Why would the owner of the property be responsible for someone else's actions with that property?
Symbiote•39m ago
The owner isn't responsible for the drivers actions, but they are required to name the driver. (Or declare the car stolen etc.)
(At least in much of Europe.)
tcmart14•6m ago
But for the purposes of traffic tickets, yea, its ridiculous. It also has a lot of faults. I got a traffic ticket from a red light camera for a car I owned when I was stationed in California. The ticket came to me in Oregon 5 years AFTER I traded that vehicle in and the traffic cam ticket was from Texas, a state I've never driven a vehicle in. My only presence in Texas has been being in the airport in Dallas.
mothballed•2h ago
Most camera tickets are either civil moving, or civil non-moving. Civil moving are against a person and civil non-moving are against the vehicle. Neither of which case does 5th amendment protect you from incriminating yourself, and neither of which does it require prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
satvikpendem•19m ago
Vaslo•2h ago
brewdad•2h ago
crote•1h ago
tuckerman•53m ago
terminalshort•2h ago
smsm42•2h ago
Says who? If the car is mine, I am free to do with it whatever I like (of course, excepting criminal acts). I do not owe anybody an account of what I - or the care - did at any particular moment. If the car was used in the commission of a crime, it's up to the prosecution to prove I had something to do with it. If they think I know who did it - prove it and prosecute me under the law. You can't just prosecute because you think I should know, that's not how proper law works - otherwise every cop in the country would be 100% sure who they caught is the criminal - because why not, if it's enough for conviction, why work harder!
> If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further?
They can question all they like, but to secure a criminal conviction, they must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that I was the person who did it. Otherwise you get no conviction. If they strongly suspect I did it, they would find a proof - but the fact that I owned a gun is not that proof (for one, guns can be easily stolen, and frequently are).
jan_g•45m ago
satvikpendem•18m ago
ratelimitsteve•1h ago
I don't have to prove who was driving. I don't have to prove I wasn't the one driving. The state has to prove that I was the one driving.
>If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further?
I don't expect them not to question me further and that's not what this is about. This is about whether your car running a red light is proof, in and of itself absent any other facts, that you ran a red light in your car.
>This is how it works in Poland
This is not how it works in the US
>I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.
You assume incorrectly
electronsoup•52m ago
There is no such requirement.
openuntil3am•51m ago
carlosjobim•40m ago
Why? Americans liberated themselves from this kind of relationship with the government hundreds of years ago.
tsimionescu•11m ago
Sure, but they have no right to issue you a ticket without proving you broke the law. Same as in the gun case: they have every right to question you, but they can't convict you for murder based solely on evidence that it was your gun that killed the victim.
garaetjjte•10m ago
ssl-3•5m ago
The US is a very big place. And in this place, we have fifty (!) different states. That's fifty different sets of rules relating to owning and driving cars -- nearly twice as many as the EU has member nations.
A Florida judge might decide that red light camera tickets are unconstitutional, while an Arizona judge might decide that they're completely OK. These two very different rulings can co-exist, without conflict, potentially forever.
Each state doing their own thing independently of the others is just how we roll here.
A sane and rational person might reasonably conclude that this situation is literally insane -- and they may be right! -- but it is this way anyway.
(And it is this way by design.)
tacticalturtle•2h ago
> In the order, the court found that red-light camera cases, although labeled as civil infractions, function as “quasi-criminal” proceedings because they can result in monetary penalties, a formal finding of guilt, and consequences tied to a driver’s record.
Which seems to just relabel any fine from the government as a criminal matter?
IMO when you register the vehicle for the right to drive on public roads, you are entering into an agreement that you will be responsible for following the rules of the road, and for lending the car to people who also do so.
Similarly, if I register a firearm legally, and then lend it out to anyone who asks, regardless of whether they follow the law, I don’t think it would be crazy to hold me financially responsible if a shooting happens with my gun.
0x3f•2h ago
bootlooped•52m ago
pixl97•43m ago
GuinansEyebrows•20m ago
pixl97•44m ago
States have had to write laws for this to be a criminal matter. Before then it was a civil matter, but it was individuals against individuals and not state against individuals.
>Which seems to just relabel any fine from the government as a criminal matter?
It wasn't exactly about the fine, but points on a license I believe.
maratc•2h ago
"Preponderance of the Evidence" which is probably used for traffic cases means only "more likely than not" (or about 51% certainty).
mikkupikku•2h ago
SoftTalker•2h ago
mikkupikku•1h ago
pixl97•42m ago
Ekaros•50m ago
Still, seems to me that it is reasonable to prove who did such violation. Maybe photo could identify person. Or maybe other data could be requested like phone location data. Doesn't seem unreasonable or high hurdle. Probably not cost effective in every case.
dangood•2h ago
smsm42•2h ago
And yes, very likely some people would abuse it to get out of traffic tickets. I'd rather have that than constitutional due process protections eroded. We're not doing super-great on that anyway, we don't need to do worse, and if some scoundrel occasionally not paying traffic ticket is a price we have to pay to avoid that, I am fine with it.
jonahhorowitz•2h ago
[1]:https://caticketking.com/help-center/photo-red-light-help/ph...
mvdtnz•2h ago
I disagree completely. This is how speed and red light cameras operate in my country. If you weren't the one driving, it's straight forward to show that. The other party can admit to the offence or you can present evidence including the camera itself. The burden is low. Camera infractions do not carry license demerit points because of this ongerent uncertainty.
What's the alternative? Use even more valuable police resources to issue these tickets? Or just not penalize dangerous infractions?
pixl97•40m ago
These US states considered them moving infractions with points. Now the state must adjust by removing points or doing its due diligence.
ApolloFortyNine•53m ago
Probably a lot of other issues arise from that. If your car gets towed for being illegally parked, what if you just say you didn't park it there? Seems like a similar violation to a red light ticket.
dolphinscorpion•48m ago
litoE•51m ago
seemaze•43m ago
However, I agree with Florida on this; the onus should be not be on the accused to prove innocence after a citation is issued. Feels like a 'call us to unsubscribe' time-wasting dark pattern.
paulddraper•43m ago
Which is better than the HN title.
socalgal2•21m ago
For one, that was Florida. In California there's the "Permissive Use" rule which means you are at least partially responsible for who you lend your car to. If they get in an accident, you can be held partially liable.
There's also "Negligent Entrustment" if it can be proved you knowingly loaned your car or gun to someone intoxicated, unlicensed, etc...
Businesses are generally supposed to take responsibility for their employees. That might sound obvious if the business is FAANG but it's far less obvious to a single person coffee-shop or flower stand who hires their first employee who then spills hot coffee on a customer.
Parents are liable for their kids on many (most?) cases
I think another is where a someone goes to bar, drinks too much, the bartender gets charged.
Rather than just fight the cameras, what solution would you suggest? Just saying "more officer enforcement" doesn't seem valid as budgets are shrinking, applicants are shrinking, and people are dying from reckless drivers.