Speed Cameras
(Redflex) Canton Ohio Traffic Enforcement Cameras: Frequently Asked Questions Part 2: What (if)
Sooo, no matter how many red lights I run, and no matter how fast I go in a school zone, as long as I pay the fine, there are no other penalties?
Awesome! I think the unrestricted speed in my ’94 Taurus Wagon is 134mph. Let’s see if I can hit that in a school zone in Canton and get a Redflex ticket for it.
Hey, as long as nobody creams a school-kid, there’s no problem with any speed they’re doing, as long as they can pay. Now that’s safety!
Next, we have this:
So, you have to “rat” on whomever was driving your car, signing a sworn statement pointing the finger at some other party.
Or you are automatically guilty of the violation. Wow, guilty until proven innocent, a prosecutor’s wet dream.
Never mind the fact that you can blame your violations on your minor child or relative and tell them to refuse to pay. As far as I know, they can’t collect any such civil judgments against a minor, so go nuts, people
Precautions are for sissies. Precautions don’t feel good, they might get in the way of our pleasure of collecting on our fabricated tickets. Especially the ones like the guy that got a ticket for over 130mph in a truck that had a top speed of 99mph NEW!
Yes they claim they will have Canton Police Department officers reviewing the tickets, but they’ve been caught NUMEROUS times violating this promise in various states and even Canada. Issuing all sorts of tickets with no review what-so-ever. Chillicothe was one of the locations ( according to quarterwave).
Well then.
This first point is one I can’t really take an issue with. According to their claims (uh, how far can they be trusted anyway) the system doesn’t trigger unless you cross the line after the light turns red.
But I will take huge issue with their assertion that “we don’t ticket on legal right on red turns.” There are a huge number of cases where this was found to be false.
The short answer is: “Yes, you will always receive a ticket, no matter how legal your actions were. Enjoy forking your money over and don’t even try to think about fighting it.”
Let’s continue, shall we?
(Redflex) Canton Ohio Traffic Enforcement Cameras: Frequently Asked Questions Part 5: How
Sure, they claim the signs will be posted, but according to our friend Quarterwave in Chillicothe, “They also have refused to erect the proper signage.” Yeah, I think there should be a little bit of skepticism by now.
Here is a Haiku:
No signage present.
Redflex makes many more crash
People sad and hurt.
Anyone who wants to get out of a fine, legitimate violation or no, has two options.
Reassigning Violations to minor children with driver’s licenses, and telling them not to pay it, or just not paying anything to the company and City of Canton. They can’t DO anything to you except make one black mark on your credit report, or eventually try to come after you to garnish your wages.
Administrative Hearing in our Kangaroo Court. You can protest all you want, but you are guilty until proven innocent with these photos being supposed proof that you definitely were behind the wheel of your car. I’ve read (I’ll track down a link eventually) that a certain jurisdiction was allowed to tack on an extra $65-75 on top of the fine just for the hassle of actually having to try you in court! I think I read somewhere else (I’ll track it down if I’m able) that in one court, you had to PAY the violation BEFORE you were allowed to fight/contest it! Talk about a racket!!!
Anyway, when a petition is successful to get the issue on the ballot to kick the photo enforcement villains out of town, the people who refused to pay the civil fines generally are not responsible for them anymore, but the people who knuckled under to these thugs don’t get their moneys back. How fair is that?
Actually, all they have on their website is the same information in this pamphlet and the same questions. The most telling part of this is the legalese at the bottom. But if it were honest it should read “This brochure was created FOR the City of Canton with lies and manipulated statistics from Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc.
And I think that a public brochure can be reproduced for informative purposes. They were handing these out free at the meetings, so hopefully there should be no issue with my reposting the content here. Proper attribution was given, and really, I could claim that I’ve used the content for parody purposes, so the copyright can’t really be enforced against me.
Now don’t you feel safer already?
This post is extrapolated from a comment I left on this news article over at TTAC.
Basically, Colorado officials want gamble with their future by trying to double Photo Enforcement revenues and authorizing even more surveillance across the entire state.
I can’t wait for the backlash that’s coming against these Redflex speeding and Red Light Camera Progrommes. It will be fun to watch what happens in Colorado, even from distance of Ohio. Red light camera ticketing schemes are guaranteed political suicide. But the elected (and appointed) officials think they are completely untouchable. So tax revenues go down a bit, you need to tighten up your belts and reduce spending, just like we plebeians private citizens when we lose part or all of our income. The closest analogy I can think of is a man getting his hours reduced at work. This seedy character approaches him on the way to his van as he’s sullenly headed home for the day and says, “psst– Hey buddy, need some cash?” He then follows this crook’s advice and goes out and rents a camera. He records someone breaking a traffic law from his van with his rented camera. He mails a copy of the photo to the person who owns the vehicle, as well as a picture drawing of a gun, but the icing on the cake is the stern letter he sends that implies ’something’s gonna happen to you if you don’t pay up.’
People merely want to feel safe in their homes and property. Extortion campaigns such as this milk owners of vehicles dry when we live in one of the safest times in recent history. Accidents are down, fatalities are down, murders are down (I think). Yet we are absorbed in a news cycle of fear, trained to fear and hate our fellow man. Some industrious fellows in Colorado will band together with political and community groups to stop these crooks just like they did in Cincinnati. It may take a few years if people are convinced they can’t do anything to change it, or if they don’t have direct ballot initiative access like we do in Ohio… but they will either directly change it, or elect those who will rescind the contracts. Just look at the current situation in Arizona, as they are in open revolt against these systems. I feel that the best argument against photo enforcement is actually having it. The greedy bastards have gone too far, just wait for the backlash you political gobshites, it’s coming…