Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

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piller
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Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by piller »

Our Governor signed the bill! Red Light Cameras are now against Texas Law. I am glad. The shortened yellow light for the camera causes many rear end collisions, and too many people are ticketed for rolling just over the line when they cannot stop in time. When the ticket is issued for $75 and the first time it is sent there is a $25 fine for failure to pay within the 2 week time period after you are photographed. Texas Law stops it at $100, but the companies that run them keep going up on the fine.

I am glad that those money grubbing devices are no longer legal.
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AJMD429
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by AJMD429 »

I agree.
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FWiedner
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by FWiedner »

I've not encountered one, or heard of one in use in my area.

A law against government abuse of the citizenry is always a good thing.

:|
Government office attracts the power-mad, yet it's people who just want to be left alone to live life on their own terms who are considered dangerous.

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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by piller »

Fred, Dallas County is where I saw most of them. Dallas, Cedar Hill, and elsewhere. Mesquite got me one morning in a 45mph zone where I hit the brakes and went about a foot over the line. The photo clearly showed my brake lights on. That intersection was later found to have a 3 second yellow light.

Denton also has a few.

I wonder what will happen to those who have been ticketed and have not yet paid. Tarrant County has officially stated that they will not enforce holds on license renewals for those ticketed by camera. By law, you are allowed to face your accuser in court. Since the camera itself cannot come, the Tarrant County DA considers it an unenforceable fine or hold.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Ray »

Never been to texas......sounds like a hoyt axton, song doesn't it ?

But have been to places where the camera traps are said to be prevalent....

Cook and Lake Counties in Illinois and Chesapeake and Norfolk and Portsmouth in Virginia.

In all of those places I did not exactly drive in an exemplary manner and was worried of repercussions but none came in the mail except one that I ignored.

I received a postcard dun by a contractor to the Virginia D.O.T. that included a blurry photo that was said to be the license tag of my 2004 pickup. It said that I owed them a $7.50 toll for crossing and re-crossing the I-64 toll tunnel. I ignored it because we never went that route......The whole thing was flummery ! I was never where they said I was. Certainly we crossed the Elizabeth River several times but not by any toll route.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by piller »

Ray, you should come visit Texas. Avoid Dallas and Houston just because they are pretentious and have horrible traffic. Austin is weird, but can be fun. The rest of the state is as good as it can get. Fort Worth is worth the time to look around. San Antonio has the River Walk. The whole State is worth seeing.

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Bill in Oregon
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Bill in Oregon »

We had a few in Oregon, with signs warning they were deployed at the intersection. When they are essentially run by a vendor for profit, you have created the perfect storm for abuse. For-profit prisons are another bad idea.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Shasta »

We have several of them here in Redding, CA. My wife ran one in a moment of inattention and got a ticket that cost nearly $500, plus our car insurance rates went up for a couple years after.

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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by mikld »

It sounds like to me not so much a problem with the cameras but the over enforcement. Pillar mentioned "the companies that run them keep going up on the fine". A private company assessing traffic fines? Sounds funny to me but glad they are now banned...
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Sixgun »

Surprised about Texas even having them in the first place........it's usually liberal states and big cities that have them. New Jersey is loaded with all kinds of traps everywhere. Pretty much common sense...the people with cars usually have jobs so it's "rob from the rich to give to the lazy".........

Have not been to Jersey since 1978 and I'm only 15 miles from there. Same goes for Maryland except for a couple of times at the big Timonium gun show. Only 8 miles from Delaware and I might get there 4x a year, only for necessity.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by cfplinker »

Aurora, CO had them for more than a few years but there was an item on last year's ballot to remove them. It passed by almost 2:1. I was supposed to be effective Jan 1 of this year but they had them shut off by the end of November and most of the lights and cameras had been removed early this year.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by wm »

I think the bigger issue is privacy …… the impact of near continuous surveillance by public and private security cameras and facial recognition software and long term storage of data and the fact that nearly seamless manipulation of video footage can make any of us look like we did almost anything anywhere at any time is a big worry. Look at the Pelosi video of her being drunk. People believe what they see even when the guy who manipulated the video footage admits he manipulated it. It might make some people here chuckle because it was Pelosi but consider if a guy with rudimentary skills and equipment can do that to smear a national figure, what could be done by divorce attorney to destroy a opponent? Or a over zealous prosecutor to a protester? Or an employer who wants to get rid of a whistleblower?

Juries believe their eyes but we have entered a whole new realm of the hand being quicker then the eye. New technology is going to test our ethics and our freedoms in ways we can only imagine.

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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by jeepnik »

Interesting the way it went out here. L. A. City installed them then hired a contractor to send out the tickets and collect the fines. Turned out you can't do they as the contractor has no legal status. So, folks just didn't pay. They got taken to court and had to abandon the entire plan, so no cameras. But those fined were not reimbursed.

Other smaller cities just did it in house and it's legal. But they also got caught shortening the yellows. Courts involved and they had to return to the old times. Again though, no one was reimbursed.

In all cases the folks running the system have been notorious for sending out fines to folks that either weren't in violation or worse yet not even in the city, county, state or country at the time. You can fight it and request the video (did you know it's video not a single photo?) but to do so you have to pay the ticket first, wait until they get darned good and ready to send you the video and then wait for a court date. Yea, you got it most folks just pay.

I personally was sent a fine for using the bypass lane on a toll bridge in San Francisco. First off I wasn't anywhere near there at the time. Second my car has never been on that bridge. But when I tried to straighten it out I was stonewalled at every turn. I finally found a reporter that did a story on those types of abuses. People in other states who had never been to California were getting fines.

You see they have this fancy software that examines the photo and determines what the plate is even when it can't be read. So the software just selects what it thinks the plate is and sends the fine. No humans involved. Had there been they might (and that's a big might) have realized my car is a 1978 two door sedan and the photo was of a late model SUV.

I finally thought it was straightened out and along comes my next years registration. Yep, you guessed it the fine was tacked on and I could register unless I paid the fine. Our DMV claimed they could do nothing. So back to the reporter. Amazingly it was easy for DMV to take care of it.

Essentially I guess what I'm saying is that those systems are run by a bunch of crooks.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Rusty »

I guess I'm the contrarian here. I think red light cameras should be mandatory not just optional, but... I also think that the intersections should be highly regulated. There should be digital countdown timers with a 2 second per mile an hour delay before the light turns to red. At 60 MPH that would give you a 12 second advance warning. At 40 MPH you would have an 8 sec. warning. Everyone should also have the right to face their accuser.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by vancelw »

The timer already exists. It called a yellow light, which simply means that the light is about to turn red. As long as the light is not red, it is legal to cross the white stop bar. Once you are across it, you control the intersection until you clear it.

You have the right to confront your accuser.
If you show up for court, odds are the desk jockey cop who signed the citation will not. Or with minimal effort you can make him stutter and stammer and get the charge dropped.
Problem is, you had to take at least one day off work to travel to the big city for municipal court. So it's cheaper to pay the fine.

Traffic cam citations should never have been allowed
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by JimT »

If the country would put in roundabouts instead of intersections we would not have to worry about lights whatever color.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by piller »

Rusty wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:51 pm I guess I'm the contrarian here. I think red light cameras should be mandatory not just optional, but... I also think that the intersections should be highly regulated. There should be digital countdown timers with a 2 second per mile an hour delay before the light turns to red. At 60 MPH that would give you a 12 second advance warning. At 40 MPH you would have an 8 sec. warning. Everyone should also have the right to face their accuser.
The only to make the red light cameras pay and pay and pay for themselves is to cut the yellow light time down to 3 seconds. That is what is happening. Red light cameras are not about controlling traffic. They are about making money.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Ray »

JimT wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:24 pm If the country would put in roundabouts instead of intersections we would not have to worry about lights whatever color.
when they opened the roundabout at the intersection of fairhope and co. rd. 13 old folks in their dotage would just go around and around until they ran out of gas or failed to yield right of way and collided.

one nonagenarianess in a nissan minivan told the baldwin co. deputies that she thought she was back joy riding in her 1948 packard and was beginning to get carsick before they pulled her over.
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Ray! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :cry:
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by mikld »

I don't understand most of the "invasion of privacy" problem. I'm just an old retired mechanic. I do not do anything (much) illegal and am on no "no fly" lists. I just go about my everyday life and have done so for the last 31 years, when I got sober. I attend AA meetings and if someone wants to photo me going in or out, I'll stop and pose for them. I have no reason to fear or be paranoid about anything I do. The only questionable "surveillance" of me would be if some gov't agency entered my gun room/shop uninvited and searched for anything illegal, but in over 38 years of shooting, buying and reloading nothing as ever come close to that happening. Nope, I'm not living a Polyanna life with a "Pie in the sky" attitude, but I'm not paranoid either (but I do know "they" are watching)...

Jes my thinkin', kinda on the same vein as "guilty dog barks loudest"...
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Re: Texas outlaws Red Light Cameras.

Post by 3leggedturtle »

JimT, come up to Minnesota, roundabouts are everywhere here. Cameras are all about control and money. Safety issue is a joke. Todd/3leg
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