Traffic Cam Blues

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Dan2722

Dan2722

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Sep 14, 2006
Threads
67
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1,193
Location
Wyoming
A little over a month ago I was on my way to work early in the morning after checking the surf and came to an intersection I have been through a thousand times. It was 6:30 am and there was no traffic or pedestrians on a wide open intersection so I did what a lot of us do without thinking which was to turn right on the red without fully stopping. Immediately I knew my error when I was lit up by the traffic cam strobes :censor::censor::mad:.

I accepted the fact that I was guilty and would get a ticket what I did not expect was the price tag. $480 and 1 point on my record or $535 and traffic school to keep the point off my record which does not include the price of traffic school.:eek: I guess we know where CA is trying to make up for the budget shortfall.

I chose the traffic school route and found out through the coarse that some first time DUI offenses pay less $390 than I was paying for my infraction. :rolleyes: I guess the moral of the story is to not let familiarity breed complacency. I knew that the intersection had cams but was driving on auto pilot on a very familiar route when I should have been paying more attention to my driving.
 
sdnative said:
That sucks. Sorry to hear that. Next time, you can try to fight it. Check out this site:

Help! I Got a Ticket!
Click to expand...

Looked into that but in the end it would have cost me more and I would have still had to pay the ticket. The cam had numerous pics of me with time stamps so it looked more like a video than a single pic. I read that this exact infraction is the new money maker for a lot of states.

And I do not expect there to be a next time.:D
 
Wow. That blows Dan. I've had my share of costly 'stupid' mistakes. It's so easy just to roll through intersections.
:steer::doh:
 
Does it have a clear picture of you in the driver seat?

Got flashed at victorville last year about this time in a middle of a rainstorm. I was the last through the intersection, could have sworn I had passed the line, but pics and video revealed not. Luckily for me it was raining hard that day and the picture was not clear. Could have been anyone driving my car. Took a day off from work and went to court to contest it. Did not even make it up to face the judge. They let my case go since it was not conclusive of who was driving the car.:doh:
 
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What really sucks is that most of this money goes to a company in Arizona and not to the state of CA. These traffic lights do not make us safer or provide income to the state. Just some CEO in AZ who is probably driving a Maserati. :rolleyes:
 
In case it ever happens again: You can review the video on line before your court date. I reviewed mine and chose to dispute. When you go to court they have a special room for those disputing the cam results. I was able to sit down with a traffic officer and rep from the cam company and review the video on a laptop. They agreed that had an officer been present he would not have cited me and all charges were dropped.
 
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