AK_MOBBER

Tonight in Phoenix AZ and surrounding areas is a report of how to get a license plate that supposedly bocks photo radar! On the commercial was a TL!!!!! I was like

It is on tonight Channel 15 ABC NEWS @ 10:00 PM!!
If your in the area watch it.

nate'sCLS

Aren't those the clear covers that go over the plate.
They have lines of distortion in them that scramble up photo radar.

KavexTrax

Oh I had one of those, apparently a cop told me to get rid of it or face a ticket. catch22

craigyg69

I went out and bought one of those right after I got my first photo-radar ticket. I haven't gotten in trouble for it yet... Hopefully never will!

AcuraTLSFan

In California, it's ILLEGAL to cover your license plate with anything. But this is a nice invention to counter that http://www.phantomplate.com/photoblocker.html

o snap its eric

you can use nail polish. it does the same thing. and i heard surand wrap will do the trick but thats just what i heard

superdx

Nail polish? A clear nail polish? What about a spraycan of clearcoat?

SicK TypeS

...what exactly is photo radar? are those the guns that the cops use to get your speed or something else?

kensteele

I was just in Phoenix this past week and I have to tell you it's ashamed that they use photo radar. I think I was in Mesa or Tempe and I saw this white van parked on the side of the road. I was going in the opposite direction in a rental car (so I wasn't speeding) but you guys don't stand a chance without some sort of protection (radar detector, etc). The van is unmarked except for the sides and it is parked in such as way as to go unnoticed, like down a long, straight road (doesn't have to be just over a hill). I don't advocate altering your plates because all the law has to do is make it illegal and more costly to do that than to get a ticket. Altering your plates to avoid a speeding ticket is like altering your driver's license to avoid a ticket on your record. But if photo radar is prevalent in Arizona, you guys gotta do somethin'.

JakeCL

do they have this crap in california?

AcuraTLSFan

Yeah Cali has them

fbazakos

well the problem is in Phoenix all you mo-fo's run red lights. every time i'm there you see it constantly. nobody does that up here.

kensteele

Absolutely true. Light running was the rule rather than the exception. When I went thru a [close] yellow, how the hell 3 more cars kept up behind me is beyond me.

I saw the "camera at the intersection" warning signs too but since I was in a rental with a temp tag (Suzuki SUV), I didn't care about being in the intersection on red and apparently neither did the residents.

I'm just kidding a bit, light running is chronic in Kansas City, too.

vuduvida

In Mesa, they aren't very creative on the van's placement. Many times, I've seen the van in the same area week after week. There are just certain areas you learn to be more careful in. The system is triggered only if you're more than 11 mph over the limit so that's another thing to keep in mind when driving around. I learned in traffic school that if the photo doesn't clearly show the face of the driver, they won't even bother sending out the ticket.

The instructor said he had a lady in his class that successfully avoided a photo radar ticket by covering her face with a notepad but then ended up rear-ending the car in front of her since she couldn't see him slowing down. That's how she got a ticket that landed her in traffic school.

Scottsdale now has photo radar permanently installed at a major intersection in that city. I think that's going to be the new trend around here.


Fotis, yes Phoenix is terrible for red-light runners. I saw some statistic that said we were the worst in the nation. As Ken mentioned, many cities here now have their major intersections wired with cameras that snap pictures (similar to photo radar) of cars that go through a half second or more after the light has turned red. That's helping to cut back on the number of accidents (and providing a constant stream of revenue to the cities).

EricL

They sure don't wait a half a second in Los Angeles. I like to stop and watch a few of the intersections "at work" while walking around and if you are a millisecond past the red, you're toast...

The city managers left out some of the deadliest intersections and picked the ones on the main traffic corridors with severe traffic.

mattg

if you see the flash, it's your ass

vuduvida

I thought it was a half second in Mesa. It was a while back that I read that though.


I didn't realize the amount of $ that red-light cameras pull in. This article from back in Aug says that Phx issued 17,000 citations from the 10 intersections that have cameras. The citations are $175 a pop so that's almost $3mil in fines in less than 8 months. The article says they're trying to get cameras for 50 more intersections. If the citation rate is similar with the new red-light cameras, the city has the potential to pull in over $28mil per year (not even including $ from photo radar). With numbers like that, I wouldn't be surprised if *every* intersection has them eventually. George Orwell's vision of the future may not be too far off.