I'm not defending the OP but I have to admit... NOT all yellow lights are equal... I've seen them turn from green to yellow to red really fast, and thought to myself... "Huh?" And, I'm pretty sure they have cameras from all different directions/angles

 

If this is true and the camera caught you anyway, yeah i'd say you have a right to be angry and reason to challenge the ticket. As someone said before, if the light is faulty, there will be multiple cases and the judge may throw out all the tickets on that intersection. That's IF it's true, and I nor any other person on this forum can't say it's not. You were the only one there. This guy might be new but seriously guys, get off his ass. Nobody was there in person.. no need to act like the expert for this guy's specific incident..

 

Source? I always assumed it was some administrator within the police department.

 

Take off your front plates. Problem solved.

 

it's like this around here there's limited "red light cameras" I've lived in this area for my whole life. so i know where their at.
Red Light cameras= only go on green
regular stoplights=yellow(but gas it a little) or green

 

1) No flash, no photo.
2) I posed this same situation to a friend who works for the city (we used to have photo-enforced red lights until they were found to be in violation of state law). He said they don't trip unless you enter the intersection after the light is red. If you are already in the intersection and it changes, you're fine.

 

Even better the short yellows are done ON PURPOSE. Short yellows mean people can't brake in time so they go through ....

Step 1: Time the Yellows Short
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit

 

they're not stupid, like I already said... they (usually) have cameras from different directions, thus gettin' the back plate. The trick I was taught (tho might be a myth), is upon approaching the intersection (assuming you know beforehand about the cameras), put your sun visor down, if they can't I.D. the driver, it gets tossed automatically (supposedly). I guess it's too easy to fight in court.

One of my clients is an ex cop, she said that if cameras/flashes go off AFTER you enter the intersection... you're safe... As much as they would like to ticket those people... the courts don't like dealing with every other guy fighting it... so they just toss those it out. More court = more $$$
It's the ones that clearly ran red lights they're after.

btw (this actually happened to me a few months ago), If you approach an intersection, the light turns from green-yellow-red, and you stop but your bumper rolls pass the line... if you see flashes, you're safe too.... cuz they will review it and see that you made the attempt to stop before the light turn red.

 

Some intersections are still not equipped to deal with cars that are missing the front plate. I'm still not sure if I'm getting one. About a month ago I was following a MUNI bus - it stopped in the intersection and I was just behind it - not quite clear if I was over any line. Anyway, bus started again so I followed, only to realize the light was red (either just had turned or was turning). Flash went off - haven't got anything yet. Not sure if that is because the picture was too close to tell whether I was in the intersection already or because no front plate.

 

chances are, they've reviewed it and acknowledged that you were not at fault... and was dropped... Most of ours out here also have video cameras for reviewing purposes.

 

I was pretty impressed with the image quality on my ticket: 3 shots (front, rear, closeup of driver) and I could go to the web site to see a 11 second video of my car going through the intersection. I don't have a front license plate for aesthetics mostly.

In my area, the local Sheriffs department has a full-time officer whose sole job is to review images and issue tickets. I visited this officer and there were stacks of pictures in her office and Encinitas has just 2 intersections that are photo enforced. This officer's threshold is .1 second late time.

The city pays 11K a month for the cameras and they must make more $$ than this so they can profit. I found a video of Redflex's (major camera vendor) presentation to a city showing how much money they can make.

This intersection has been photo enforced for a few years but I really thought that I could easily get through it on yellow. When those lights flashed I honestly thought they were getting a car behind me but the video showed the car behind me actually stopped.

 

that's good to know cuz I occasionally visit Carlsbad

 

At least in Cali, there is a minimum yellow time of 3 seconds.

 

This not directly related but when I read the article I thought of this thread

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/us/01perjury.html

So be careful about your defense

 

That is true, but you have to factor in speed and the grade of the road as well. 3 seconds is fine for a 25 MPH zone but not sufficient for 50MPH. My intersection (El Camino Real / Leucadia blvd) had a 3.63 yellow interval while the next major intersection going North of this one (El Camino Real / Calle Barcelona) had a 5.1 second yellow interval. Everything was the same: speeds lanes, etc. My argument was let's make these intersection light intervals similar so you don't have to guess what you can do. This big difference between the two was the 1st intersection is in Encinitas as photo enforced while the second one is in Carlsbad and Carlsbad has no photo enforcement.

 

There is also discussion/debate over which speed should be used - posted or 85th percentile.

 

More info here:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/si...UTCD-Part4.pdf

See pages 4D-11 (51 of 132) and 4D-50 (90 of 132)

 

I don't know if y'all get Car and Driver. the newest issue(March 08 the one with the new CTS-V on the front) Patrick Bedard did a intresting write up about red light cameras. he's done a few intresting write ups against red light cameras. if y'all have old issues and a little bit of time read some of his editorials