A Missouri man was threatened with jail for not paying a red-light camera ticket, but when he got a lawyer the city of Arnold dropped the ticket.
The lawsuit by Fenton residents James and Kara Hoekstra alleges that the ticketing process is illegal and unconstitutional, collecting fines through fraud and extortion to benefit the city and its red-light camera contractor. It seeks unspecified damages from the city, several city officials, and the contractor, American Traffic Solutions Inc.The couple received a ticket in the mail from Arnold on Aug. 15, accusing them of running a red light in a 2005 Jeep on July 29. It demanded a payment of $94.50. City records show it was one of 13,921 citations issued between October 2005 and Jan. 24, 2008.
The lawsuit said James Hoekstra was threatened with arrest when he refused to pay, but that the city dropped the ticket after he got a lawyer.
There's a possibility that the red-light cameras violate state law, and the allegation is that the city dropped the ticket so it wouldn't have to defend its cameras in court and risk losing the system entirely.
I've always thought that there were lots of ways to defend a camera ticket. I bet that there are lots of situations in which a ticket wouldn't be proper, and the camera can't disprove any of them. Maybe it was wet or icy, and it would have been dangerous to try to stop for a short yellow. Maybe your car was stolen, or otherwise being driven without your permission.
Maybe the camera system malfunctioned and took the picture at the wrong time. After all, traffic lights themselves often malfunction, so why not the cameras? I would hope that the control system for the lights themselves is more reliable than the camera system. Bad traffic lights put lives in danger, while bad camera timing only risks bad traffic tickets.