Re: Anybody heard of Telstarone communications?
Obviously you guys don't have red light cameras in your town, or else are ignorant on how they work or the circumstances that lead up to a ticket. And no, the license plate blockers work, that's for sure. In fact they work so well the cops are confiscating them. The spray on stuff doesn't work, but the plastic covers do, nobody is disputing that. I can produce photos that prove they work.
First, red light cameras are indiscriminatory, meaning don't discriminate between someone running it just because they don't want to stop or someone running it because they are fearful of getting slamming in the back if they hit the brakes. You get the same ticket.
Second, people are getting tickets for "right on red" violations. The cameras are unable to determine the difference between running a red light and making a right on red, as the camera will detect a "violation" either way and snap a photo of it. You get a ticket in the mail.
Third, it is a known act that when cameras are installed they reduce the yellow light time to help increase revenue. They have been shown overwhelmingly to only put money in the pockets of the company that installs them. If they get 70 bucks for every ticket issued, is the point to make you safer or to make money?
Fourth, if you are on a motorcycle and hit the brakes to avoid a ticket you could be killed, when it would have been safer and more logical to run the light than get smashed by a flatbed. I should not have to pay 100 bucks because I choose not to get killed.
4. The traffic engineers who install these cameras are all-too-frequently tempted to reduce the amount of time that the traffic light stays "yellow" before turning "red." Precisely because it will likely increase the number of drivers who run red lights, this alteration allows the surveillance system attached to the traffic light to catch more red-light runners, and thus generate more revenues for the state (see below). Unfortunately, indeed, tragically, altering the timing of the traffic light also causes more rear-end collisions, and thus more injuries to drivers and their passengers.
[In New York] one photograph is provided with the car in the intersection, the light showing red, and a numerical indicator of the number of seconds (and tenths of a second) [that] the light was red. However, this does not provide sufficient information to establish the color of the light at the time the car entered the intersection. Without knowing the speed the car was travelling and with no accurate way to judge distances (or often even tell where the actual threshold of the intersection is), all you can do is trust that the camera would not have taken the picture if the person didn't run the light. Generally, a sensor is placed at or very near the threshold. But there's no good way to know which part of the car the sensor tripped on. It's always possible that the front of the car entered the intersection [when the light was] green and [that] a second later, the rear of the car entered the intersection on [when the light was] red and tripped the sensor. There is no way for anyone (human or machine) to know what color the light was when the front of the car entered the intersection.
In October 2002, when the Mayor of Washington DC admitted that his city's traffic cameras produced "money and safety," the Automobile Association of America withdrew its support for them.
http://www.notbored.org/traffic-cameras.html
You need to read this website, a study by the federal highway administration safety people about red light cameras. They reduce side collisions, but increase rear-end collisions at intersections where they are located.
http://www.tfhrc.gov/safety/pubs/05049/
And these, that clearly prove that these cameras don't work, work intermittently, and someone charge the wrong person with the crime, i.e. someone may have been driving your car at the time of the violation, but since it's registered to you, you get the ticket.
http://www.highwayrobbery.net/
http://www.motorists.org/photoenforce/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301844.html
"DC's red light cameras fail to reduce accidents"
