posted
I got an automated ticket by mail, for doing 56 mph on a 4 lane limited access highway. The ticket is from the District of Columbia, but I can't tell what road I was traveling on, and this description doesn't give me enough information to go on. It gives the location: 3rd St Tunnel NW n/b at MA Ave Exit. I tried using google maps to find the location, and wasn't able to.
The ticket claims the speed limit was 45 mph, which may be true, but there is no speed limit sign in the accompanying photographs. In fact there's no landmark at all in the photographs. They give a web address so you can get "full color versions of the images" but they aren't any clearer than the images on the ticket. The location sounds like I might have been traveling in a tunnel, but the photos show my car in full sunlight.
Now, maybe I was speeding, but this would have been a month ago, and I don't remember there being a 45 mph zone while I was traveling through DC. If a cop had pulled me over and asked "didn't you see the sign back there" I wouldn't have an argument, even if I hadn't noticed the sign. But just getting this thing in the mail, I feel like they have to make some kind of effort to prove to me that I did something wrong, and going 56 on a multi-lane highway somewhere in DC isn't enough to do it.
The other thing that gets me is that the ticket says that "failure to answer in a manner and time required is an admission of liability." So if I don't get the letter I've admitted liability? They didn't send it registered mail or anything. And this happened to me many years ago: I got a ticket for not carrying my insurance card (I had a 30 day temporary card, with a receipt that clearly stated that I'd paid the full premium for a year, but the card was 31 days old). I sent in a copy of the proper insurance card, and never heard anything back from the court. But two years later I drove a car back to NY from Oregon, insured it, registered it in NY, and was informed by my insurance company that I didn't have a drivers license because I had failed to pay the ticket. Doesn't seem to me that sending a ticket through the mail is any proof that you received the ticket, so how can failing to respond be an admission of anything?
quote:The location sounds like I might have been traveling in a tunnel, but the photos show my car in full sunlight.
The exits from that tunnel are above ground. They're definitely 45 MPH, but the signage sucks.
As to the rest, since its a civil penalty, not a criminal offense, the due process protections are significantly less. There is a way to contest it through the mail, I believe.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
My dad's gotten the same speeding ticket. It infuriates him that they do that--the ticket won't get you any points on your license, it's purely a money-making ploy for the District.
If you're ever driving around DC again, also watch your speed on Conn. Ave going under Dupont Circle.
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
My university town in California put up one of those red light cameras in an intersection where, basically, it was not at all certain that a person could get across even if the light went yellow halfway across. They claimed that this wasn't going to affect the tickets given, which detected only red light runners (after the red has already turned) but how are we supposed to trust them to get this right? I feel that automatic penalties given electronically should not be used, because of their potential for abuse and intimidation.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Usually those red light cameras send tickets based on where your car was when the photo was snapped. If you are fully in the intersection, your picture will get taken but you shouldn't get a ticket. At least that's how it worked in Alexandria when I lived there.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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That's how they work here, too. In fact, the statistics I've seen showed that the cameras get it right more often than traffic cops (who are, after all, only human ).
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Actually, I'd much rather have a ticket based on a photo that shows the position of my car and the color of the light than one based on the word of a police officer. The electronic tickets are at least evidence based. Those issued by a police officer are based solely on the officers discretion which has far greater potential for abuse and intimidation than the automatic cameras.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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When we got a photo cop from D.C., the discussion was only who would have been driving that day, me or my husband. We totally forgot about the whole contesting the validity of the actual charge. Maybe that's what they're counting on. Or if the guilty spouse opens the mail, them trying to pay it on the sly without the other one finding out.
I was going to contest a red light violation I had in Baltimore once, but by the time I got it, I was moving. They sat on it a really long time.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: These cameras are way too nanny state for me.
Translation: I used to be able to flout the law, and now I have to suck it up and not run red lights! Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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A woman that works with my wife got a red-light photo ticket in the mail. After looking closely at the photo, it shows the light was green. Timing was off, they claimed, and dropped the ticket.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Actually, I'd much rather have a ticket based on a photo that shows the position of my car and the color of the light than one based on the word of a police officer.
Bear in mind that this ticket is not for running a red light, it is for speeding. It would have been easy to position the camera so that a speed limit sign was visible in the field of view, but it isn't. My gut feeling, simply looking at the pictures, is that this is a multi lane limited access highway, where the speed limit should have been 55 at least.
quote:The exits from that tunnel are above ground. They're definitely 45 MPH, but the signage sucks.
Since I honestly can't remember it, it makes little difference. Maybe I was going 45 in the tunnel, but sped up when I saw sunlight, so that I was going 56 as I emerged. Since you can't see anything that looks like a tunnel in the photograph, it could be that I was traveling at 45 until I emerged, and then accelerated to 56 mph once I was out of the tunnel. I can't know.
quote:As to the rest, since its a civil penalty, not a criminal offense, the due process protections are significantly less. There is a way to contest it through the mail, I believe.
Yeah, it says you can include documents to support your argument, but what it comes down to is that they didn't send me enough information to be able to make an argument in the first place. If they had described the situation with real sentences: "Vehicle was photographed traveling northbound emerging from a tunnel on I-395 prior to the Massachusetts Ave Exit. Speed limit in the tunnel and tunnel exit is 45 mph." And especially if they'd had the intelligence to position the camera so that the speed limit sign was clearly visible in the picture, then I wouldn't have a problem with this at all. But without you guys telling me where this happened, I wouldn't even have any idea what road I was traveling on.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: These cameras are way too nanny state for me.
Translation: I used to be able to flout the law, and now I have to suck it up and not run red lights! [Cry]
Running red lights is a big pet peeve of mine. It's a binary situation. If the light is red, you shouldn't be in the intersection. Period. I've personally seen two accidents that were directly caused by someone running a red light, and I saw a judge dismiss a case one time on the ground that the yellow light was too short. I knew the intersection, and if anything, that light was too long.
Actually I think that's part of the problem. Long yellow lights, and delayed green lights give people the feeling that:
1. they have plenty of time to make it through before it actually turns red
2. yellow time + delayed green time wastes too much time where traffic could be moving
3. Since opposing traffic still has a red light, it's safe to go through until the light in this direction has changed to red
It seems to me that this problem has been getting worse and worse as I get older.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I always have problems with red lights that have short yellows. I'm a tiny little car, but I live in Texas and so I'm surrounded by big Trucks and SUVs. When you're in bumper to bumper traffic light traffic, it's not always easy to see exactly what color the light is when you're entering an intersection. You often just have to trust that the people around you are doing the right thing. This makes me a little wary of red light cameras. I would hate to get a ticket because the truck in front of me was running a last minute yellow and the truck behind me was pushing me through so that he could run a "just barely red". Of course, if as a society everyone followed the same traffic light rules, this problem would be eliminated. The truth is though, that most of time a yellow is moving at the same speed a green. It makes it impossible to tell what the light color is if you can't actually see it.
Actually, when I was reading this thread, the thing that caught my attention was when someone said that coming out of the tunnels was definitely 45, but poorly posted. My pet peeve is that speed limits are not posted NEARLY frequently enough. Around here, it's not uncommon for you to get on an expressway and have to travel several miles before you see the first speed limit sign. This isn't a huge problem if it's a road you travel on every day, but if it's one you don't know very well, you're risking a ticket just because you don't KNOW what speed you're supposed to be using. We don't have speed cameras here yet, but my guess is that they would make things even worse. Municipalities would post them in places they KNOW people don't know what the speed limit is (and deliberately lower it to like 55 for a mile or two) just to catch people who can't fight it.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Back on the subject of your ticket, I did grow up in the DC area, and I know the area you're talking about. The tunnel is two lanes in each direction and the speed limit is 45. Speeding causes a lot of accidents in that area, which is the reason the cameras are positioned where they are.
You're right, signage for the speed limit is crummy in that area, but it doesn't change what the limit is. There are whole areas where I live now where the signage for the speed limit is crummy. Depending on where you are, you may never see a speed limit sign because a lot of the towns and cities have city wide limits (unless otherwise posted). It makes it really easy to be speeding by accident, if you miss the sign showing what the citywide limit is. Edit: But stating that you were unaware of the citywide limit will not get you out of a ticket if you get one.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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