4 ms·

The best way I can describe the courts setup around automated red light cameras is as a kangaroo court. They have very little oversight, the owner of the vehicl

• gruez 2y ago
  >The best way I can describe the courts setup around automated red light cameras is as a kangaroo court. They have very little oversight, the owner of the vehicle gets ticketed regardless of the driver, and the fines are fairly high (depending on where you live). I'm not sure how this is a kangaroo court. If the machines are generally known to be working correctly, and have an up to date calibration certificate, it makes sense that you can't dispute the validity of the evidence. It's not any different than limiting the avenues of appeal for breathalyzer results in DUI cases. Otherwise, the courts would swamped with people trying to drag out the case by doing the same appeal process over and over again. The fact that the owner gets penalized rather than the driver is more sketchy, but if the owner authorized someone else to use his car, why shouldn't he be on the hook for infractions? For instance, you lent your car to someone else and it got towed, do you think it's acceptable to use the "you can't prove I did the parking/driving" excuse to get off of it?
  • ozgrakkurt 2y ago
    Not sure what you are arguing here, people should be penalized without justice and there shouldn’t be accountability on the part of the blaming party because these people will block the court if they have a chance? Are you reinventing the law?
    • gruez 2y ago
      I'm not sure where the "penalized without justice and there shouldn’t be accountability on the part of the blaming party " is coming from. At least where I live if you get such a ticket you can always dispute the ticket in court, although you'll be rarely successful because the cops/government has done this enough times that the usual excuses (eg. "the machine isn't reliable!") doesn't work.
  • oooyay 2y ago
    Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court > A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come to a predetermined conclusion. Ref: https://www.cnet.com/science/tickets-issued-due-to-red-light-cameras-are-illegal-says-florida-court/ https://www.cnet.com/science/tickets-issued-due-to-red-light... > The City is not authorized to delegate police power by entering into a contract that allows a private vendor to screen data and decide whether a violation has occurred before sending that data to a traffic infraction enforcement officer to use as the basis for authorizing a citation. This is generally how all of them work and that is why you go to civil court to fight a civil penalty if you appeal the ticket. That is a de facto kangaroo court when the consequence can overlap with drivers license revocation for a civil matter.
    • gruez 2y ago
      >This is generally how all of them work Source? At least in my jurisdiction they're reviewed by police officers. A recent story[1] about red light cameras work in a town in Florida also describes something similar. Moreover, while delegating ticket issuing powers to a private company might come with procedural issues and raise questions about impartiality, it's hardly enough reason to call it a "kangaroo court" if you're able to dispute it in court. That's the case for both my local jurisdiction and the florida town mentioned in the story. That's not to say that there aren't any red light camera kangaroo courts out there, or even that most of them aren't, but there's no reason why red light cameras are "kangaroo courts" in and of themselves. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40910776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40910776