Texas: Red Light Camera Tickets a Man Running a Green Light

The Newspaper
by The Newspaper

Cities that use automated ticketing machines at intersections routinely assert two things: The camera does not lie, and at least three humans review each citation before it is dropped in the mail. That did not happen in Port Lavaca, Texas. On September 12, Port Lavaca Police Sergeant Kelly Flood signed a ticket accusing Dale Price of running a red light and demanding he pay $75 by October 12, but the light was green.

“Based upon my review and inspection of the recorded images, I state that a violation of ordinance did occur,” the ticket stated just above Flood’s signature. “I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the state of Texas the foregoing is true and correct.”

On September 6 at 12:04pm, Price drove his grey 2009 GMC pickup through the intersection of US 35 and Travis Street. He was making a left-hand turn, with turn signal active, at 17 MPH. According to the red light camera, the light had been red for more than a minute. According to the photographs ( view first photo, view second photo), and the video evidence, the light remained green throughout his turn. After being notified of the citation, local officials scrambled to order Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company in charge of the program, to cancel the ticket ( view ticket). That is not good enough for Port Lavaca Citizens Against Red Light Cameras, a group working on a petition that would allow voters to decide the camera program’s future.

“This is one of the reasons that we’d want to shut down the program,” group co-founder Dwayne Buehring told The Newspaper. “We don’t know how many people have paid tickets without looking at the video. Because of the scare tactics they use, some people are just going to pay. This cop down there is just mailing them out to everyone.”

The group is looking to collect the 200 signatures needed to place a ban on red light cameras before voters. Earlier this year, the group succeeded in gathering those signatures, but the city cited the court case in Houston as a reason not to place the measure on the ballot. With a new petition, activists are say the law is now firmly on their side. They cite the very ruling of federal Judge Lynn Hughes that attempted to save Houston’s red light cameras as a reason why the Port Lavaca vote must proceed ( view ruling).

“Clearly the city was in error when they rejected placing our petition on the ballot,” Carl Baugh and Dwayne Buehring wrote in a June 20 letter to the city council. “The case you were waiting on for vindication of denying a vote has not gone your way. While the judge did rule that Houston was in error for placing the issue on the ballot it was merely because it was untimely as Houston has a thirty-day limit on referendums. The Port Lavaca charter has no such restriction. By your own statements as well as your ministerial duty to the citizens of Port Lavaca you have an obligation to immediately proceed with the process to place our petition on the next legal election.”

Buehring, who recently moved to Houston, is still helping to collect signatures.

“We know the 500 people who signed it last time, we just have to go see them,” he said.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

The Newspaper
The Newspaper

More by The Newspaper

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 12 comments
  • VanillaDude VanillaDude on Sep 26, 2011

    We must remember that machines do not replace humans. We have been growing accustomed to believing machines over people and this is simply not right. Using a machine to override a person's humanity is unethical. There is a reason we have had legal procedures over the past few hundred years that tell us we should be prosecuted, defended and judged by our peers. That means we have the legal right to be heard as a human being by human beings. Had that not been forgotten, this would not have happened.

  • Jcwconsult Jcwconsult on Sep 27, 2011

    1) Sergeant Kelly Flood should be disciplined and permanently removed for cause from the group of officers who review camera tickets. This was either incompetence or fraud and neither is acceptable. 2) Every ticket certified by Sergeant Flood in the past should be reviewed for accuracy by upper management officers and all other improper tickets should be refunded along with hand signed letters of apology. 3) All records of improper tickets should be expunged. 4) Redflex should be required to review every ticket issued by the person(s) who forwarded the citation issued to Dale Price, with city observers present in the review to search for other errors by the incompetent or fraudulent actions of the Redflex person(s). 5) The Redflex person(s) responsible should be permanently removed for cause from the group authorized to review videos, as neither incompetence or fraud is acceptable. 6) Citizens should demand the system be shut down permanently. Red light cameras are a revenue system, NOT a safety system. The science is on our website. James C. Walker, National Motorists Association, www.motorists.org, Ann Arbor, MI (frequent visitor to Texas for extended stays)

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
Next