Hattiesburg is about to make this move, so prepare appropriately. They'll also get you for a tag light being out.
OT: Traffic Ticket in the Mail
- Thread starter MSUDC11-2.0
- Start date
Gotcha. Yeah thats pretty awful to continue issuing tickets that cant be enforced.
That's twice in one week that we've agreed on something. You better get right folks. The end must be near.
Agree with the reasoning, but what ends up happening is the locality becomes desperate for that revenue and consistently tightens the window from a green to red light change. Towns have been caught at 1 second windows. Against it for that reason.
They have been caught altering that time and also it tickets people for making legal right turns on red even after a complete stop.
With no due process… you then cannot challenge a completely legal right on red turn.
It burns me up when they make the timing too short between green to yellow to red. It doesn’t give enough time for tractor trailers to stop safely.
My wife was sitting at a stop sign when a driver with the minimum insurance coverage (driving a old Mercury worth about 5K) hit her and another car. Did 10K worth of damage to our car and totaled an almost new Volvo. She did 70K worth of damage but her "insurance" only paid 25K . Both we and the owner of the Volvo fortunately had adequate coverage through our on insurance. The point is the 25K minimum in property damage is RIDICULOUSLY low.
Yeah that's also seriously 17ed up.
But that falls into the bucket of 'money grab' vs 'safety motivated' for reasoning.
Enforcing vehicle and driving laws for money grab motivations is unjustifiable regardless of it it's using cameras or using in person staff.
Update: was able to get the ticket dismissed but they claimed the VIN on file with the insurance company is one or two digits off from the VIN registered to the tag. Presumably a clerical error somewhere.
Still, insane to me that they are issuing tickets just like that.
Still, insane to me that they are issuing tickets just like that.
I don't have a problem with ticketing for red light violations, what I have a problem with is ticketing vehicles and not drivers, and placing the owner of a vehicle in a position to have to prove they were NOT driving, and also I have a problem with not being able to face your accuser in a court of law because a computer decided you violated it and somebody in Arizona rubber stamped it.
My question is, are they scanning EVERY SINGLE TAG that drives by these cameras? How did they specifically get you, @MSUDC11-2.0? Seems like an incredible workload unless it's all automated.
Not surprising that the Republicans are loving this. And again, I'm all for law and order. But this is a straight up tax on the poor and the stupid sector of the middle class (the ones who just pay without questioning). Not too dissimilar to gambling, except you choose to gamble. I guess you also choose to not buy insurance, but you also have to drive these days.
I'm conflicted on this one.
Not sure how it existed then, but if you cause an accident and are uninsured, think the statute blocks you from getting a license unless and until damages at least up to $25k are paid. Guessing this isn't really enforced, but it's there.
I’m sure it’s all automated. Florida & other states do the same thing with toll roads. Scan all tags, match up with a database of Express Pass holders, & mail an invoice to the rest.
All red herrings. You can confront the video in court if you choose. As for who’s driving, they could provide an affidavit for the owner & driver to sign transferring the ticket.
Man, it is crazy to see how differently some people think. This seems exactly backwards to me. Being on the road and carrying $25k in insurance is already grossly irresponsible. A "lucky" situation in a wreck is going to end up with you putting $10k to $25k loss onto other parties besides your insurance company. An unlucky situation will be you ruining somebody's life and then your insurance handling them a $25k and saying, "oops, my bad; have fun living off of disability and being a burden to your family and society for the rest of your life". It seems much more justifiable to try to force people to at least be minimally responsible on the road than it does to just pop people for routine traffic violations.
I'm not sure the potential (likelihood?) for abuse justifies either, but 72 in a 60 seems like nothing compared to driving without insurance or assets. If the speed cameras were for people going 20 or 25 miles over the speed limit, or going double the speed limit in residential areas, maybe that calculus would be different.
On one hand, I'm like, well, this gives incentive to uninsured drivers to stay out of your town. And it enforces the law. These are good things.
On the other hand, I'm sure they didn't tell anybody they were starting to do it. And the money-grubbing part is just bothersome. Not to mention some salesman making money off all the gullibles.
But after thinking about it, I can't really come up with any real points against it. Same with seatbelt laws. Those don't go on your record, I recently found out.
I have trouble coming up with an argument of why toll roads should be allowed to bill electronically but you can't check for insurance electronically. The only argument that I can come up with is that the toll roads aren't as extensive and you can avoid them, but that's obviously not a principled argument. At best it's an argument that you should have alternative routes to avoid cameras checking for tags (which I'm sure there are), and clearly mark which roads are subject to electronic surveilance before you get on them (which I'm sure they don't as of now).
I view it as a convenience to not have to stop and pall the toll. The electronic bill for the toll road is just billing you for the service you used (using the toll road).
probably not a surprise, but im not following your thinking.
Is it? For someone driving responsibly on low risk roads, i really dont think so. For someone speeding on highways and running red lights, absolutely.
fender benders are a bit less, but concur.
Well, true "accidents" are not something where you really owe the other party. The responsibility for that lies with themselves, with what risks they took on and what insurance they carried for themselves.
Driving against the rules is not an accident. Speeding leads inevitably to unnecessary accidents, no matter how most people justify it to themselves that they are special and different and thus it shouldn't apply to them. Literally 99% of all drivers believe they are above average drivers.
All intentional, dangerous driving violations should be treated more seriously. Driving without insurance while not violating any traffic rules is far less a burden on society.
I probably typed too many words and made it worse rather than clearer.
I agree with you that carrying low of insurance coverage is irresponsible. In general, I support efforts to increase responsibility when driving, and legitimate insurance coverage being one such effort sounds good.
I just dont think a $315 ticket will get many people closer to carrying legitimate amounts of auto insurance when a major reason for not carrying insurance at all or a minimal amount, is the person not being able to afford the cost. Paying a $315 ticket will put many of them that much further away from allocating money to insurance.
As for the speed camera- the specific area I mentioned is high traffic, has many on ramps and off ramps in a short distance, and has a couple of slight curves. Encouraging/expecting safe speeds in that sort of scenario seems reasonable. I drive that section probably 10 times a week and view it as safe and largely free of dangerous drivers as well as accidents. If people could go 25mph over the limit in that section, I am confident there would be a significant increase in crashes due to the number of exchange ramps and road curves.
I fully agree that it is far worse to drive without insurance than it is to drive 72 in a 60. I dont think I said otherwise, and definitely didnt intend to make it seem like I think going 12 over on an interstate is worse than driving without insurance.
I don't know what you mean by low risk roads. I know of two roads I drive regularly where I constantly see wrecks that I would consider low risk if it weren't for the wrecks I see on it. I still don't know how in the hell so many people get in wrecks there unless it's by texting and driving or otherwise distracted driving. And I don't know how you can really get around without using roads like that, unless you are sticking to basically one neighborhood.
There are very few two car accidents that don't involve people driving against the rules. It happens (blow outs, swerving to avoid wildlife that suddenly appear, etc), but that's by far the minority from what I can tell. And you can't just say "I'm not going to ever drive against the rules". I have never been in an accident, but I'm not foolish enough to think that it's because I've never made any mistakes or broken any traffic rules. I've probably helped my odds by being attentive and generally driving responsibly, but certainly it is still luck that no mistake I have ever made has caused an accident.
Again, ignoring that you can't just decide "I'm not going to violate any traffic rules", I doubt the type of people going around uninsured are generally the type of people to be safe and diligent drivers. Judging from the wrecks I have had to deal with, certainly it's not rare for uninsured drivers to cause wrecks. Be interesting if there was a HWY Patrolman or other LEO that could weigh in with their experience. Hell from my personal experience, I'm not sure I've ever had to deal with a wreck that was caused by somebody that was adequately insured. Obviously that's not a representative sample, but it seems like damn near every case involves somebody that is uninsured or carries $25k.
I was going to say, one of the great inventions of our time. Don't be challenging that. I get pissed when I have to dig around for money (some times hope I have some) and wait in line on other toll roads. As for insurance checks and other "e-surveillance" not sure what to think but that's another on my list of things I've stopped worrying about.
people in back seats become projectiles and can crush front seat occupants as well. In my car, seatbelts.
Actually, LPRs integrated with RTCC can do a lot to catch criminals and help solve crime.
You didn't do either. Me saying "the way people think" was actually not really what I intended. Probably should have used how different values change their takeaways from the same facts.
To the extent we were both thinking of it as "this is at least a somewhat distasteful overreach by government and a step closer towards a surveillance state," it just jumped out at me that you were ok with it for routine traffic enforcement but not for ensuring people were being responsible with carrying insurance for a relatively high risk behavior and I was the opposite.
Traffic cams for ticketing is some commie BS! I'm all for camera usage for real crimes but this other is BS. It's going to fix a damn problem other than paying bills for a city.
On the contrary, I think the single most bipartisan effort I've ever seen in the Mississippi state legislature was the push to outlaw speed and red light cameras in Mississippi. People who otherwise don't agree on anything were holding hands on that deal.
Fair, but I'm sort of speaking in the sense of the criminal code. Negligence or reckless behavior isn't an accident. Mistakes are accidents. Speeding is negligent or reckless, running a red light same, etc.
So, if someone is in an accident due to negligence or reckless driving (without the too-high bar usually employed these days) and did not have insurance, the penalty should he higher than if they were driving fine. Probably problematic to implement, I will concede.
All the more reason to implement increased penalties for rule-breaking drivers without insurance. Put some fear in em.
I dream of google-glass type windshields with heads up displays that tag bad drivers and report them to LE immediately, paired with automatic monitoring of roads that essentially eliminates speeding. The latter is very doable today. It's coming.
If you have that much technology you will have self driving cars. that eliminates speeding and bad driving. your social credit score might limit your travel though.
I’m not paying a damn ticket that gets mailed to me. I may be in court with a suspended license one day but so be it. Im betting most if not all of these are unenforceable and I will take my chances. I’m not doing it. I have insurance. I drive slower than most. Kiss my a$$.
I put them in the file with the few msu parking tickets I have gotten on my return trips since I graduated 25 years ago. Laugh and toss.
I put them in the file with the few msu parking tickets I have gotten on my return trips since I graduated 25 years ago. Laugh and toss.
No way a camera can tell who is driving, etc. If you have liability insurance, I take it that you are covered. (have auto insurance)
You could be driving granny's jalopy for some reason, but you would get the ticket? The liability is still covered.
The nuisance of this situation is not reasonable.
One vote....NO.
You could be driving granny's jalopy for some reason, but you would get the ticket? The liability is still covered.
The nuisance of this situation is not reasonable.
One vote....NO.
No, you won't. They won't be good enough for that in our lifetimes. Unless you like random sudden stops for things you don't even see because they're not actually there. That's the only way they can "work".
Precisely. Hey, if you’re gonna kill yourself, have at it. But do it slowly, so as many people as possible can continue to profit off your general needs and decisions.
Running red lights is certainly a safety issue….for someone. Is that someone you, even though its your vehicle? Maybe, maybe not. Could be your spouse. Could be your child or a family friend borrowing your car. Could be someone who stole your car. Could be the guy that bought your car from you and didn’t change the tag or re-register the vehicle. That’s why these tickets are totally unenforceable.
That’s not even to get into the fact that after installing these systems, cities have been caught actively reducing the yellow light durations on lights with these cameras and then increasing the red / green overlap time to compensate….because that’s what this really is everywhere. Nobody gives a flying 17 about public safety here. It’s a cash grab, pure and simple. Just like its a cash grab when an actual officer pulls you over because your front tires were still on the white line when the light went from yellow to red. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t gotten a ticket of any kind in 10+ years (knock on wood).
If you ever get a camera traffic ticket in the mail, anywhere, for any reason, at fault or not, don’t ever pay it. Call an attorney or the issuing authority directly if it gives you peace of mind, but don’t pay it. It’s complete nonsense and any municipality nationwide that’s ever had a sufficient challenge to the legality has had to stop using them.
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