3/9/2026 at 8:01:34 PM
After reading the 21 page order, I do tend to agree with the judgeThe judge frames the red light camera scheme as a revenue generating scheme, not a public safety measure.
Additionally, "A distinctive feature of the statutory scheme is its assignment of guilt to the registered owner rather than the driver of the vehicle". and "If there are multiple registered owners, the citation is issued to the 'first' registered 'owner'". and the person whom the citation was issued to must sign an affidavit that includes the name, address, dob, of the person who was actually driving. The judge says this "...abandon(s) centuries time honored protections of hearsay as substantive evidence.".
"It is a foundational rule of constitutional due process that the government must prove every fact necessary to constitute an offense beyond a reasonable doubt before a person may be adjudicated guilty of a crime".
"Although nominally civil, traffic infraction proceedings retain every substantive hallmark of criminal prosecution..." "under Feiock, such proceedings are sufficiently criminal in form and function to invoke the full protections of due process..." - that's probably the core of the reasoning here.
"Section 316.074(1) provides in relevant part that "The driver of any vehicle shall obey..."" - the driver, not the registered owner.
I highly recommend reading the order. It's easy to follow and aligns with my understanding of the law within the USA.
by fusslo
3/9/2026 at 8:39:47 PM
California's new speed camera pilot (AB 645) explicitly solves for this.Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.
Hopefully other states can follow this pattern. Consistent, low-impact enforcement is better at preventing unwanted behavior than the rare and severe but also capricious enforcement performed by human police.
by hamdingers
3/9/2026 at 9:21:31 PM
Consistent, low-impact enforcement is better at preventing unwanted behavior than the rare and severe but also capricious enforcement performed by human police.It can also give permission for unwanted behavior. Cf. the Haifa study, where the rate of late pickups increased when daycares added a fine. One explanation is the fine turned a complex moral obligation into an ordinary financial transaction.
by sowbug
3/9/2026 at 9:44:20 PM
The Haifa daycare study can’t be used to extrapolate much.They fined parents (IIRC) ~$3 per late pickup. Rerun the study with a $300 fine and let’s see how it pans out. It’s an interesting finding, but that then people take it to mean that fines don’t work (no matter their size) is insane.
by jaredklewis
3/9/2026 at 9:54:02 PM
I worked in childcare about 20 years ago, and we charged $1 per minute late.We had to keep two staff there, and they would split the fine.
Many times we got stiffed.
Edit: for reference, our fee was about $14/day to keep the kid, so it was a pretty stiff penalty.
by sejje
3/10/2026 at 2:24:37 AM
Well, If the staff got stiffed on the fee "many times", and the parents were allowed to bring their kid back.. the place didn't charge $1 per minute late. They just bluffed and got called on it.(apologies for the immediate edit, changed my wording)
by mh-
3/10/2026 at 7:00:07 PM
In some cases they weren't allowed back, but it was rare. Most people paid up when the director got involved.by sejje
3/10/2026 at 2:30:27 AM
> Many times we got stiffed.I understand that you could not keep the child till you were paid (kidnapping and ransom shouldn't be a business plan!), but you could refuse them future service until they paid.
by brigandish
3/10/2026 at 7:01:36 PM
I couldn't, as a staffer--but yes, the organization could, and they did a couple of times that I know of.One person had a $180 fine (half of that was mine) and they were asked not to come back when they refused to pay it.
Smaller amounts were ignored.
by sejje
3/10/2026 at 1:15:17 PM
How's that a "penalty"? It's more of a proper invoice for the costs that arised?!I had a situation twice were I was late. Didn't have to pay, but would have without hesitation. Doesn't matter the cause.
by GuestFAUniverse
3/9/2026 at 10:31:04 PM
My daycare fines parents $5 _per minute_ of lateness.by vrosas
3/10/2026 at 6:09:28 AM
Three hundred dollars per hour? How is that acceptable? Certainly there's some sort of maximum or grace period?by pants2
3/10/2026 at 1:08:43 PM
The nursery has clear times that it is "open". I must drop off my child between A and B O'clock in the morning, and I must collect them between X and Y O'clock in the afternoon. Like a shop - they are allowed to have opening hours.The issue is that they can't just close when they want if there's a child still there. So they have to have some way of enforcing these rules on parents. A "per minute" fine seems appropriate, so that it's more the later you are. And you need the fine to be enough that it is punitive enough, when considered against the income of your parents. Otherwise it provides no incentive. Ours is not $300 (more like $30), but it seems fair.
by rkangel
3/10/2026 at 12:41:18 PM
That's largely in line with unplanned or off-hours work for many professionals in the area of a city. If you want for example, plumbing done after normal business hours $300 per hour is a typical rate. In at least one case I paid $50 just to get a supply shop to open their doors after hours to get the needed parts to repair my own home.by sidewndr46
3/10/2026 at 5:01:28 PM
It sounds like a great policy. Good news is that you can choose to be on time or pay the penalty or choose another provider who hasn't decided to implement this...yet.I'm shocked by your question. I honestly would like to hear why you think this should not be acceptable. Why should they continue working overtime and cut into their own personal/family time because of the parent's failure?
by jms703
3/10/2026 at 6:23:34 AM
How much does it cost to keep the facility open for 1 minute? Power, staff, etc.And then there's the challenge of keeping people on staff at all when parents consistently make the staff work late.
Beyond that, it seems like a good way to achieve the objective of convincing parents to not offload externalities onto others by being late.
by ImPostingOnHN
3/10/2026 at 9:14:46 AM
How is being late acceptable?Let's say you have a job interview. You're 5min late, so they either don't hire you, or the receptionist says the interviewer is now not available. Are you now due the salary, because you being this late 5min cost you a lot of money?
If you in a private contract reject the terms of paying $5 per minute late, well then the other party now knows you plan to be late a lot, so they'll be glad if you take your business elsewhere.
Keeping people from being able to go home after their workday, effectively forced overtime, is incredibly disrespectful. And even if "it's not your fault", you are the only one that could have prevented it. So incentives should be in place that you don't. $5 per minute sounds fair.
If you force me to stay late for a full hour you'd BETTER pay me triple digits. But in this case the $300 for an hour may have to be shared among several people.
by knorker
3/10/2026 at 1:24:32 PM
It's too late to edit my other comment, but it's shocking to me how the people downvoting that comment can have such a lack of empathy and respect for people working in daycare.I can't understand how one can treat people like servants, forcing them into unpaid overtime, to wait until I'm good and ready to show up. And to be upset and call it "unacceptable" to compensate people when you mistreat them.
by knorker
3/10/2026 at 9:51:32 AM
[dead]by jdjfnfndn
3/10/2026 at 4:23:56 AM
The problem with any and all fees is that they go up as soon as the business notices simple patterns.by saltyoldman
3/10/2026 at 4:36:57 AM
How is that a problem with “all fees” if the explicit intention is to limit a behavior that most people say we should somehow reduce?by no-name-here
3/9/2026 at 10:39:48 PM
A $3 fine is a good portion of someone's disposable income and a $300 fine is not much of someone else's.. A civil penalty of that nature almost guarantees some part of the population will view it like the $3 fee.by jakobobobo
3/9/2026 at 10:47:38 PM
This is exactly why license points (leading to suspension) are better than fines.If the ticketing decision made by an automated camera system is deemed acceptable when issuing mere fines akin to parking tickets, but deemed unacceptable when issuing other penalties (which don't have this wealth inequity issue we are discussing now, at least not exclusively), that's effectively a poor tax.
by hunter2_
3/10/2026 at 3:53:09 AM
More broadly, I think it's important to distinguish (more than we do) what aspect of justice a fine is supposed to be for, particularly between restorative versus punitive. The first is what it costs to fix measurable damage-done, the second is what we need to ensure the person cares to change their behavior.by Terr_
3/10/2026 at 3:50:06 PM
This is exactly why in some countries traffic fines are proportional to income.by cestith
3/10/2026 at 3:52:35 AM
The government operating automatic camera citation systems, almost never is interested in improving safety or even minimizing undesirable behavior- often the placement of such cameras is done to maximize revenue (as when red light cameras are placed at long-cycle-time intersections vs intersections with a history of accidents). And it’s been documented that some cities have reduced yellow light times (which almost always leads to more citations) rather than increasing yellow light times (which usually leads to fewer people running the yellow, because people are less likely to take a chance after the light has been yellow a long time).There’s a lot of compelling evidence that these systems are just revenue machines.
by efitz
3/10/2026 at 1:29:28 AM
I don't like paltry sums like this. $300 is a significant financial impact to someone who's barely making ends meet, and absolutely nothing at all to a billionaire. "If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the poor."Make it a tiny % of net worth, with a modest minimum and watch EVERYONE obey. Or at least something meaningful to everyone, or don't make it a fine. Use some other carrot or stick.
by unselect5917
3/10/2026 at 6:48:47 AM
> I don't like paltry sums like this. $300 is a significant financial impact to someone who's barely making ends meet, and absolutely nothing at all to a billionaire.One thing about daycares is that you will essentially never find "someone who's barely making ends meet" and "a billionaire" with kids at the same daycare, so a surcharge for out-of-normal-expectations service does not need to be designed to address both cases.
(In fact, you'll probably not find a billionaire with kids at any daycare, their hired childcare workers won't be shared with other people, and will probably be adequately compensated up front in a way which anticipates a fair degree of schedule variability.)
OTOH, with red light cameras, you also don't need to scale the fine to work with both, because the entire purpose is to bind the lower classes while exempting the upper from any substantial burden. (The least cynical explanation is that it is to discourage behavior which might incur liability grossly exceeding the mandatory level of insurance company by those least able to cover the cost of that liability, thereby avoiding uncompensated harms, but the realistic explanation is...not so generous.)
by dragonwriter
3/10/2026 at 12:29:21 PM
> In fact, you'll probably not find a billionaire with kids at any daycareI grew up with the children of a multi-billionaire. His kids went to the same daycare as I did, and it wasn’t particularly fancy.
Some ultra-wealthy people live fairly normal-looking lives.
by trogdor
3/10/2026 at 5:16:20 PM
Something I heard from someone who worked at the Palo Alto Apple Store two decades ago:Steve Jobs's kids drew on an eMac with markers or something. He made them make an appoint for the store's Genius Bar and wait in line to have it looked at like everyone else. I don't know anything about how the staff tried to clean it or the outcome.
by alsetmusic
3/10/2026 at 5:22:13 AM
X% of net worth is still a bigger deal to someone with a net worth of $20 than to someone with a net worth of $20M, even though the latter may get some sticker shock. And it's possible (if rare) to have a reasonably middle-class lifestyle and an actually negative net worth. Presumably you would not make it possible to pay off student loans by repeatedly violating a red light, although it would be very funny.by kingofmen
3/10/2026 at 8:30:12 AM
You’d be surprised at the numbers of people living middle-class lifestyles with negative net worth. Credit card debt, car loans (with a too-small down payment, a car purchase can easily cause one’s net worth to decline the second you take delivery on the car), underwater mortgages, not to mention student loans.by dhosek
3/10/2026 at 6:18:56 AM
> Presumably you would not make it possible to pay off student loans by repeatedly violating a red lightI lack the context and knowledge to understand how this would work, but I am curious (enough to ask but not enough to google it, admittedly).
by rkomorn
3/10/2026 at 7:27:51 AM
The joke being that if your net worth is negative the fine will be negative.by fc417fc802
3/10/2026 at 8:52:26 AM
Man, I missed that by a mile. Thanks. :Dby rkomorn
3/10/2026 at 6:37:23 AM
[dead]by 5o1ecist
3/10/2026 at 2:00:32 AM
But that makes wildly different incentives to enforce, depending on the target. We all know this stuff is all about revenue enhancement, and in that capacity, the targets will become the whales.by CWuestefeld
3/10/2026 at 2:56:37 AM
Automated enforcement where fines are anchored to the KBB value of the car is The WayEnlightenment and utopia across that simple bridge
by estearum
3/10/2026 at 6:12:28 AM
Or how about the curb weight of the car? Higher mass means you're doing a lot more damage in an accident. People might think twice about buying an F250 for their grocery getter.by pants2
3/10/2026 at 12:30:27 PM
I'm fine with that as the tax basis but for penalties, this doesn't actually track with what's needed to produce deterrent at every income levelby estearum
3/10/2026 at 3:28:13 AM
Devil's advocate: billionaire driving a beater (I'm not a billionaire, but I drive a beater)by unselect5917
3/10/2026 at 4:26:22 AM
Good for them. I’m willing to let them off easy to incentivize lower cost cars in general.by lazyasciiart
3/10/2026 at 12:31:04 PM
I am 100% fine with them "sneaking under the radar." Own goal.by estearum
3/10/2026 at 6:44:05 PM
[dead]by wetpaws
3/9/2026 at 10:30:31 PM
I mean as a much greater "study", look at the UK - government introduced fines for parents of kids missing school, and the rate of absenced increased - because parents see it more as a cost that you just have to pay to go on holiday during school year.by gambiting
3/9/2026 at 11:28:06 PM
I get your point, but I doubt the fine could have been ethically higher. Domino's drivers killed dozens of people in speed-related accidents before they ended their 30-minute guarantee.I don't think our society is ready for the combination of automatic enforcement and truly punitive penalties. We readily demonize the accused; just having your mugshot taken can end your employability. Yet many of us break laws daily -- speeding, jaywalking, watering the lawn during the day, even plugging in a microwave oven without a building permit in some jurisdictions -- and society still works because we don't expect much enforcement. We are heading toward a future where everyone will have marks on their permanent record, but today our society tut-tuts, or much worse, at anyone who does.
by sowbug
3/10/2026 at 1:07:47 AM
It is understandable that someone who only lived in the United States or a low-enforcement place would have this world view. I'm more sanguine about the trajectory of our society.Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, etc, have well-enforced traffic laws. Speeding is the exception rather than the rule, unlike the United States, where one can expect the flow of traffic to be 10-20 miles per hour over the posted limit. Yet these societies don't suffer from an excess of enforcement or consequences in other areas. For example, it is legal to walk around in public with a bottle of beer in virtually all of Europe.
What we have seen in the United States is a reduction of many hardly-enforced laws. Jaywalking and minor drug possession have been decriminalized in several US states. This is due to voter interest. It will continue to be up to the public to decide what do to when enforcement can catch up to excessive laws.
by linkregister
3/10/2026 at 1:43:43 AM
In the Netherlands fines are insane. If you pick up your garbage bin two hours too late from the street corner, you pay 210 euros. On the other side, if you sell drugs to kids and have a weapon, nobody touches you.Yes, you can sometimes walk around legally with a beer bottle here.
by pino999
3/10/2026 at 3:13:00 AM
That must depend on the town. I saw people hanging their trash bags on the trash poles several days early, no consequences.by linkregister
3/9/2026 at 11:59:02 PM
I don't think you did get my point (my fault perhaps), as my only point is that if you take away from the Haifa study that fines will automatically increase the prevalence the targeted behavior in all situations, that's an insane conclusion to draw. There are lots of variables at play: the size of the fine, how consistently and strictly it is enforced, the ability of the finer to collect the fine, the social context, and so on. The Haifa study examines none of these. It does does highlight an interesting phenomenon, but without further studies that control for these variables, I don't think we can just blindly assume that the outcome in the Haifa day cares will apply to all situations where a fine is levied.I see all the time on the Internet (and even IRL once) people make claims like, "oh, carbon taxes will just increase CO2 output, you know like in that Israeli daycare study." Drives me nuts.
Are fines the best possible solution to this particularly traffic problem? I have no idea. I'm not an expert in this area. But I am highly confident that whatever relation it has to the Haifa daycare study is so incredibly tenuous that it is not worth mentioning.
by jaredklewis
3/10/2026 at 12:18:39 AM
We might be talking past each other. Call Haifa a parable, if you will. I understand why you find fault with the study, but I invoked it to call out (quoting myself) that a fine can also give permission for unwanted behavior. That point adds to yours and doesn't contradict it.The reason I said anything in the first place is that I object to automatically administered punishment. Either separately can be OK. Automatically administered? No problem, that's called a tax (including use taxes like tolls). Punishment? Then we'd better have due process, and yeah, it's going to be expensive and labor-intensive to administer, but that's critical in a free country. That's why I called out the "is better than" quote. I think it's strictly worse.
by sowbug
3/10/2026 at 12:56:50 AM
https://thehustle.co/originals/the-failure-of-the-dominos-30..."Domino’s confirmed it knew of 20 people who died in crashes involving its drivers in 1988 (the National Safe Workplace Institute would later claim Domino’s delivery drivers had about the same death rate as miners, who had a fatality rate of ~35 per 100k)."
For that same period, the death rate per 100k of young drivers was 46 per 100k https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00044682.htm
And to compare truck drivers 27 per 100k: https://www.malmanlaw.com/malman-law-injury-blog/is-being-a-...
Is this a dominos problem, or a young drivers problem or...
by zer00eyz
3/9/2026 at 9:33:25 PM
Sure. Then the bill requires that all those fines you pay go towards street calming infrastructure, eventually making it physically impossible (or at least very uncomfortable) for you to continue speeding.Kind of like if enough parents paid the late pickup fee, eventually the daycare could afford a van for dropoffs.
by hamdingers
3/10/2026 at 12:21:38 AM
Don't make me say "roundabout."by sowbug
3/10/2026 at 1:14:35 AM
There are multiple well-researched and practical interventions that can be done to make driving safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. Implementation in the US is regularly scuttled by insane self-styled experts who "audacity" their way to public trust and influence, inexplicably.by underlipton
3/10/2026 at 3:57:56 AM
I've seen quite a few roundabout projects over the years that seemed to work out well... Although I really detest any that have multiple concentric lanes.by Terr_
3/9/2026 at 10:22:33 PM
It seems like this rarely happens. The fines become another stream of income, and reliance on that income kills any incentive to fully eliminate the behavior the fines are ostensibly meant to discourage.by senordevnyc
3/9/2026 at 10:33:47 PM
Given the many restrictions on how the income can be used in this bill, I find it unlikely that will apply here. Feel free to check back in at the end of the pilot.by hamdingers
3/10/2026 at 1:32:48 AM
Random thought: this also accurately describes the financialization of home ownership. It was supposed to provide stability in shelter, and instead created a market that's completely unaffordable to the prime home-buying generations, in favor of protecting those who've come to depend on unconscionable valuations.No one, gun to their head and hand on a Bible, should defend a status quo where the only way to afford a median house is to have twice the median income.
by underlipton
3/10/2026 at 11:14:17 AM
I grew up in Fremont, CA, which pioneered the use of red-light cameras and terrible red-light camera practices (e.g. shortening yellow light times to increase revenue and giving a cut of the fines to the companies installing cameras). I hated cameras, the idea of speed cameras felt like big brother, and the basic principal of attributing a violation to a car and not a person (and thus requiring a person to rat out the driver) felt like a huge civil rights issue.I then moved to Amsterdam and became the biggest fan of continuous, always-on ANPR speed cameras. On some freeways, your car is recorded at certain checkpoints and EVERYONE driving over the speed limit ALWAYS gets a fine.
Why? Because they are properly implemented (only high-risk areas), very well communicated (tons of signage), consistently applied (no crying your way out of a ticket, no racial profiling), purpose targeted (you get a speeding ticket, not a bunch of other fines at the whim of a cop), and correctly incentivized (ticket revenue does not immediately go to the local police or city).
by furyg3
3/10/2026 at 11:35:01 AM
The best thing about the average speed cameras is that between the checkpoints all cars drive at almost exactly the same speed. No one trying to overtake, just 5 lanes of traffic at 1km/h below the speed limitby tda
3/10/2026 at 4:01:06 PM
So the flow of traffic is actually better overall, rather than bunching up in one or two lanes while the fastest of the fast lane blows by?by cestith
3/10/2026 at 8:25:26 PM
I don't have a phrase to describe this concept. But it's when we blame one thing for a problem caused by another. Because placing the blame where is belongs is inconvenient.You create a transport system where you're mixing incompatible modes of transport and carnage is what you get. What I see is instead of placing the blame on that everyone wants to place the blame on someone anyone else based on whatever moral anxiety they have.
Consider some people are drunks, you create a system where they have to drive you get drunk drivers. Don't want a bar walking distance from your quiet suburban neighborhood, again drunk drivers. Zoning that separates businesses and stores from low density housing. Driving, accidents. Mix pedestrian, bicycle, bus and car traffic, you get carnage.
No one really wants to blame the system and spend money to fix it. So blaming other individuals is what we do.
by Gibbon1
3/9/2026 at 9:26:18 PM
As the great patio11 said:> Raise the prices. Then raise the prices. Then when you're done with that, raise the prices.
by gus_massa
3/9/2026 at 11:19:20 PM
Sure. Do it as an increasing-upon-recurrence, two part fee though.1st offence = base fee
2nd offence = base fee + minimal % of wealth fee
3rd offence = base fee + higher % of wealth fee
offences thereafter = goto 3rd offence until some breaking point condition like gaol/jail.
Otherwise the rich will happily pay to do whatever the hell they want.
by _carbyau_
3/10/2026 at 5:37:01 PM
I prefer an exponential grow, it simplifies the calculations a lot and even Elon is only a few exponents order away from us.by gus_massa
3/10/2026 at 2:00:47 AM
How about you prove your claim by providing some evidence that the richer you are the more speeding tickets you get. Otherwise you're solving for a problem that doesn’t exist.by buzzerbetrayed
3/10/2026 at 5:22:27 AM
I read the grandparent comment's point as being about suggesting %-based fines.> prove your claim by providing some evidence that the richer you are the more speeding tickets you get.
How/where did the grandparent comment claim that the rich get more speeding tickets? Even if the rich speed at a lower rate, would that make %-based fines a negative improvement?
> a problem that doesn’t exist
My assumption was the speeding is a problem no matter whether rich or poor, and that both exist. Is there disagreement there?
Instead, I think their point was that even a $100 fine for a poor person may impact their ability to pay for groceries, childcare, etc, whereas for someone who has $10 million, etc., even a $1,000 fine will not impact their ability to pay for groceries, childcare, etc as they still have $9,999,000.
by no-name-here
3/10/2026 at 5:26:24 AM
[dead]by cindyllm
3/10/2026 at 6:49:29 AM
Expensive cars tend to accelerate faster, and it can be vastly harder to feel the speed. It would be unsurprising if up until some limit there was a correlation between wealth and the frequency of getting speeding tickets.by JasonADrury
3/9/2026 at 11:52:24 PM
And then when you do that, get thrown out of office.by Spooky23
3/10/2026 at 11:31:01 AM
> One explanation is the fine turned a complex moral obligation into an ordinary financial transaction.Income proportional fines solve the problem. The fine should be a deterrent, but not create crippling debt. That is impossible without taking into account the income of the infractor.
by Frieren
3/10/2026 at 4:31:15 PM
Sounds like a great reason to keep all of your income in a corporation in a state with favorable privacy laws and then have very little on paper.by 15155
3/10/2026 at 4:36:06 PM
Tax evasion always looks like a good idea until a non-corrupt goverment gets elected and the tax office goes after you.by Frieren
3/10/2026 at 4:48:26 PM
This isn't legally "tax evasion", it's well-established law: corporations have some degree of personhood, and as a corporate officer, I am allowed to disburse payments to those in my employ as I deem fit. Individual states have very little authority to look into foreign (other state) corporations.Good luck contending with stare decisis and all of the implied interstate commerce issues to try and prevent this.
by 15155
3/10/2026 at 6:03:28 AM
> It can also give permission for unwanted behavior. Cf. the Haifa study, where the rate of late pickups increased when daycares added a fine. One explanation is the fine turned a complex moral obligation into an ordinary financial transaction.You know what they say: a fine makes something legal for an amount of money.
And for daycares, I think a lot of parents saw it just like that: a cheap way to keep the kid away from them for longer.
by ExoticPearTree
3/9/2026 at 9:40:07 PM
Haifa study result was only possible with small enough fines. Larger fines would solve that easily.by deepsun
3/10/2026 at 4:36:46 AM
Increase the punishment for repeat offenders, ultimately suspending their license.This is very common outside of the US, btw.
by maest
3/10/2026 at 2:07:13 AM
I don't see how that is viable when the fine for late pickup is $6/minute.by seanmcdirmid
3/9/2026 at 9:52:43 PM
Hopefully other states don't follow this pattern; I don't think the government should be installing surveillance arrays, even if it's "for the children" or public safety.Trading a little liberty for a little safety and all that.
by sejje
3/9/2026 at 9:57:58 PM
The problem is ever since COVID the cops don't do their job and everyone drives terribly.by Larrikin
3/9/2026 at 10:30:37 PM
Maybe it exists but I wish there was more heavy hitting articles/research on this. I feel like an absolute grumpy old man but it feels drastically different compared to my younger years driving and I am only 40. These days I rarely see police on the side of the road ticketing and when I do it’s usually on a highway. Never do I see people getting pulled over in city streets.My thesis has been an uptick on BS calls. Said differently the bad neighborhoods have gotten worse and funding for police is mismanaged.
by infecto
3/10/2026 at 12:09:04 AM
Absolutely. They shut down for COVID and never came back.A big part of traffic stops was to find weed and trade up for an arrest. With legalization, they’ve shifted to camera work, which has gotten even bigger with Flock.
by Spooky23
3/10/2026 at 4:47:25 PM
Does this NYT article satisfy? https://archive.is/6BzFcby hamdingers
3/9/2026 at 10:22:24 PM
I am constantly amazed at how many people blatantly run red lights now. It used to be that people would sometimes press their luck on a yellow a little bit, but now it'll be red for several seconds and people will still just drive right on through.I'd love if the police enforced this insanely dangerous behavior instead of trying to catch people going 10 over on the highway.
by SteveNuts
3/9/2026 at 11:07:06 PM
I see this a lot too here in Australia now, and yes it used to be pretty unusual but now I see it every day. I've sometimes wondered if it's just a frequency illusion but I'm sure it has got much worse, maybe since the COVID times?by stephen_g
3/10/2026 at 1:24:00 AM
It depends. Traffic lights are just mutexes. They are there to stop traffic so that other traffic may pass safely. There's no point if there aren't any other cars. Obviously anyone running a light on a busy intersection deserves to get fined but if you know the terrain, have good visibility into the road where the other traffic comes from and can clearly see there are no vehicles present, running the red light is utterly harmless.In my city, certain traffic lights literally turn off at night. There's not enough traffic flowing to justify them.
by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 1:40:36 AM
I can’t tell if you’re joking or seriously trying to justify running red lights.by SteveNuts
3/10/2026 at 2:08:58 AM
Use your eyes, your situational awareness and your best judgement. The traffic light is not god's word.In my neighborhood there used to be a traffic light that would be red for a long time despite not usefully regulating any traffic whatsoever. It stopped traffic despite the fact no other traffic could possibly conflict with it. People realized this and routinely ran that light with zero consequences. At some point the city realized it too and redesigned the traffic controls so that the light would be green in this situation.
by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 2:59:00 AM
Stop training yourself to run red lights before you kill some body.The correct action is to constantly bug your local representative to fix the problem, not break a law written in blood.
by Larrikin
3/10/2026 at 11:53:16 AM
I understand the desire to act holier than thou and pretend that going through a red light with no traffic is murder in the making, but the situation they advocate for (running when clear) is even written into law in some states (at least for motorcycles/bicycles). Some vehicles don't trigger the sensors and the lights never change, so you are allowed to go after a full stop. I would not be surprised in the least if there were some states where the wording of the law applied to cars as well.by AyyEye
3/10/2026 at 3:15:31 AM
The correct action is to understand why certain barriers were erected in your way before attempting to demolish them. If you don't understand, just respect the barrier. If you understand, you know if, when and under which conditions it can be safely bypassed. Use your judgement.Jaywalking laws were also written in blood. People break them every single day regardless because they have eyes and can look both ways to determine if it is safe to cross the street before actually doing it.
by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 3:55:15 AM
And yet, jaywalking pedestrians get killed daily, despite their best attempts at determining whether it's safe to cross. The problem with allowing drivers to use their best judgment as to whether it's safe to continue through a red light (after stopping) is that a non-zero percent of those drivers will fail to judge the situation correctly, especially during an edge case they rarely encounter.by kmoser
3/10/2026 at 5:07:26 AM
It's impossible to get hit by cars if there are no cars around you. Vehicles are not going to materialize out of nowhere and crash into you. They are going to be funneled into your path by the roads. If you look at the road and see zero traffic, then you cannot be hit by traffic. Even if you run a red light.Obviously, if you can't see the road where the cars will come from, then you cannot know if there are any cars coming towards you in a potentially intersecting trajectory.
by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 9:57:15 AM
> Vehicles are not going to materialize out of nowhere and crash into you.At 60kmh a vehicle travels 16 meters per second. In freedom units: at 37mph a vehicle travels 54 feet per second.
A vehicle will materialize out of nowhere and crash into you.
by troupo
3/10/2026 at 6:14:43 PM
In my city there are segments where I can see several kilometers ahead, including the traffic lights and their associated roads and traffic.If you can't understand the fact it's safe to run a red light when you can see the roads are clear for several kilometers ahead of you, then I simply don't know what else to say.
Even police does this while roaming about on patrol.
Honestly, these arguments sound like cartoon logic. Guy looks both ways and sees the roads are clear but on the exact second he starts to cross the street 10 cars materialize out of nowhere at 200 km/h and nearly run him over just to teach him a lesson. This isn't how the world works.
by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 11:46:14 AM
>A vehicle will materialize out of nowhere and crash into you.God I hate these sort of responsibility shirking opinions and their peddlers.
I do this several times a day in a major US city for close to a decade now and I've never had a close call closer than the "two people trying to pass each other in the hallway" routine with a driver trying to take a right on red.
Vehicles and everything else on this rock flying through space obey the same laws of physics.
If the traffic on a road goes X miles per hour, then simply don't cross it where you don't have a sufficiently long line of sight. If crossing where the lines of sight are sufficient is not tractable due to traffic volumes or road construction then cross at a marked crossing, intersection that interrupts traffic flow or use proper body language and someone will stop for you.
Sure, you might get exceptionally unlucky and choose to cross at the exact minute some car that's a few standard deviations above the norm but you might also get hit by lightening.
by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 2:07:16 PM
> I do this several times a day in a major US city for close to a decade now and II, I, I
> Vehicles and everything else on this rock flying through space obey the same laws of physics.
Yes. Yes they do.
That's why some countries (e.g. Sweden) actually have this in drivers ed: how fast a vehicle travels, how long it takes for the driver to react, what the stopping distance is for a vehicle etc.
They even teach things like "parked cars are a double problem because you can have people especially kids suddenly appear from behind them".
Or things like "at night you only see this far, and judging distance to things becomes harder".
But all that, including laws of physics, is invalidated by a litany of "I, I, mine, my, me".
by troupo
3/10/2026 at 6:25:16 PM
Obviously. Don't take risks near pedestrians, near schools, near parked cars. Don't make assumptions in low visibility conditions where you can't actually see what's ahead of you. Use your judgement.by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 3:59:19 PM
I'm not special. I'm fairly normal. Hundreds of millions of people manage to walk and drive as uneventfully as I do. The presence of some few number of people who can't manage to jaywalk decently and not run reds when it matters doesn't justify saddling the literal entire rest of society with some automotive flavor of 1984 anymore than some small number people robbing convenience stores to pay for their drug addiction justifies subjecting all of society to pervasive surveillance and the war on drugs fueled police state.by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 4:19:16 PM
I couldn't parse your demagoguery, bad analogies and non-sequiturs, and I don't want to.Adieu.
by troupo
3/9/2026 at 10:20:49 PM
I have noticed a severe uptick in bad semi-truck drivers on the interstate since COVID, I'll agree at least with that part.The local cops here have always just run plates for stolen vehicles. Getting a ticket is almost unheard of. I don't know what their deal is, but you can speed right past them in the other lane, or if they're just parked on the corner.
I'm guessing you still can't pass them on a two-lane road without poking their ego.
by sejje
3/10/2026 at 1:20:33 AM
That has more to do with CDL mills out there cranking out minimally qualified drivers.by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 4:09:50 AM
Pre, post and during COVID, you rarely see someone pulled over for running a red because you rarely see it happen. When you do, a cop it is even more rare to be present. These rare events stick out, yes.Depending on the situation, it might be dangerous for a cop to also run a red to give chase, so consider it might be their job to let it go.
by dfxm12
3/9/2026 at 11:27:07 PM
I’m not sure if it was COVID or the social movements around the same time like defund the police. Here in Seattle when defunding the police was suggested the police department threatened to close the precinct in a large residential area. Basically they attempted to extort the voters. I think the police have realized that crime is good for them because the more of it voters see the more they think police are needed.by mulmen
3/9/2026 at 11:56:29 PM
Which leads to the extreme—maximal crime leads to maximum police budgets!by hrimfaxi
3/10/2026 at 12:12:00 AM
There’s no upper bound for either of those things.by mulmen
3/10/2026 at 12:41:35 AM
I don't disagree. When the state runs out of enemies it manufactures more.by hrimfaxi
3/10/2026 at 2:22:26 AM
Vilify them, defund them, restrict them, reduce the number of officers to the lowest level in 30 years, and then when crime increases in the next few years .. was it maybe because of everything that was just done? No, that's not it, it's a grand conspiracy across every police officer in Seattle who coordinated/decided to be evil together and intentionally let crime spread. Yup, that all checks out.by thegrim33
3/10/2026 at 4:29:29 AM
Ok so now that crime is lower can we blame them?by lazyasciiart
3/10/2026 at 7:11:11 AM
I wasn't inviting another tired relitigation of the defund movement, only observing the apparent origin of police caring even less about crime.by mulmen
3/9/2026 at 10:18:27 PM
Cameras aren't going to solve that.The "problem" being solved with cameras is "cops aren't generating enough traffic ticket revenue"
by estimator7292
3/9/2026 at 10:31:34 PM
Would it not? I actually don’t think I would mind speeding cameras and the like. Put a camera on every street and auto ticket every car.by infecto
3/10/2026 at 12:10:48 AM
My city does it. It sucks ass. It’s a 70% vendor / 30% city revenue share and people avoid the city and use side streets to avoid the main avenues.by Spooky23
3/10/2026 at 4:51:07 AM
Are the speed limits set unreasonably low? Otherwise one could always try abiding to the speed limit.by BenjiWiebe
3/10/2026 at 5:14:00 AM
Most US cities have lower posted speeds than average drivers’ perception of safe speeds.by 1123581321
3/10/2026 at 6:52:38 AM
Oftentimes comically lower. I remember in Chicago the interstates having posted speed limits of 45mph... the average flow of traffic outside of rush hour was easily north of 70mph.Looking even at normal arterial streets, many streets in Seattle are marked 25, but you'd be hard-pressed to find even a cop going under 30 most of the time.
I truly don't understand US road design. The construction of the road and the posted speed limit almost never are even gently correlated other than on a few select residential side streets in a few select cities who have rebuilt streets based on safety studies.
by klardotsh
3/10/2026 at 12:09:25 PM
> I remember in Chicago the interstates having posted speed limits of 45mph... the average flow of traffic outside of rush hour was easily north of 70mph.
> 45 mph (72 km/h) in downtown Chicago, where all the major interstates merge
That seems pretty reasonable. I've seen a few places in the US where several major interstates merge and the post speed limit is quite low -- 45-55 mph.
by throwaway2037
3/9/2026 at 9:59:01 PM
These cameras are by definition still cameras triggered by radar or laser systems, they're inactive unless a speeding vehicle is present. Hardly the surveillance array you're imagining.by hamdingers
3/10/2026 at 12:12:42 AM
Noooo. Most cameras retain 30 days of video. That allows officers to review the violation.These camera systems have always been about surveillance. Flock adds the Silicon Valley software process, while the older tech is “law enforcement tech”.
by Spooky23
3/10/2026 at 1:23:56 AM
This. You say "but we're gonna catch people who speed" or "terrorists" or something like that and all the people who would be against your surveillance suddenly can't get enough of it.by cucumber3732842
3/9/2026 at 10:17:30 PM
Well, they're putting up the flock cameras, too. We have four in a local small town.But I'm guessing you are only correct sometimes. I bet some of them can be live-viewed, or track license plates.
by sejje
3/9/2026 at 11:15:28 PM
That's ridiculous, a radar that snaps a photo when a car goes over the speed limit is not, by any conceivable definition, a surveillance array.There are real surveillance arrays, please worry about those instead.
by andrepd
3/10/2026 at 1:31:45 AM
It absolutely is a surveillance array. It is trivial to record the time and license plates of every vehicle captured by the camera and fully map out their movements.by matheusmoreira
3/10/2026 at 11:22:58 AM
The government is already doing this using your phone.by DiogenesKynikos
3/10/2026 at 1:00:18 PM
Which proves that if they can, they will. So there’s no reason to give them more ways to do it.by pirates
3/10/2026 at 6:16:19 PM
The reason is that it increases traffic safety.It's even possible to set the cameras up in such a way that they only store data when a traffic violation occurs. That would address the surveillance issue.
I have a strong sense that the primary objection people have to red light cameras is that they don't like getting caught running red lights, and that the surveillance argument is a rationalization, not the real objection.
by DiogenesKynikos
3/10/2026 at 6:56:45 PM
Automated traffic law enforcement is surveillance. The fact it's limited in scope and functionality doesn't matter. It's still surveillance.All surveillance increases safety. The cost is freedom.
Do you trust humans with the ability to judge the situation and the freedom to decide to run a red light if they think it's safe? Or do you surveil every intersection and punish all infractions regardless of conditions or the existence of actual victims?
For people like me, it's a matter of basic human dignity. I want to be a human with the capacity for judgement and the power to act on it. I want to decide for myself. I want to live in a society that recognizes this. I won't sacrifice this dignity in the name of safety.
by matheusmoreira
3/11/2026 at 2:48:35 AM
> Do you trust humans with the ability to judge the situation and the freedom to decide to run a red light if they think it's safe?Absolutely not.
> For people like me, it's a matter of basic human dignity. I want to be a human with the capacity for judgement and the power to act on it.
Your human dignity does not require you to be able to run red lights when you think it's okay.
This is libertarian ideology taken to the extreme.
by DiogenesKynikos
3/9/2026 at 9:56:17 PM
Is only said by those days intending to provide neither?Is said in place of using actual arguments or evidence?
by XorNot
3/10/2026 at 2:59:03 AM
But AB 645 is designed to punish and deter rather than compensate, which creates a genuine constitutional vulnerability under California's Article I, Section 16 jury trial guarantee.The structural problem is that revenue goes to program costs and traffic calming, not to anyone harmed by speeding, which makes the fines punitive in character under any substance-over-label analysis.
The lack of DMV points and criminal record weakens the argument somewhat, but under California's substance-over-label approach those omissions aren't dispositive. They merely show the legislature knew how to stay on the civil side of the line, not necessarily that it succeeded.
If a court finds the penalties punitive in character, the owner-liability structure becomes a compounding problem: California's state due process protections are arguably more robust than federal, and imposing a punitive fine on a registered owner without proof they were driving, while burden-shifting exculpation to them looks increasingly difficult to sustain.
by sjtgraham
3/10/2026 at 3:48:41 AM
Everything you've said applies to parking tickets too. You can't prove that the owner parked the vehicle.Tha owner is ultimately civily liable if the vehicle is parked in a way that it shouldn't be. Extending that same civil liability to the active operation, as opposed to only the consequences of active operation, seems perfectly reasonable.
by joshuamorton
3/10/2026 at 8:31:29 AM
The key difference is a parking ticket isn't $500.by sjtgraham
3/10/2026 at 4:30:32 PM
The mentioned fines are $1-200, which is in the same range as parking tickets.I think the best argument is that license points are criminal in nature, but I don't really buy that.
by joshuamorton
3/10/2026 at 8:02:20 PM
And in fact the law at issue doesn't even assign points.by joshuamorton
3/10/2026 at 12:40:19 PM
> Tha owner is ultimately civily liable if the vehicle is parked in a way that it shouldn't be. Extending that same civil liability to the active operation, as opposed to only the consequences of active operation, seems perfectly reasonable.As this judgement reveals, such a suggestion is patently unreasonable, for the reasons listed in the judgement
by ImPostingOnHN
3/10/2026 at 8:01:47 PM
Having read the order, it doesn't really justify the central claim, that these are criminal, and in my opinion a lot of the context cuts against that (the liability being only a fine and some other things).by joshuamorton
3/10/2026 at 11:27:18 PM
That is a fair view to hold as a prior. Indeed, the judge took that context into account when judging that it was a criminal matter. Other states which do things differently might have received a different judgement based on their own context.by ImPostingOnHN
3/10/2026 at 11:45:23 AM
> can't impact your driving privilegeUnlike improper parking, running red lights should impact said privilege as potential consequences are way more serious.
by abcd_f
3/10/2026 at 12:00:02 PM
You raise an interesting counterpoint. What if the red light violation ticket issued by an automated camera remains a civil penalty, but it is very large, like 1,500 USD? At some point, the number gets so high that it effectively impacts your driving privilege. Of course, I would expect these new civil penalties to be challenged in court as being "dual purpose".by throwaway2037
3/10/2026 at 10:19:51 AM
In the UK, speeding fines are also backed by "points" added to your license - get enough of them and you lose your license altogether for a while. It's similar in at least some other European countries.That is a definite punishment for anyone that cares enough about driving that they were doing it in the first place, while also clearly not being revenue generating (in fact it prevents future fine revenue). I'm not sure that would wash in the car-centric States though (but it would make it an even juicier punishment). But since you don't get banned immediately, it's potentially low-impact on a per-ticket basis.
by quietbritishjim
3/10/2026 at 2:51:25 PM
Points on your license are already a thing in most states in the USby mixdup
3/10/2026 at 11:08:03 AM
Australia has this too. It helps with the problem that a fine alone is negligible enough for the wealthy that the road rules would effectively not apply to them.by SturgeonsLaw
3/9/2026 at 11:41:54 PM
PA did this with construction zone cameras. I'm not sure where that landed because its been a while since I've seen one. I successfully appealed my ticket to the magistrate. It initially started as a pilot program and the law requires signage which during the pilot was quite inconspicuous. After the launch the sign was changed to a tiny little thing, about 1/5 the size of the pilot program.I was going 5 over the reduced speed limit, in the slow lane with rush hour traffic. That thing must've issued thousands of tickets.
by valiant55
3/10/2026 at 2:06:19 AM
The problem is that you need to have decent legislators and hold them accountable, and unfortunately we seem to be backsliding on making that happen.by bobthepanda
3/9/2026 at 10:27:08 PM
Why can't they impact insurance? Are CA insurance companies prohibited from using non-criminal information when deciding who to cover or set rates?Given that they insure cars more than drivers, it seems kinda reasonable that they be allowed to look at tickets for cars.
by YokoZar
3/9/2026 at 10:53:44 PM
>It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.If this is the case, what are the consequences of not paying the fine? I interpret your statement to mean that they can't prevent registration of your car. Can they tow you in SF for unpaid fines?
by tschwimmer
3/9/2026 at 11:04:44 PM
I assume they meant you can't lose your license (or get "points" that your insurance company can use to charge you more). I would fully expect that any unpaid fines would be added to next year's registration, and if you don't register and pay, you're driving an unregistered vehicle.by bombcar
3/9/2026 at 11:37:51 PM
AIUI, calling a law civil vs criminal and/or limiting penalties to fines only are not always enough to remove the protection of due process.by lokar
3/9/2026 at 9:16:29 PM
Yea, that would be great then I can completely ignore them as I am not poor.It just turns speeding into something you can buy.
by ggiigg
3/9/2026 at 9:27:06 PM
While I agree with your sarcasm, this proposal is a least bad scenario: no enforcement is worse as there’s less incentive to respect the lights.Sadly money and power buying freedom of law isn’t restricted to road rules.
by aziaziazi
3/9/2026 at 9:33:32 PM
I would argue such enforcement does not need automation and such automation is often for revenue generation vs saftey focused.Also, I am a bit biased here after working at flock.
by ggiigg
3/9/2026 at 10:08:01 PM
Is there a non-automatic light enforcement other than placing a policemen at every light - which makes the light useless?Revenu generation is a bonus point: in my country taxes that incentive smokers to quit are directed to healthcare and most of the speeding tickets revenue goes to road maintenance and safety.
I’d prefer a public handling but the trend is privatization with everything : from health to education to water treatment. Even military assets! IMHO red light tickets enforcement is as much important.
by aziaziazi
3/10/2026 at 1:26:59 AM
> California's new speed camera pilot (AB 645) explicitly solves for this.Your mixing up states. California's law from above comment is NOT about running red lights.
by ggiigg
3/10/2026 at 12:17:34 AM
I would argue living in the US has rotted your brain.Don’t want the state to generate revenue? Literally just stop speeding and stop running red lights.
by amrocha
3/9/2026 at 10:36:47 PM
> While I agree with your sarcasm, this proposal is a least bad scenario: no enforcement is worse as there’s less incentive to respect the lights.I disagree. This is acknowledging that these are revenue products rather than safety enhancement.
If you want safety enforcement, put a damn cop there. It WILL work. This isn't hard. People are creatures of habit and you don't need to adjust the behavior of very many of them to make the whole group change.
If you don't want to put a cop there, you don't want safety enforcement.
by bsder
3/9/2026 at 9:50:24 PM
Well, it's red-light running. But I don't think even rich people will just breeze through every red and pay the fines; it'll add up quickly.by sejje
3/9/2026 at 9:59:20 PM
Yea, I think the chance of death will encourage them not to run every red light making mass surveillance unnecessary. The money is a noop for the rich in thus case.by ggiigg
3/10/2026 at 9:02:44 AM
If that is the argument, then we should just drop enforcement of traffic rules alltogether. Because people don't want to have an accident?But driving reckless and having a big well protected car helps of course, so everyone speeding would want even bigger and better armored cars.
Those daring to drive light vecicles or even bicycles, screw them?
Here in germany we managed to have automated red light tickets, without saving video at all btw. Just a picture (or multiple) of the incident. The picture is tied to the traffuc lights logic so knows when red light was on.
Now I am not really a fan of them, but they do work without mass surveillance.
by lukan
3/10/2026 at 1:59:10 PM
Privacy protections in US are horrid compared to Germany. Grounded in reality, not going to happen uniformly in all states.Also, I bike often and driver right turn on green without looking has nearly gotten me a few times. Dont get me started on lack of bicycle infra in most us cities :0
by ggiigg
3/10/2026 at 12:21:47 AM
There's the timing aspect of it as well. As it stands, you only find out about your 'offense' weeks after the fact. If it were a human interaction (eg speeding/police stop) you'd know right away and still have the relevant information in mind to understand the charge and maybe defend. The ability to know and defend should be critical to any charge. Kby whycome
3/10/2026 at 3:34:51 AM
I don't this is is as cut and dry as you're making it seem. See SEC v. Jarkesy. The Supreme Court decided that, when the SEC seeks civil penalties for securities fraud, the defendant has the right to a trial by jury pursuant to the Seventh Amendment.by ihavekids
3/10/2026 at 2:58:29 AM
That sounds fine except the part where private companies have cameras everywhere surveilling us, directly tied into dmv records to identify us, and then do whatever they want with that data. And not on a random store front or a persons front door but the major roads we all must use.Even forgetting that, all this means is people that don't care about getting a ticket, either because they won't pay or it's a such a small amount to them that they don't care. just do what they want. Nothing is being "enforced", just taxed.
by class3shock
3/10/2026 at 1:04:27 PM
> California's new speed camera pilot (AB 645) explicitly solves for this... like parking ticketsThat makes the Florida judge's framing of red light cameras as a revenue generating scheme even more applicable. More than that, it ambiguates the crime.
by owlstuffing
3/10/2026 at 3:06:30 AM
So to work around civil protections in law, California now does not consider speeding to be an offense that should impact one's driving privilege or insurance? Just so they could collect that sweet fine money?by dotancohen
3/10/2026 at 12:48:03 PM
Congratulations, you've put subscription on running red lights.by Xelbair
3/9/2026 at 8:55:39 PM
These systems are still often too expensive to operate safely. Over and over again these systems have been seen as needing to break even rather than being treated as a public service. But if they actually work then incidence of red light violations should go down, and hopefully substantially. So whatever fines you expect to receive in the first months before drivers adapt are more revenue than you should see at one year or more.So when you start worrying about it as a cost center, then there is a perverse incentive to do things like shorten yellow lights. Short yellows have been proven to create more vehicular fatalities than people running red lights intentionally. And so the person who makes that decision to shorten yellows to boost tickets is effectively committing murder to keep the system “working”. Which is disgusting. Ghoulish, even.
It is literally better in such situations to simply dismantle the system than keep it running.
by hinkley
3/9/2026 at 9:03:03 PM
They are speed cameras, not red light cameras.That said, the bill addresses this category of abuse directly: if a speed camera fails to reduce 85th percentile speeds or violation volumes within 18 months it must be removed.
There are also substantial limits on how the revenues can be spent. If you are interested in this topic it's worth a read: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
by hamdingers
3/9/2026 at 10:18:00 PM
Good call. I consider the precedent set here to apply equally to both cases, and the stop light cases tend to be much more egregious, as I've telegraphed in my top-level comment.by hinkley
3/9/2026 at 11:40:38 PM
Yup. Cameras "improve" safety in intersections--but not overall. It's just displaced. I would have thought the displacement reduced the severity but the injury data says otherwise. It's a case of removing the top and bottom stair.As you say, it encourages short yellows. I am aware of having "run" one red light in my life--got ticketed for it. The yellow timing was set as short as legally permitted--a driver had a narrow window to decide go or stop. Unfortunately, what happens when neither is an option? I was in the left turn lane and past the decision point. I was already slowing when the light went yellow, I saw it and knew there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
There's also the problem that a huge number of red light tickets are issued to people who "run" red lights in a completely normal and safe manner: making a right turn on red. Car #1 stands as far forward as they can without being in the cross traffic path, the other cars line up behind. First car goes, the rest move forward. Nobody pays attention to the stop line--but the camera does.
In the real world, neither speed nor red light cameras pay for themselves except when something about the situation causes a problem--and it would be better addressed by fixing the true problem. Likewise, I have never seen a cop watching a situation for offenders unless there was something out of sync between the law and the road. Half of the traps I've seen over the years have disappeared when the root cause was fixed.
by LorenPechtel
3/10/2026 at 2:52:30 AM
Interesting that your use of "solves for this" is with regards to the end result of being able to write more red light tickets. In my view, the courts solved this by deeming at least certain uses of red light cameras illegal.by _heimdall
3/10/2026 at 2:55:11 AM
Automated traffic control is objectively one of the most pro-social things we could possibly ever create. Yes it is good if more red light cameras exist and face fewer legal challenges.> the courts solved this by deeming at least certain uses of red light cameras illegal.
This is incorrect. The court in Florida said certain arrangement of the statutory basis (a different one than in CA) for red light cameras is illegal.
by estearum
3/10/2026 at 4:53:38 AM
You're coming with the assumption that pro-social is a universal goal, and that it is objectively good.I'm not even disagreeing with you here, but that's a huge assumption yo make and you are granting pretty broad authority to the state in the name of that goal. Where do you draw the line of power the state shouldn't have despite it using the authority today towards pro-social goals?
by _heimdall
3/10/2026 at 12:32:42 PM
Yes I do think things that are good for society are objectively good insofar as "objectively good" has any meaning at all.Automated traffic enforcement isn't "granting" any new authority whatsoever to the state. The state already has the authority, it just uses it unfairly and imperfectly enough to fail to produce meaningful deterrence.
> Where do you draw the line of power the state shouldn't have despite it using the authority today towards pro-social goals?
I draw the line at the point where their power becomes not-pro-social, of course.
You and I can argue about what's pro-social or not (which this clearly is), but not whether pro-social things are good or not (which they clearly are).
by estearum
3/10/2026 at 3:42:21 PM
Its usually much harder to decide what's good for society than its made out to be. Externalities matter, something can seem good for society today and turn out to have serious downsides that either weren't known upfront or didn't show up until later.With regards to authority here, this absolutely is a case of granting more power and authority to the state, or more specifically the state claiming it.
The judge here said its illegal to use redlight cameras in certain situations. Based on the prior comment, if California found a loophole so they can get to the same end by labeling it something different that is them functionally claiming new authority. The judge says its illegal, the state says no its not we can do this anyway.
by _heimdall
3/10/2026 at 4:11:31 PM
Yes I agree, we should consider all of those things.Considering all of those things, fully automated traffic enforcement in general is a clear net positive.
> The judge here said its illegal to use redlight cameras in certain situations. Based on the prior comment, if California found a loophole so they can get to the same end by labeling it something different that is them functionally claiming new authority. The judge says its illegal, the state says no its not we can do this anyway.
Sorry but this is just too surface-level of an understanding of how law actually works that I can't justify engaging with it.
Not only are California and Florida totally different jurisdictions, but even if they weren't, different statutory bases for the same effective policy can have different levels of legal defensibility or constitutionality. It's not just possible, but in fact quite common for policies to be struck down and then reintroduced with (effectively) a different argument for its validity, and for the new policy (same policy, different argument supporting it) to be valid.
Understanding how laws and the judiciary actually work is truly fascinating stuff and I hope your confusion about this apparent contradiction (which it's not) actually piques your curiosity to dig deeper.
by estearum
3/10/2026 at 5:52:17 PM
> Sorry but this is just too surface-level of an understanding of how law actually works that I can't justify engaging with it.This comes off a bit strangely when you go on to engage with the discussion. It seems unnecessarily dismissive.
Legal precedent within the US does not stop at state lines. A ruling in Florida is applicable present in California.
My argument here, though, isn't that California's approach is illegal or would be overturned if challenged based on this Florida precedent. My point was simply that the state, California in this case, is claiming effectively new authority by playing word games to get around precedent that could otherwise deem their use of traffic cams illegal.
I'm still not sure how you can so blanketly deem automated traffic enforcement a net good. There are a ton of details that would matter, from how its implemented and overseen to how tight or broad the authority is and what that means for future use of the same authority.
by _heimdall
3/10/2026 at 3:00:48 AM
No, their use of “solves for this” is with regards to disincentivizing an incredibly dangerous habit that randomly kills the most vulnerable bystanders in the vicinity at the rate of many thousands per yearby ak217
3/10/2026 at 4:52:07 AM
You're misrepresenting. The article is about red light camera tickets and the GP is specifically describing how California got around this legal issue in the way they write tickets in their new camera pilot. They mention nothing of bystanders or their vulnerability.by _heimdall
3/9/2026 at 8:49:53 PM
"It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance."Wow! So if you have enough money, it's cool to run as many red lights as you want?
by danesparza
3/9/2026 at 8:56:51 PM
I understand your criticism and it is fair, but this represents and improvement over the current state which is effectively no enforcement.They're speed cameras, not red light cameras, and the revenues go towards street improvements to reduce speeding. So you could speed as much as you can afford, but eventually you'll have bought enough traffic calming infrastructure it'll be prohibitively difficult to keep getting tickets.
by hamdingers
3/10/2026 at 12:07:20 PM
"They're speed cameras, not red light cameras..."Thank you for this clarification and the additional detail you provide!
It sounds like the money collected by fines has to go to more traffic calming infrastructure - which is a pretty big deal.
by danesparza
3/9/2026 at 8:57:00 PM
Constitutional protections aren't trumped by mere issues of governmental convenience.by pfdietz
3/9/2026 at 8:53:35 PM
What's the alternative? No rules at all? Immediate death penalty for anyone who runs a red in front of a cop? Seizing and auctioning off the car? Deporting the offender to Texas? Something else? Revoke their license?by vkou
3/10/2026 at 12:01:58 PM
Wow dude. Calm down."What's the alternative?". Maybe a more thoughtful law.
Perhaps a scaled fine system? (The second fine costs 2x the first fine, the third fine costs 3x the first fine, etc)
Maybe after 10 fines you get a point on your license?
Maybe the state has to prove it was you driving so they setup more (but discreet) cameras at intersections?
by danesparza
3/10/2026 at 5:05:42 PM
I say we set the delay to red and green to be 0 state wide and use the cameras to fine people who don't start moving within a short amount of time after they get green.Betcha red light running drops like a rock after that.
by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 12:21:29 AM
What do you mean other states follow this? Of course not. It’s a nuisance, not a safety measure.by exabrial
3/9/2026 at 10:04:42 PM
>Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.So what does this say about the legitimacy of having those fines affect your license and insurance when issues by a real flesh and blood cop?
Sounds to me like that by default they shouldn't be affecting squat because there's an implicit "the cops will mostly only pull people over if it's unconscionably bad" filter going on.
by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 4:08:41 AM
...and just like parking tickets they shouldn't exist on govt propertyby _blk
3/10/2026 at 3:58:25 AM
[dead]by bikesharing
3/9/2026 at 9:59:46 PM
Or maybe not have automated surveillance robonannies playing gotcha games and pocketing money, often impacting those who can least afford it, over technicalities and arbitrary rules made up to benefit the people doing the collecting.The idea that AI enforcement won't be just as corrupt and capricious as any other form of government run extortion is bonkers. You're talking systems with less oversight than openclaw being run by people whose entire goal is to make as much money as possible, no matter the source. Private, unaccountable companies with effectively no oversight with the legal right to send you invoices for things you might or might not have done, and the cost for disputing it might well exceed the cost of just paying it and getting it over with.
Why are Californians so hellbent on giving their money to the government, given the absolute shitshow that is their budget and track record? The only good things that have happened in California for decades comes out of private enterprise, but all the crazy nonsense is fostered and maintained, apparently quite vigorously, by elected governments.
I'm furious that 10% of my federal income taxes end up going to California's bullshit, I can't imagine what it would be like having to live there.
Seriously, it's bordering on levels of insanity right up there with thinking that Jefferey Epstein would make a great babysitter. Do people just not pay attention? Does the weather just make everyone complacent and docile?
Speed cams and automated gotchas allowing the government to raid your pocketbook are a bad thing. There's no framing or circumstances where that's good.
by observationist
3/9/2026 at 10:27:10 PM
> The idea that AI enforcement won't be just as corrupt and capricious as any other form of government run extortion is bonkers. [...] Private, unaccountable companies with effectively no oversightIn the specific case this thread is about - that of red light cameras - presumably the camera produces a photograph showing a red light, a vehicle going through it, and the vehicle's license plate. Plus a video, showing the light was orange for the legally required amount of time, and showing the absence of any exceptional circumstances (e.g. ambulances).
As law enforcement goes, that really seems like the least capricious, highest oversight law enforcement I can imagine.
by michaelt
3/9/2026 at 11:52:59 PM
Unfortunately, all too often it doesn't.Some cameras only produce a photograph. Some produce a video with the light status showing on it--but there have been cases that's wrong, the camera recording what it was programmed to do which didn't match the real lights.
You need actual video of the scene that can be examined and which is of sufficiently good quality that the identity of the car can be confirmed. Very often it does not exist.
Likewise, speed cameras should record enough that one can do a time/distance calculation to confirm the speed--because the system can be miscalibrated or can be fooled by large, flat surfaces.
Or look what has happened with breathalyzers. Last I heard if a judge grants the discovery request for the source code the case gets dropped. And the whole thing is based on a flawed principle in the first place: the ratio of breath alcohol to blood alcohol varies substantially between people--setting it for average isn't accurate. As a screening test for doing a blood draw, fine, but it should not be allowed anywhere near the courtroom. (Some states get this right, some do not.)
And, yes, ambulances. I forgot about another time I know I ran a red light. Something with lights/sirens was coming up behind, no lane was empty, I was in the only lane with one car. Lots of space at the intersection, I pulled forward and turned hard right, clearing my lane without actually entering the cross path.
by LorenPechtel
3/9/2026 at 10:21:22 PM
I'm furious that 10% of my federal income taxes end up going to California's bullshit, I can't imagine what it would be like having to live there.Your taxes getting evenly distributed is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that removing California from the US would either increase your taxes or require reductions in federal spending.
by maxerickson
3/9/2026 at 10:29:57 PM
Yes, California has long been a "donor state", ie one that pays substantially more federal tax revenue than gets spent there. This shouldn't be too surprising as it's much richer than average and the tax system is approximately progressive.by YokoZar
3/9/2026 at 10:44:29 PM
Removing California's corruption, ineptitude, and fraud would eliminate any problems I have with my tax dollars being sent that way.by observationist
3/9/2026 at 10:47:17 PM
Well that's my point. "sent that way" is not entirely fair. Your state is spending California tax dollars, or so, not the other way around.by maxerickson
3/10/2026 at 2:38:54 AM
What’s crazy is every dissenter of the parent comment is being downvoted, despite HN being strongly against this type of enforcement in the past.by exabrial
3/9/2026 at 9:34:30 PM
>"The judge frames the red light camera scheme as a revenue generating scheme, not a public safety measure."In my own experience, when they took down the red light cameras in my area now people are not afraid to run red lights ~2 to ~3 seconds after it's red. See this kind of thing on a regular basis. Every now and then there's a serious accident.
by htx80nerd
3/9/2026 at 9:39:40 PM
The objective evidence indicates that accidents tend to go up after red light cameras go up, generally because the operators lower the yellow light time to increase fees.by giantg2
3/9/2026 at 9:44:26 PM
The objective evidence shows an increase in rear-end crashes but a reduction in injury and fatal crashes, offering a net overall benefit.Council et al., 2005 -- https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05048/...
by hamdingers
3/9/2026 at 10:30:14 PM
This states that there are many variables they were not able to control for, such as the yellow light timing, as I previously mentioned. Warning signs were another major factor. There doesn't appear to be enough investigation into the protected left issue.This is pretty damning, in my opinion. AKA we did some cheap analysis on a small dataset, without confidence or effect size, and just agree with the people running the programs.
"The intent of the multivariate regression analysis was to confirm the direction of the effect, not to establish effects with statistical significance or to assess the size of the effect. To undertake analyses for these purer purposes would have required a substantially larger database, much more precision in the estimate of economic effect at each site, and more accurate specification and measurement of the independent variables. For the purposes of this current investigation, it suffices that both the univariate and multivariate analyses are reasonably in accord with the perceptions that are commonly held by those involved in red-light-camera programs."
by giantg2
3/9/2026 at 11:55:17 PM
There's a regression to the mean issue at work.Sometimes an intersection simply has bad luck, draws more accidents than anything about it would cause. Put a camera there, you'll see an "improvement".
by LorenPechtel
3/10/2026 at 1:15:34 AM
One might argue the intersection itself is the problem and should be redesigned, as well as adjoining roadways feeding into the offending intersection.by SecretDreams
3/10/2026 at 2:20:48 PM
If it's consistently high something needs fixing. But accidents are random, there will always be some intersections that by pure chance have more accidents. Put cameras on those, presto, cameras "work".by LorenPechtel
3/11/2026 at 3:01:14 AM
Some intersections having more accidents by pure chance is kind of an oxymoron, imo.by SecretDreams
3/9/2026 at 11:29:09 PM
> generally because the operators lower the yellow light time to increase feesI'm skeptical of this claim because the red light camera operators are usually contracted by municipalities. They don't have any direct control over the light cycles.
(Yes, obviously they can be in cahoots with the municipality, but I would be surprised if that was common and not the exception)
Do you have any evidence of this?
by digitalPhonix
3/10/2026 at 5:17:47 AM
Chicago is one publicized example. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/10/chicago-shortens...by 1123581321
3/10/2026 at 5:54:44 AM
I am chosing, perhaps naively, that the Chicago red light cameras are an exception and not common because that whole process was criminal: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndil/pr/former-redflex-ceo-sent...by digitalPhonix
3/10/2026 at 1:32:04 PM
That I couldn’t say. It at least provides a model. Most city or county governments have some influence over their traffic engineering or streets staff as far as high level planning concerns.by 1123581321
3/9/2026 at 9:42:28 PM
Neither of you share any references for the objective facts you claim to be stating. At least link an article or a study.by advisedwang
3/9/2026 at 9:44:10 PM
can this not be regulated? yellow light timing must not have changed for the last 12 months before adding camerasby kshacker
3/9/2026 at 10:02:56 PM
Better to set it using a standard such as 1 second per 10mph of speed limit.by giantg2
3/10/2026 at 5:09:59 AM
So the objective evidence indicates that yellow light timing is the most important factor in reducing accidents.Why are we discussing cameras?
by themafia
3/9/2026 at 11:17:53 PM
Maybe people should brake on yellow lights.by croes
3/10/2026 at 9:58:12 AM
I feel like when these tickets are struck down it's still smart to send notices to the homes of the cars doing this in more of a shaming way - even if the fine itself isn't legal. I suspect it would increase safety a small amount just by doing that.Fines (and points) are better of course.
by AdamN
3/9/2026 at 8:29:27 PM
I've followed a few cases surrounding traffic cameras that have been ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that individuals have the right to face their accuser.The question in those cases came down to if the operators of the cam can be considered "accusers."
They widely considered that of course the cam itself didn't count as an accuser, but the question was how "automated" the system was. If there was a human who flagged it, the system was fine, if it was fully automated, they were unconstitutional.
Many states don't share this opinion, but an interesting argument nonetheless.
by SunshineTheCat
3/9/2026 at 10:24:04 PM
Couldn't you say the same of drug testing spectrometers etc? The end operator of the equipment has to appear in court to testify to the proper operation of the machine. [0][0] Unless the defendant waives that right and stipulates to the prosecutor's statement about the machine.
by qingcharles
3/9/2026 at 11:09:28 PM
This literally occurs; one of the reasons that the drug testing lab is usually somewhat local. The prosecution called the individual who ran the test as a witness, and he had clearly been called for similar things many times before.by bombcar
3/9/2026 at 8:35:31 PM
They started putting them up in the midwest where I live. The interesting thing is if you get a ticket and just pay it? Nothing. If you get a ticket and you challenge it, the judge will immediately throw it out for the reason you pointed out or just dismiss it before it even gets to court by sending out a form letter saying they nullified the ticket, no reason to pay it.So in essence, if you know this is what they're doing, you're good. But they're not telling people so the money grift continues unabated and in place.
by burningChrome
3/9/2026 at 9:42:50 PM
So if it's established as unconstitutional, couldn't you file a criminal complaint of official oppression against the members of whatever government approved the cameras since they are levying unconstitutional fines?by giantg2
3/9/2026 at 10:30:34 PM
As an individual and not the government, you can't file a criminal action.You could file a civil action for violation of constitutional rights, but under Roberts, SCOTUS has basically been ripping out all of the mechanisms that would let you file such suits.
by jcranmer
3/9/2026 at 10:39:14 PM
"As an individual and not the government, you can't file a criminal action."You can file with the police, if they take it. You can also file as a private criminal complaint in many jurisdictions. However, it's up to the DA to approve it most of the time. There can be an appeal process where a judge would make a determination.
But yes, if the whole system is corrupt, then there's not much to do.
by giantg2
3/10/2026 at 4:35:40 PM
> you can't file a criminal action.Georgia and a handful of other states absolutely allow this.
by 15155
3/9/2026 at 10:43:29 PM
If they invalidate every contested fine nobody has any standing to make a legal complaint.by empressplay
3/9/2026 at 10:55:05 PM
They're only invalidating it if you fight it. The people who paid it and later realized it was unconstitutional may have standing.by giantg2
3/9/2026 at 10:23:37 PM
I don't have much meaningful info to contribute to this, but it is interesting to observe how the rollout of the red light cams happens in different places, and how it eventually turns out.IIRC there was a point in time roughly around ~2017 when it happened in Redmond WA (i.e., in the town that the Microsoft HQ is in). I might be off by a year or two, but it doesn't really change the overall point.
TLDR: in under 2 years, that whole red light cam initiative got canceled and reverted, because the local stats showed that it just made things more dangerous on the roads (by significantly increasing the rate of rear-ending accidents at traffic lights).
by filoleg
3/9/2026 at 8:14:40 PM
Doesn't the same logic apply to parking tickets?by moduspol
3/9/2026 at 8:35:02 PM
possibly, although I suspect the quote from above:> Although nominally civil, traffic infraction proceedings retain every substantive hallmark of criminal prosecution...
Is going to matter here. A moving violation (ex: red light) is quite different from a non-moving violation (ex: parking) in how they're handled, and often how they're classified.
Ex - my in state, a moving violation is a criminal misdemeanor, while a non-moving violation is entirely civil.
by horsawlarway
3/9/2026 at 8:39:42 PM
Idk how Florida handles it but several states citations issued by red light cameras and those issued by officers are handled entirely differently for the exact reason you mention. Camera citations are entirely civil, you don't get points against your license. If a cop issues the ticket it does become a misdemeanor moving violation.by devman0
3/9/2026 at 9:05:38 PM
there is no state where a moving violation is criminal misdemeanor. some moving violations may be CM but there are myriad of moving violations whose class/degree is not CM. CM is serious class/degree that if you are charged with it you better get yourself an attorney.by bdangubic
3/9/2026 at 9:14:09 PM
That quote is from the judge's decision: he considers that moving violations are quasi-criminal proceedings, and as such, that the protections for criminal prosecution apply, unlike in purely civil cases.by tsimionescu
3/9/2026 at 9:47:47 PM
Where is the line drawn for criminal vs civil in nature?It feels like any civil case brought against an individual by a government is quasi-criminal.
by giantg2
3/10/2026 at 7:09:17 AM
Per the US Supreme Court in Hicks v. Feiock 485 U. S. 624 (1988):>The substance of particular contempt proceedings determines whether they are civil or criminal, regardless of the label attached by the court conducting the proceedings.
>See Shillitani v. United States, 384 U. S. 364, 384 U. S. 368 -370 (1966); Penfield Co. v. SEC, 330 U. S. 585, 330 U. S. 590 (1947); Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33, 313 U. S. 42 -43 (1941); Lamb v. Cramer, 285 U. S. 217, 285 U. S. 220 -221 (1932); Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 221 U. S. 441 -443 (1911).
>Civil contempt proceedings are primarily coercive; criminal contempt proceedings are punitive. As the Court explained in Gompers:
>The distinction between refusing to do an act commanded -remedied by imprisonment until the party performs the required act; and doing an act forbidden -punished by imprisonment for a definite term, is sound in principle and generally, if not universally, affords a test by which to determine the character of the punishment.
>221 U.S. at 221 U. S. 443. Failure to pay alimony is an example of the type of act cognizable in an action for civil contempt. Id. at 221 U. S. 442.
>Whether a particular contempt proceeding is civil or criminal can be inferred from objective features of the proceeding and the sanction imposed. The most important indication is whether the judgment inures to the benefit of another party to the proceeding. A fine payable to the complaining party and proportioned to the complainant's loss is compensatory and civil. United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 330 U. S. 304 (1947). Because the compensatory purpose limits the amount of the fine, the contemnor is not exposed to a risk of punitive sanctions that would make criminal safeguards necessary. By contrast, a fixed fine payable to the court is punitive and criminal in character.
by JasonADrury
3/10/2026 at 12:46:37 PM
Yeah, and most civil cases that have the government acting as or representing the plaintiff against an individual have punitive outcomes - imprisonment for a set time for red flag violations, imprisonment for a set time for failure to pay child support, etc.by giantg2
3/9/2026 at 11:32:56 PM
this is why going to court pretty much takes care of these tickets. of course, for a lot of people, going to court costs more money than paying the ticket so people pay.disclaimer: I write software for court houses and am intimately familiar with the proceedings etc. in some jurisdictions these tickets will be outright dismissed and in others you may have to put up a bit of fight :)
by bdangubic
3/10/2026 at 1:16:32 AM
"this is why going to court pretty much takes care of these tickets."But what about things like red flag laws, child support (like the cited case law), etc?
by giantg2
3/10/2026 at 6:58:54 PM
If you get a ticket in the mail, go to Court and contest it if you have time.This is good suggestion in general even if you get a ticket by Officer because if Officer does not show up in Court (this happens more that you’d think) the ticket will be dismissed
by bdangubic
3/9/2026 at 8:35:28 PM
Do parking tickets result in “a formal finding of guilt, and consequences tied to a driver’s record”?by JumpCrisscross
3/9/2026 at 10:33:21 PM
No.by otterley
3/9/2026 at 8:28:27 PM
Almost, except parking tickets are still typically civil “owner-liability” citations tied to where the car is parked, while red-light violations are intended to target the driver’s conductby wifipunk
3/9/2026 at 8:18:36 PM
And speed light camerasby Tactical45
3/9/2026 at 8:50:15 PM
What is a speed light camera?by atomicUpdate
3/9/2026 at 8:20:29 PM
No. Parking is leaving your possession somewhere and should apply to the registered owner. It is not illegal to own a car that someone else used to run a red light.by causal
3/10/2026 at 2:56:26 PM
Wow this sparked a lot of tedious debate. Just wanted to clarify that I'm talking about the law as written, not some high-level philosophical ideal.by causal
3/9/2026 at 8:25:29 PM
I didn't leave my possession. I just owned a car that someone else left.by moduspol
3/9/2026 at 8:26:39 PM
But is it illegal to own a car that someone else parked in the wrong pkace?by hxorr
3/10/2026 at 9:47:04 AM
Who is leaving your possession is just as relevant as who is driving your possession?by lnenad
3/9/2026 at 8:25:11 PM
No. Running a red light is when your possession crosses an intersection while the light is red, and should apply to the registered owner.by spunker540
3/9/2026 at 8:43:00 PM
If I lend a neighbor my kitchen knife and they murder someone with it, should I be liable?by interestpiqued
3/10/2026 at 2:59:18 AM
You absolutely can be, especially if you knew, or should have known, that the knife was likely to be used illegally.While a bit more extreme than your example, there have been multiple cases where the parents of a school shooter have been held responsible because they provided access to a weapon when there were warning signs.
On the less extreme end of the spectrum, this is the same reason why you have to pretend that you are buying a "water pipe for tobacco" and not a bong if you don't want to get kicked out of the headshop (in places where that is still illegal).
by dghlsakjg
3/9/2026 at 9:41:07 PM
3 year before the murder: You are probably fine, IANAL10 minutes before the murder: Expect to get an accusation of accessory to murder, conspiracy to murder and a few additional tomes of the penal code. We all know you are innocent, but you should better find a good lawyer just in case instead of wasting your last free minutes arguing on the internet.
by gus_massa
3/9/2026 at 8:57:29 PM
When subpoenaed, you'd be obligated to tell the court who you gave the knife to.But if you'd like to tell the fall, I'm sure some prosecutors wouldn't dig too hard to find the guilty party.
by vkou
3/9/2026 at 9:13:55 PM
It seems in this case they’re not asking, they’re accusing and saying I need to prove otherwise. I think that is substantively differentEdit: subpoena is not a criminal charge afaik is what I’m saying
by interestpiqued
3/9/2026 at 8:29:29 PM
Or is it?by Muromec
3/10/2026 at 5:03:07 AM
Surely the framing is "we the people allow you to operate this (otherwise illegal) dangerous vehicle on public roads, on the condition that by default you are responsible for whatever transgressions".by jojobas
3/9/2026 at 8:56:52 PM
If someone used the car without permission, they are guilty of theft.If they used the car with your permission, you should either be responsible for what they do with it, or be able to point to the person who was using it.
by vkou
3/9/2026 at 9:27:45 PM
> If someone used the car without permission, they are guilty of theft.Sure, but I still don't know who they are, so I can't give their name over for either investigating the theft or reassigning the speeding/red light/parking fine.
by degamad
3/9/2026 at 9:54:37 PM
Except that requiring you to testify in order to absolve yourself of guilt violates your Fifth Amendment right not to testify in a trial against you. It is up to the government to prove you did something, not up to you to prove you didn’t.by zoky
3/9/2026 at 10:48:05 PM
You can not testify all you want, but you should still be on the hook for your vehicle getting tickets, just like you are on the hook for your vehicle accruing toll fees.If your car was magically stolen and returned, and you have no idea that it happened, or who could have done this... Well, that's certainly an interesting legal argument that you could make to a judge. I doubt he'll believe you.
by vkou
3/10/2026 at 12:01:31 AM
In the old days it certainly happened. Joyriding. Take someone's vehicle for a spin, put it back. Illegal but nowhere near as serious a penalty. Car security systems have gotten a lot better since then.by LorenPechtel
3/10/2026 at 12:47:38 PM
I went and read the section about Feiock. It's page 11 in the PDF for those interested. Section IV.BIt states "while these offense are labelled civil they remain fundamentally quasi-criminal in nature: punitive, adjudicative". Later it states "the State may not employ presumptions or burden-shifting devices that relieve it of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt"
The judge stops just an inch short of saying "this is a kangaroo court where guilt is stated rather than proven"
by sidewndr46
3/10/2026 at 4:35:24 AM
So is there an alternative or we'll just accept we can't punish bad driving?by maest
3/10/2026 at 9:30:40 AM
Two paths:Higher quality cameras equipped with facial recognition connected to a database to issue a ticket to the correct person (driver), or
Hire more traffic officers to sit at traffic intersections to catch red light offenders, which will scale in cost by the size of the city, so
Pick your poison
by fyredge
3/10/2026 at 9:46:59 AM
So this has been a thing in Germany since forever. The driver must pay the penalty, not the owner. So what they do is take a picture of the driver and send this to the owner. They have to either pay up, or state the name of the person who drove. If the driver claims that they did not drive and do not know the person on the picture (and if a cursory investigation fails, not sure how much time the authorities will invest in finding the driver), they will be told to record all rides with that vehicle from now on. If they fail to do that, I guess they get a greater penalty the next time, I'm not sure.So yeah, in some cases you might get out of it by feigning ignorance, but it seems to be a sensible compromise between facial recognition and giving up.
by mr_mitm
3/9/2026 at 10:35:54 PM
"under Feiock, such proceedings are sufficiently criminal in form and function to invoke the full protections of due process..."This makes me question many existing civil things. Obviously child support, as in the case law. But also, things like red flag laws. It seems like any civil law that would apply criminal-type contemt penalties is unconstitutional.
by giantg2
3/10/2026 at 9:46:14 AM
The judge is right, of course the solution is not to ban the cameras, but to place them in a position that will capture the driver.by throwawayffffas
3/9/2026 at 9:41:42 PM
A speeding ticket is not a criminal charge. Criminal procedure and the rights for criminal defendants don't apply.The court says that criminal rules should apply because points are at stake, while civil penalties are usually restricted to fines, but I don't buy that argument. We have plenty of non-money civil remedies. Code enforcement departments can require changes to property. Family courts can make all kinds of requirements. It's not outside of constitutional bounds for a traffic rule to result in forfeiting a license without criminal proceedings.
by advisedwang
3/9/2026 at 11:26:00 PM
>but I don't buy that argument. We have plenty of non-money civil remedies. Code enforcement departments can require changes to property. Family courts can make all kinds of requirements. It's not outside of constitutional bounds for a traffic rule to result in forfeiting a license without criminal proceedings.All of which are an affront to people's rights.
The fact that we use a "special word" (civil) for the category of laws where we won't throw you straight in prison if you don't comply, we'll add the extra step of waiting for noncompliance and then charging someone with contempt doesn't fundamentally alter the relationship between the enforcers and the people, so why should the people have to put up with their rights being ignored in those cases?
by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 5:10:11 AM
> All of which are an affront to people's rights.Rights are not unlimited.
You don't have some inherent human right to ignore building codes, or to retain full custody of your child in the event of a divorce.
by TulliusCicero
3/10/2026 at 10:25:34 AM
A reasonably median person doing reasonably median things (so like within a couple standard deviations) has a right to be free from low effort harassment by the state at the unilateral whim of its agents. In the US this is codified across several of the amendments in the bill of rights.That means the building inspector can't just waltz into your home uninvited, ICE can't kick in your door because your maid is brown and the government can't just put up cameras and start dragnet fining people for rules that only really exist on paper and are used to make it procedurally easier to go after behavior that's bad for subjective reasons.
Second, the fact that legislative bodies may pass and enforcers may enforce stuff that violates people's rights (rental inspections and civil asset forfeiture) come to mind because the size of the harm and the manner in which it is targeted keeps it below the "get everyone pissed off" level doesn't make it not a violation of people's rights. Funny you mention building code. The manner in which building (zoning really, since building code is basically the public adoption of 3rd party standards via the zoning code) code is written and enforces is complete dogshit and would not hold up to rigorous scrutiny (and generally does not, in the incredibly rare occasion is sees it), but between the fact that it's cheaper to comply and that the worse abuses are generally targeted at exactly the kind of people who no judge will have sympathy for (much like civil asset forfeiture was initially) mean the general population is not too up in arms about it since it's
Now, before you put words in my mouth as the kind of people who say things like "rights are not unlimited" are in my observation very apt to do, I'm not saying don't have building code. I'm saying don't violate people's rights to have it, or anything else. It's nowhere near enforced to the letter anyway so walking the actual letters back to match what can be enforced without violating people's rights should be no big deal. And the same is goes for like red light cameras.
by cucumber3732842
3/10/2026 at 8:35:24 PM
You're being very vague here. If you agree that rights are not unlimited and it's okay to have common sense property restrictions like building codes, then what's the fundamental problem with red light cameras? What is your actual objection here?> the government can't just put up cameras and start dragnet fining people for rules that only really exist on paper
The hell? Do you think "don't run red lights" is a rule that "only exists on paper"? You realize that if a cop sees you run a red light, they're definitely pulling you over, right?
by TulliusCicero
3/10/2026 at 11:48:14 AM
If the core of the reasoning is the fines and penalties then surely the remedy is to temper the punishment to just fees that need to be fulfilled upon renewal or registration.by nashashmi
3/9/2026 at 8:30:41 PM
As someone who lives next to an intersection where cars routinely run red lights, this truly sucks and I hope it gets overturned. I understand the judge's reasoning, but running red lights is dangerous and we need much stricter enforcement.by tootie
3/9/2026 at 9:07:38 PM
If people routinely run the red light, it seems like an easy case to post an officer to do traffic stops and issue tickets. AFAIK, tickets issued by a sworn officer are broadly constitutional.by toast0
3/9/2026 at 9:18:46 PM
There's a literal police station at the intersection and they don't pay any attention at all.by tootie
3/9/2026 at 10:35:09 PM
Are you bringing attention to this matter at your city council meetings? The squeaky wheel gets the grease.by otterley
3/9/2026 at 8:46:51 PM
I people are routinely running a red for a particular intersection, it seems likely that there is a design problem with the intersection or the signaling. Improving safety would be fixing the underlying problem.by rootusrootus
3/9/2026 at 9:17:07 PM
It's actually pretty common for some people to just run red lights when the road is really clear, especially at night. Best that could maybe be done would be to reduce visibility of cross traffic, so that the drivers can't tell from afar that the road they'll cross is clear - but this is likely to cause other kinds of risks.by tsimionescu
3/9/2026 at 9:19:24 PM
They do it when the road is busiest actually. Just following the bumper in front of them instead of looking up.by tootie
3/10/2026 at 4:32:13 PM
Can someone link the order, I've searched heavily for it and it's not linked by an of the articles or findable easily.by joshuamorton
3/10/2026 at 6:08:51 PM
https://cbs12.com/resources/pdf/cbe9aa52-7a29-407c-8bce-b1c7...by fusslo
3/10/2026 at 8:04:49 AM
Lol most of radars become mainly revenue stream, regardless of country or continent. Even mighty orderly Switzerland has some of that shit and its growing.Where I live, there is one nasty radar placed so that people have to break rather hard, when leaving town as in few meters before end sign, on a steeply downhill slope, when there is just straight empty road ahead. Those who don't know get flashed frequently. There is no pedestrian crossing, no buildings, just empty fields. Locals complained and municipality said - sorry, we know, but its generating too much revenue and municipality needs that cash and became dependent on that. Basically FU. I know about few others in either Switzerland or France which have very nasty locations, in order to trap as many as possible, in places with 0 actual risk to anybody.
They also love putting temporary radars in some train underpasses which also go steeply down, so its trivial go few kms over the limit if you don't constantly brake and ie actually watch traffic around. Since they are well hidden and people see them at last moment and slam brakes hard, it properly increases risks of accidents, especially with mixture of cyclists or scooters/motorbikes. But that doesn't seem the priority anymore.
I am not saying they don't make sense in some places especially around pedestrian crossings, but its trivial to get 'addicted' to steady cash flow and then friction to change situation is maximal. Thats the point where it stops its primary purpose and becomes self-serving bureaucracy self-feeding loop.
by kakacik
