Red Light Cameras By Brenda Williams At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Red light cameras are becoming more and more popular throughout the United States as the country continues to grow in population. As the amount of traffic on the roadways increase; states, counties and townships are looking for easier and more effective ways to enforce the rules of the road. One of those ways is the development of red light cameras, which became widely popular a handful of years ago in major cities. Red light cameras are used to help police departments enforce red light laws at major, sometimes even, extremely dangerous intersections without having to place an officer at the scene.

Red light cameras take photographs of vehicles that disobey red light laws. Those photographs are sent to the local police department for processing and the photo is mailed to the culprit with a ticket for the infraction. The photo will have the front end of the car, sometimes the backend, with the driver’s face in the windshield and the license plate visible as well. Some of the red light cameras that are in use today are very technologically enhanced.

Some red light cameras can take video along with still pictures. The majority of these cameras will also record the time of day, the speed of the vehicle, how long after the light turned red that the vehicle ran the light and how long it took the vehicle to pass through the intersection. A lot of jurisdictions allow motorists a grace period when issuing tickets via this method. Some jurisdictions will give a motorist anywhere from one to two seconds after the light turns red before they issue a ticket. If someone runs the light after the one or two second grace period, then the ticket will be issued to the culprit.

As with any ticket issued to a motorist, if there is not a mandatory court date listed on the ticket, you can pay the fine and mail it to the courthouse. If you wish to fight the ticket you are welcome to do so. Your optional court date will be listed on the ticket and this is when you can fight the ticket in court. Reasons for fighting a ticket of this nature could be that you were not driving the car and it was another driver. They send the ticket to the person who the vehicle is registered to, not the driver, since the camera cannot identify the driver.

There have been some opposition to the use of red light cameras since they came about a handful of years ago. One of those oppositions is the some jurisdictions were illegally changing the timing of the yellow light. This means that the yellow light would change at a quicker rate to red than it is legally allowed to. This resulted in more revenue for those jurisdictions. A case in Tennessee awarded supposed culprits a refund of over $8,000 total in fines paid to the state because of illegally changed timing on the yellow lights there. There is no concrete evidence as to whether or not these red light cameras have reduced the number of accidents or actually caused more because people are slamming on their brakes to avoid a ticket.

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