Why I hate the red light camera Florida
There are many things I don't like about the traffic ticket system in Florida. The fines are too high, the point system only helps the insurance companies, and the discrepency between rulings in the various counties has always been a little odd. However, quickly rising to the top of my list of what I hate is the red light camera.
There may never be a more obvious case of due process being shoved aside in the name of money than in the case of the red light camera. The very fact that the driver, the one who commits the violation doesn't get punished is all I need to know about the motives behind these tickets.
If the point of giving tickets is about public safety (which I know it is not, but the state keeps trying to convince us otherwise) then how can you justify giving a ticket to someone who isn't a bad driver. It not only doesn't jibe, it would seem to be a throwback to what got this country founded in the first place. Taxation without represention is what made the revolutionaries get so angry that they decided to start a new form of goverment.
But when you do it in the name of "public safety" you can get away with anything.
By forcing a person to try and determine who was driving and notify the state, it also turns upside down the very notion of innocent until proven guilty. And if your spouse happens to have been the driver, it also flies in the face of the spousal immunity priviledge that is supposed to keep spouses from being forced to testify against each other. But don't let the constitution get in the way of a good old money maker.
Sticking people with a fine of $158 by telling them nothing more than the fact that the car that they own ran a red light is basically a tax (justified or not). It has no correlation to traffic safety.
My favorite part is that if all this is in the name of public safety, how can anyone explain the fact that if you pay the $158, there is no mark on your driving record? If you drive through 100 red lights and pay each time, the state has no authority to get you off the road. How can a system that's supposed to be about public safety fail to track the violators who are making these intersections unsafe? The whole thing is crazy. And Florida, that's why I hate the red light camera.
If you want to sound off, let's hear it. Did you get one of these red light camera tickets? What's your feeling? Do you like them? Do you think it's fair what they are doing with these things?
If you have a ticket and would like to fight back with a traffic ticket attorney, click here.