PaulAdrian's Blog

I think the first court they come to is going to dump this case so fast it will make your head spin.....Based primarilly on the fact that the person reported may not be the person who was driving the car.

How stupid are these people, anyway???

It's a very real problem, lj1998, because thousands of people do it every day in the Metroplex. Only a small percentage get the Candid Camera treatment. I suspect that the vast majority of us agree with your statement, but the fact remains that thousands are doing it.

The reporting for non-payment is the gist of the post and that was also the gist of my comment.

As a retired police officer, I hold no special place in my heart for red light runners, I can assure you.

American hypocrisy at it’s finest! I bet all these law breaking citizens complaining because they have to pay the penalty for breaking the law are the same whiners who want to hang immigrants from their toe nails.

Red light runners injure and kill far more people than immigrants, but I guess some laws are just for some people…oops…I digress…wrong meeting.

It doesn’t matter who is driving your car (what’s up Keller?). The owner of the vehicle is liable for that vehicle. If the owner can’t produce the name of the person who was driving THEIR car at that time, then the owner is negligent. Just like when a car is ticketed for parking, nobody cares WHO parked the car illegally, simply that the car is parked illegally and the owner gets the bill.

Yep I say hang red light runners from their toe nails; let them lose everything they own and more for all I care. I’ve seen the carnage red light runners leave behind and if bad credit is all they get…boo…hoo…hoo.

Footnote: You don’t go through an intersection without knowing what the color of the light is. If you can’t see the dang light, you WAIT until you CAN see the light. I was only16 in Driver’s Ed when I learned that one.

You Texans crack me up.

Red light camera tickets are not a criminal violation. They are considered a cival violation, so they do not have to prove who was driving the car, just that the car ran the red light. The owner is help responsible or show that they no longer own the car. The attached it to credit as a way to make people pay the fine. Since it is a civil violation, no warrant can be issued and it does not go on your driving record. All that said, if the law says no credit repording, then no credit reporting. I guess that means no punishment for red light camera runners.

Guess if someone steals your car and runs several red lights, you'll not only go to jail, your credit is shot to.

God bless our ignorance !

It's outrageous. When it's not a criminal act, and they don't bother to prove who was behind the wheel ... how can you attack the owner of the car's credit?
We all know how crucial good credit is. It's ludicrous that the city thinks they can ruin such an important facet of someone's life over a red light.

Here is a link to the City Of Irving red light camera policy. It states that it is a civil violation and what they will do.

http://cityofirving.org/public-works/red-light-camera.h
tml

The only reason I am against it is because it is strictly a revenue earner for the city. It is simply about extracting cash from the citizen and, if they do not respond, its about extortion. Don't get me started on the privacy issues.

WQell, wrongway, when I received my violation some 11 months ago, I paid it no questions asked. What disturbed me was not the fine, but rather the camera and what it captured. Aside from the pictures, it also recorded my speed (I had sped through the light attempting to make it). I would not doubt for a moment there were a means by which to record as well. I am against the intrusion by government into the privacy of citizens, not against the enforcement of tyraffic laws. I highly expect the City of Dallas to be challenged on this vendetta and be found liable.

Hannah,

Running a red light is a dangerous and often deadly offense. “According to 2004 data from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting and General Estimates Systems, crashes caused by red light running (RLR) resulted in as many as 854 fatalities and more than 168,000 injuries.”*

I’m sure that if you asked the survivors of the 800 or so people who die every year because of RLR if ruining someone’s credit over running a red light was too harsh, I’m pretty sure they’d say it wasn’t harsh enough.

Red light runners alter the entire lives of more than 100,000 people every year and yet they whine about having ruined credit; that’s just poppycock.

…and you can’t argue with the results.
“In Dallas, nearly 30 percent of all accidents at traffic signals were related to red-light running in 2006. That included 14 fatalities, 75 serious injuries and 487 minor injuries, according to city statistics.
The city's first 17 red-light cameras went online in mid-January. For the first six months, statistics show, T-bone crashes dropped 75 percent and rear-end accidents dipped 57 percent at those intersections.”
Source - Dallas Morning News – November 20, 2007

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