How To Beat Photo Radar

The City of Albuquerque, and many other cities around the nation, have installed and continue to install these cameras. The first interesting fact is that the City doesn't own or operate these cameras. They are owned and operated by a private company located in Phoenix Arizona. When you receive a "ticket" in the mail stating that you have been photographed speeding or running a red light, it is actually a bill coming from Scottsdale, Arizona. Even though it has been printed with City letterhead and symbols etc., it is not generated by the City. Check the postmark on the envelope- it will show postmarked in Scottsdale. What this means is that a private business is photographing you and saying that you are

guilty of a violation and that you must pay a lot of money for it. But guess who your paying.

How it works: This private company, known also a 'Photonotice.com', has set up an agreement with cities around the nation to install their cameras and take pictures of people 'allegedly' speeding, running red lights and whatever else they can say you were doing. They produce the photo, send you a "ticket" in the mail instructing you to pay the City and when you pay it, the City gives Photonotice a big cut of the money. So what you have is a private enterprise making deals with City Government to make profits for both.

Why it's unconstitutional. When you receive the bill from Photonotice, it will state what your violation is and that it is your burden to prove that you have not committed the offence. If you are not the driver of the vehicle, you are still responsible to pay the fine. The legal system in our country is founded upon the fact that you are "innocent until proven guilty". The way that this company has made a deal with the City to convict you and make it your burden to prove yourself not-guilty is one very obvious violation of your constitutional rights. Another is that any private business who makes money by saying that you broke the law is of course going to have an interest in you breaking the law. In other words, for this business to profit, it has to say that you broke the law and that you must pay them. Without accusing you, they convict you. This is not a City or State municipality, it's a regular corporate company. It's no different then you taking your digital camera out on the side of the road, taking a picture of a car going by and then sending the registered owner a bill for speeding. The way they make their money is that they have made a deal with the City to send you a bill with City markings, instructing you to pay the City, and then the City gives them a percentage. Have you noticed that a regular speeding ticket for going 10 mph over the limit given to you by a cop is around $100.00, but the same speed violation from a photo radar 'ticket' is more like $150.00 to $200.00? The reason is that the large extra money you're paying is going to Photonotice.
When you are given a ticket by a Police Officer, it states that you are not guilty and that you are only signing the ticket to show that you have received it. If you choose to set a Hearing, then it is the Officer's duty to prove to a judge that you committed the offence. There is a thing called "Due Process". The Officer has to show up in court, testify that he (or she) witnessed you committing the offence, and in the case of speeding, caught you with a means such as a radar gun that he has been trained to use and is within current calibration standards. With photo radar, there is no Due Process. They go strait to conviction and make it your burden to prove otherwise. There is no City or State official to witness the offence, and the equipment used to record it is not owned and maintained by the appropriate law-making or legal statute system like a radar gun is. Since photo radar equipment is owned by a private company, then it is subject to defective calibration, malfunction, or even willful adjustment or tampering by it's owners so that it shows an offence being committed when there was none. They can "photo" you going 100 mph if they want to, they own the equipment and have a financial interest in it showing the results they need to make money. This new way of "law enforcement" is purely financially based, and the numbers are an overwhelming success for the cities who use it, and for Photonotice.

How much money do they make? In an average day, there are about 4,000 photos taken of drivers doing everything from running red lights (sometimes yellow lights ) to speeding. There are vans with cameras parked in various places throughout the city just snapping away at drivers as they go by. By the end of the day those images will be transmitted back to Photonotice in Phoenix and approximately 4,000 "citations" will be mailed out to the owners. When each citation ranges anywhere from $100.00 to $300.00, then that means that they are generating around $500,000.00 a day. Half a million dollars a day, folks. And how do they get this much money? Because you're paying it- and you don't even know that you don't have to. Furthermore, you can commit as many red-light running and speeding offences as you want with this system and it won't ever go on your driving record or your insurance. You just keep sending the money in. Is this the design for safety? It would seem that taking away someone's license or restricting their driving privileges would be a solution to multiple-offence drivers. After all, that's why these laws exist right? Well, the fact is that the City and Photonotice want you to keep speeding or running red lights because it makes them rich, and taking away your driving privileges would only reduce their profits.

Myth: "They have to see my face in the photo to send me a ticket"
Not anymore- all they have to have is the license plate of the vehicle and they send the 'bill' to whomever the registered owner is. It doesn't matter who committed the offence, the owner is getting shafted. This is another travesty of the constitution. Since when does a city government get to just convict someone who may have not even been in the vehicle and committed any crime??? It points again toward a private business and the City just making it 'legal' to take someone's money, regardless if they even had anything to do with breaking the law. How would you feel if you lent your car to a friend from our of town and they went and robbed a bank with it, and since you own the car then the police just came put you in prison?
So don't think that because you have a helmet on with a dark visor that you are off the hook. If they can photograph the license plate, you're going to get the bill in the mail. For the time being, we motorcyclists can get away with a nice under-tail license plate bracket that mounts forward of the rear tire, making it impossible for photo radar to get the plate. But there may come a time soon when we can be violated for this, since it would cut into the millions of dollars that the City and Photonotice are raking in.

How to beat them at their own game: When it's your turn to get a bill in the mail for something that Photonotice's cameras say you did, then do not just immediately pay it. There is an option in the letter they send to schedule a hearing. This is what you must do. The City has from 90 days of the violation to schedule your hearing, if they can't schedule you within 90 days then your citation is dismissed. If everyone who gets these bogus bills in the mail requests a hearing, then the courts will become so bogged down that they won't be able to get you in within 90 days. So step 1 is you must schedule a hearing. Step 2, and you can do this without a lawyer, but it helps to have one, show up to your hearing and tell the judge that you want to know how this equipment is legitimately proving your guilt. If you were caught running a red light, this is where your luck will most likely run out. They will play the video of you running the red light. In the case of speeding, they will show a video of you going by and the camera showing the number of the speed you are allegedly traveling. There will be an APD officer present to act on behalf of the cameras, but he/she will have no knowledge of how they work, when or how they are calibrated, if they are accurate, etc. There is no way that they can prove that you are traveling at the speed that the camera shows. It's just some companies' equipment who makes money off having their equipment say that you're speeding. It's not a cop, or a state or city-owned and operated device. It's a private business that has a vested financial interest in making sure you are portrayed as doing something illegal. That is enough of an argument to show that their is a possibility that Photonotice could be altering their equipment to show whatever they want, or that it is possible that their equipment isn't working accurately. That's a reasonable doubt, and reasonable doubt results in inability to prove guilt. Many cases have been dismissed with this argument, but you have to know it to be able to use it.

What if I just throw away the ticket and not pay it? This is the worst thing you can do. The fees will compound and you will be given only three notices to pay. If you don't, then the next time a cop runs your plate- even if your not pulled over- then they can confiscate your vehicle and leave you by the site of the road. You must either schedule a hearing or pay the fine.

Bottom Line: When people just pay the fine without fighting it, it just supports this money-making scheme. More and more towns and cities are ordering these cameras and money is the reason. Of course taking time off work to go to a hearing is unpleasant, but would you rather keep paying these fines over and over? Especially to a company which you owe nothing to? Of course, you can always just never speed or run lights, but let's face it, everyone has gone over the limit now and then. Even cops, lawmakers, legislators, nuns- everyone. Someone just found a way to cash in on it- and the City officials are all about money, so they are signing deals with Photonotice and watching the profits roll in.
A company has no right to force you to pay them without rendering a service or goods of some sort. This is an example of an enterprise that doesn't really cash in on violations of the law, but rather people's ignorance of the law and their laziness to fight for themselves. Most people have more money than time or intelligence, and this is where a company like Photonotice sets the trap. If people refuse to put up with this "big brother" approach to capital gain disguised as law enforcement, then it will go away. But as long as people are paying, it will continue to get more powerful. Just because our system is designed to vote our elected officials into office doesn't mean that they have to do what we want them to when they get there. They are making laws and policy based purely on their own financial gain and power, and not on what is best for you. The choice is yours, either do your part to make this kind of injustice go away, or let it slowly get worse and worse, until you have no power or say at all. There's an old saying, "If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out. But if you put him in a pot of water and then slowly turn up the heat until it boils, he'll stay there until he dies." Photo radar cameras are the latest example of how lawmakers are taking away our rights and our constitution. And the heat is only getting turned up.
-MT

	Special Thanks to Mallot Rios Law Firm and KZRR 94 Rock for putting out the word.
	Probably one of the most aggravating new ideas that the City Governments have endeavored in to find new ways to get into the pockets of it's citizens is the photo radar cameras that you are seeing popping up everywhere like dandelions in the spring. But what you don't know about this unconstitutional new scheme to increase revenues will surprise you.
	First of all, I must preface this article by stating that red light running is killing people from coast to coast at an alarming rate. How many times have you seen someone blow through a red light at an intersection? Especially when riding a motorcycle, one doesn't stand a chance when getting T-boned by a driver flying through an intersection while not paying attention at all that a light has turned red. Never run red lights folks- intersections are dangerous areas and those lights are there to prevent accidents. With the idea in mind that something needed to be done to decrease fatality rates in large cites, the photo radar camera was born. And it's intent has it's good merits, but where the idea of making people who run red lights accountable for their transgressions of the law, has now taken a turn in the direction of violating the Constitutional rights of the people of this city and many others- and it's of course driven by greed.