Red-light redux
High Point's red-light camera program has been in the news quite a lot this week, to put it mildly. City officials announced Thursday that the program will be suspended at the end of the month pending their appeal of a Superior Court ruling that Guilford County Schools are entitled to 90 percent of the proceeds from the red-light camera citations.
A fuller explanation of what happened this week is available here and here. (My thanks to intrepid courts reporter Eric Collins for his help this week.)
In this morning's story about High Point suspending its red-light camera program, I mentioned a pending bill in the state Senate introduced by Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston. There are some interesting elements to the proposal that I didn't have room for in today's story.
More after the jump...
Hoyle isn't a fan of red-light cameras because he believes drivers caught on camera are guilty until proven innocent instead of vice versa.
Hoyle was sparked to introduce the bill based on the experiences of one of his constituents. A red-light camera supposedly caught the man running a red light in Greensboro in a pickup truck.
Just one problem, Hoyle said: the man doesn't own a pickup truck. According to Hoyle, the license plate was fuzzy in the photo taken, leading to the identification of the wrong plate number. While the man was able to exonerate himself, Hoyle said, it took a lot of time and effort.
"(The cameras) need to be accurate and right 100 percent of the time," Hoyle said.
Hoyle has come up with quite an incentive for the cameras to always be right.
His bill would require hearing officers who listen to appeals of red-light camera citations to make a finding of fact that the owner of the vehicle cited is in fact responsible for the violation. The finding of fact would include a finding that the license plate belongs to the vehicle cited.
If that finding of fact can't be made, the driver not only wouldn't have to pay the $50 fine but would receive damages of $50 plus 50 cents per mile for every mile the driver had to travel from their home to the site where the hearing took place.
But no matter what, we here at The Inside Scoop encourage you to obey all traffic laws, whether a camera is watching you or not. Otherwise, you'll have to answer to our friends at Fast Forward.
Update: Virginia's General Assembly ditches red-light cameras.
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