Boulder, Colorado's new photo enforced parking program capturers images of vehicles, and notes the exact time and place each image was recorded.  The city is using technology called AutoVu made by a company Genetec based in Montreal, Canada.  The device is a vehicle-mounted camera that can recognize license plates as a parking officer is driving by without stopping. An integrated computer system compares the plates to a database of parking violations, and can pick out vehicles that have been parked too long in pay-to-park or neighborhood parking zones. Boulder City officials plan to use the cameras to for criminal investigations as well. Boulder purchased the camera for $46,000.

Related Stories:
Parking Ticket for Street Sweeping
Parking Ticket Photo Enforcement

No, and its illegal since it is considered defacing your licence plate or in some states defacing government property. This photo blocking spray is just gimmick. The cameras will always catch you, no matter what you spray or cover on your license plate. Watch this video for a demonstration of the product as a scam.  See this previous story on plate blocker does not work. 

Up to 50 intersection in Rochester, New York will eventually be equipped with Red Light Cameras. Cameras are now up at the first three intersections in an attempt to catch drivers running red lights. They include State and Jay Streets, Alexander and Broadway and North Street and Clifford Avenue.

The cameras will capture still and video images of vehicles in the act of a red-light violation, which will initiate the procedure to deliver a Notice of Liability, to the registered owner of the vehicle. The violation is a civil matter and will not be reported to insurance companies or generate points on a driver’s license.

Evidence captured by the Red Light Cameras will be reviewed by the Rochester Police Department before the Notice of Liability is delivered in the mail. Vehicle owners are responsible for violations by operators of their vehicle. Vehicle owners will have an opportunity to appeal the Notice or pay the fine. The civil violation carries an initial $50 fine. If the initial fine is not paid within 30 days an additional penalty of $25 will be assessed.

The program will begin with a 15 day warning period, when warning letters will be sent.
The cameras operate 24 hours a day and capture still photographs and video of every vehicle that runs a red light at the intersection. Cameras photograph only the vehicle and the license plate of vehicles running the red lights. No images of the driver or passengers are captured. Each set of images of a red light violation are reviewed and approved by the Rochester Police Department before a Notice of Liability is mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle.  Pay Rochester tickets here

Here is a scare tactic video and a demonstration of how the cameras work.

Red light camera tickets typically take from 3-7 business days to process and are mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle.  We recommend waiting until the ticket arrives in the mail before trying to find out ahead of time.  Some people just don't have the patience to wait and if the matter is urgent we recommend calling one of the local police departments listed in the directory below or by dialing 311 on your phone.  Please do not dial 911 on your phone as the operator will not accept your call because getting a ticket is not an emergency requiring dispatch.  Unfortunately, most Police departments are not equipped to handle this type of customer  service so expect the worst when you take on this endeavor.  You can also try searching the databases of PhotoNotice.com and Atsol.com.   Also, PhotoEnforced.com does not own, operate or run any of the cameras and we are simply a database of the locations.  Please do not email us with questions asking if you received a ticket because we do not currently have any way of verifying them.  

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Drivers be warned: In the perpetual cat-and-mouse war between parking enforcement and motorists trying to park without getting a ticket in this city, the cat just got a powerful new weapon. The city of Newton, a suburb of Boston, is installing video cameras that can detect when a car has been parked in a metered spot too long. According to a story in The Boston Globe, the devices alert parking enforcement officers if a ticket needs to be written.

Automatic license plate recognition — a kind of RoboCop of the parking world that uses a panoramic video camera, laptop computer, and sophisticated software — detects cars that have been parked too long and sounds an alert to write a ticket.

The city bought three systems for $50,000 and plans to install them in parking enforcement vehicles this month. Officials believe the technology could double the number of parking tickets the city writes each year and sharply increase the $1.8 million in annual parking fees it collects.  Read more.

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Photo Enforced Parking Tickets Are Coming
Parking Ticket for Street Sweeping

ABC KCRG TV News in CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Mark Geary, Reporter – Just about everyone occasionally speeds or even accidentally runs a red light. Now, a series of cameras keep the streets of Cedar Rapids under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As a result, more people will get caught breaking the law.

"It's kind of scary because you don't want to get a ticket, but it's great for safety,” driver Marie Lampe said, “I think if you break the law, you should get punished for that.”

Red light cameras monitor busy intersections with a history of traffic problems. The goal is to make people drive more cautiously and cut down on the number of accidents and injuries. Violations caught by the cameras come with a fine, but do not appear on your driving record.

"There are a lot of cars that do a lot of illegal things,” driver Fredie Hill said.

Despite their benefits, plenty of people remain skeptical. Others have privacy concerns.

"I think big brother's watching us,” driver Ed Mulligan said, “I think they’re good if they’re for safety reasons, but if it’s for financial gain for the city and the government to make more money, I think it’s wrong.”

Cedar Rapids Police insist the cameras are not simply money-making devices. Instead, they argue the equipment is just another way to keep people safe. "All we're monitoring is criminal behavior. If you're not a criminal and you're not doing anything illegal, you don't have anything to worry about,” Sergeant Cristy Hamblin said.

A company called PhantomPlate claims its product will make your license plate invisible to the camera's eye. The company says all you need to do is coat your license plate with its PhotoBlocker spray and the cameras can't catch you.

"Everybody's looking for a shortcut to get away with something," Hamblin said, "If it's too good to be true, it probably is.”

We tested the spray with help of the Cedar Rapids Police Department. Instructions say to remove the plate from the vehicle and coat it four times. Just to be safe, we sprayed it five times. Then, we re-attached the plate and triggered the cameras.

Turns out the product did not shield the plate from the camera. Police could still read the letters and numbers. PhantomPlate also sells a plate cover that claims to block the cameras as well. It didn't work, either.

"It's not the ticket or the money that we're looking for. What we're really trying to do is save people from being injured," Hamblin said.

"I feel bad if people get taken for that money," Hamblin said.

Looks like these gimmicks really are too good to be true.

"I have a hard time figuring out why people are so worried. I don't have anything to hide," driver Vivek Sharma said, “I don’t think I’ll be spraying my truck.”

Therefore, it seems the best way to avoid a ticket just might be to stop speeding and running red lights.

Are you paying your auto insurance premiums every month?  If you are not, watch out because Nevada and a few other states are considering adding photo enforcement as a tool to catch the near 20% of drivers who are on the road without it.  

InsureNet, a Chicago-based company, has offered to pay Nevada $30 million up front for the privilege of setting up scanners and providing the necessary software to nail drivers without insurance. The company would keep a yet-to-be-determined percentage of the fines paid.

If approved by legislators, cameras would be installed at intersections and scan license plates as vehicles pass through. If 20 vehicles zip through an inter section in a 3-second period, the scanner will capture each vehicle's plate information and run it through a national database to determine the insurance status of the driver, Gibbons spokesman Dan Burns said.

"The company will decide where they want to put the cameras, but obviously you would put them in a high-traffic area," Burns said. "They sit there and scan all day." About 22 percent of Nevada drivers are without insurance, Burns said.

Legislators have shot down supporters of red-light cameras three times since 2005. Critics aired concerns about the cost and whether cameras violate motorists' rights to privacy and due process.

Insurance companies notify the DMV of insurance lapses every month. Under Nevada LIVE, the DMV will be notified immediately. The offender will receive a verification request in the mail and can dispute the citation online or in person. Motorists who fail to respond will receive a registered letter notifying them of their suspended registration.

"We don't really know too much about it," Tom Jacobs, a DMV spokesman, said of the InsureNet proposal. Burns touted the InsureNet system for its ability to catch out-of-state offenders, but Jacobs questioned the process because not all states have insurance verification programs.

It is unknown how effective InsureNet's system is. No other state has implemented the program. According to the Chicago Tribune, InsureNet representatives told Chicago officials that the company planned to have "three or four states" signed on within months. That was a year ago.

Burns said InsureNet told the governor it planned to have two other states sign on soon.

Don't tattle on a friend or a family member for driving your 

Red light camera tickets cost about $500 per ticket in California and a point on your license. Since the tickets add a point on your license, the police must obtain the name of the actual driver before they can file the ticket at court. Since the photo of the license plate will only lead to the registered owner ("RO"), and often he/she often was not the person driving the car. The police will go to great lengths to get registered owners to identify who was driving the car that was ticketed. Technicians reviewing the photos will check to see if the pictured driver is obviously not the registered owner (male / female mismatch, age difference, or a rental car). Sometimes the photo is too blurry to identify who it is and will send the registered owner an official-looking notice telling him that he must identify the driver. About 40 California police departments will mail out Snitch Tickets to fool the registered owner into identifying the actual driver of the car.

Snitch Tickets have not been filed with the court, so are recognizable because they don't say "Notice to Appear," don't have the court's address, and say (on the back, in small letters), "Do not contact the court." Since they have NOT been filed with the court, they have no legal weight. You can ignore a Snitch Ticket. Snitch Tickets are designed to look like a real ticket but are legally very different. Real tickets and Snitch Tickets both ask the registered owner to turn-in or identify the person who was driving the car. Despite all that, there are some differences that you can rely on. One of the best ways to identify a Snitch Ticket is the small print on the back of the page, "Do not contact the court about this notice." Snitch Tickets will also lack any wording directing you to contact or "Respond to" the court. In fact, on a typical Snitch Ticket there is no phone number for the court, and the court's address usually is missing or incomplete. (Please note, however, that in some towns the real tickets carry an incomplete address.

A real ticket will ask you to contact ("Respond to") the court and you should. If your ticket says this it's likely a real one and you should look it up on the court's website. If it's not on their site, it still could be real. Make sure you are looking on the court's website, not the website of the camera operator Redflex (PhotoNotice) or ATS's. Your ticket is real if you have received a Courtesy Notice and it asks you to contact the court. Please note that your ticket could be real even if the court's phone number is missing and its address is incomplete. This is often the case because some cities are leaving this information off their real tickets, to make it harder for defendants to fight their ticket in court.

Depending on the state, county or province, the laws regarding red light camera ticket citations are different. Some red light camera ticket photos can't be used or enforced for different reasons. These are the top 10 reasons for the tickets not being enforced:

1) Both images do not show vehicle through intersection during the red light
2) Unreadable license plate due to glare, lighting or obstruction of license plate
3) No license plate or the dealer plate logo is showing from transfer of ownership
4) Out of State plates - Not sure about this one in every State?
5) Weather related image distortion due to rain, snow, dust or wind
6) Invalid or temporary license plates
7) No DMV match to the registered vehicle driver, some states only require photo of the vehicle
8) Traffic signal, camera, flash malfunction
9) Poor image quality or focus
10) The driver was not you and you may submit a Declaration of Non-liability.

As always we would appreciate here feedback about your experiences related to the enforcement of tickets due to these circumstances and any others we are missing. We are especially curious about #4) out of State plates and the enforcement of tickets.

Please do not consider any of the information on this page as legal representative advice to be used in any court of law. PhotoEnforced.com will not be held liable for any information in this article.

The Wall Street Journal botched this story "Get the Feeling You're Being Watched - If You're Driving, You Just Might Be. Cameras to Catch Speeders and Scofflaws Are Spreading -- And Sparking Road Rage" This story was botched as they did not do their homework with regards to cameras in operation. "Suppliers estimate that there are now slightly over 3,000 red-light and speed cameras in operation in the U.S., up from about 2,500 a year ago". This number is incorrect and its more like 5,000-6,000 red light cameras in operation. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that at the end of last year, 345 U.S. jurisdictions were using red-light cameras, up from 243 in 2007 and 155 in 2006. The Insurance Institute of Highway safety has never published an article on the topic of red light cameras or speed cameras and they are sited as the source for this information as well. I am not sure how much credibility this organization has with regards to regulation, tracking of locations and souring of for this information.

Also, I think RedFlex gave the WSJ a bogus number of 3000 cameras operating in the U.S. so it made it look like they have bigger market share than they actually do. Did they talk to ATS, Nestor, ACS, RedSpeed, LaserCraft, Traffipax, Gatso and Transcore? Did they talk to any cities who have purchased cameras and operate them without the management services of these companies? Many cities have purchased cameras and do not use a large company to operate them. See our comparison grid wiki of red light camera operators

I am also disappointed the writer did not highlight the discrepancies in fines across the U.S. that range from $50-$500.

I am also not sure if the WSJ actually talked to customers who used the Plate Blocker?

read more

Automatic License Plate Recognition

ELSAG North America is aiding US law enforcement with public safety solutions based on highly intelligent, Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology. Applications include highway and traffic safety, criminal intelligence gathering, homeland security, auto recovery, AMBER Alerts, and school bus safety, and many more.

A network of fixed LPR systems, which can be mounted to structures such as bridges and overpasses, as well as mobile LPR systems, which are mounted to police vehicles that can capture up to 3,000 license plates per hour, help keep a tight watch on cities, ports, borders and other sensitive areas. The MPH-900® LPR technology is being used by hundreds of agencies all across the United States to assist with interdiction, the capturing criminal intelligence data. The technology arms law enforcement with real time knowledge and post-action criminal intelligence increasing the day-to-day productivity and safety of officers all over North America. The power of the MPH-900 LPR system ensures safer streets, a safer nation and safer officers. More than four hundred agencies across thirty US states are applying the automatic License Plate Reader to a variety of missions including:

• Removing suspended and revoked drivers off the road before they cause an accident
• Recovery of stolen vehicles and rental cars
• Assistance with AMBER Alerts and missions related to missing and exploited children
• Safe school initiatives such as perimeter security and school bus safety
• Development and maintenance of Sexual Predators Hot Lists
• Drug interdiction
• Highway Safety
• Homeland Security initiatives
• Gang and racketeering interdiction
• Collection of unpaid taxes and fees

www.Elsagna.com for more info.

CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE ANNOUNCES PHOTO-ENFORCED HAND HELD ISSUED PARKING TICKETS
Photos Mailed to Registered Owners Will
Also Be Available On-line

The Department of Revenue announced today that it will begin including pictures of certain parking ticket violations in notices mailed to registered owners. Parking tickets issued by the Department of Revenue will be supported by photos showing the violations.

The initial enforcement will include violations issued for missing, expired or improperly displayed license plates, city stickers, and residential parking permits. The photographs will be taken by camera-enabled handheld ticket issuance devices, and will be recorded at the time the tickets are issued.

"No one likes to get parking tickets," said Revenue Director Bea Reyna-Hickey. "However, when motorists are provided strong evidence that a violation occurred, they can either promptly pay or contest the ticket."

"It's been our experience that sometimes well meaning people who never intended to violate the law, need to see this reminder," she added.

"It's important that people adhere to our parking laws if we're to provide every neighborhood with adequate parking and protect their safety."

Related posts:
Parking Ticket Photo Enforcement

The following question was posed to me by a reader that I do not have the answer to and would appreciate your help. "I am currently driving a new car that does not have license plates. I ran through a red light and it took pictures when I passed through the intersection. I had my vehicle registration on the dashboard and was wondering if the cameras can see that much detail? What are the chances of me getting a ticket?" My speculation is that you will not get a ticket in the mail because I don't think the officer reviewing the photo enforced situation will have any way to trace the vehicle without a license plate. I would appreciate hearing any feedback from drivers.

Sean Tierney hates photo radar. So he decided to think up a creative way to challenge the system and avoid a future ticket. Tierney is not covering up or altering his license plate in any way. And he’s not selling anything. Tempe high-tech businessman ordered a customized Arizona license plate of zeroes, O’s and D’s that blend together in a way that could make it confusing for a photo-enforcement citation reviewer to confirm the license plate. See the link for a picture of the license plate.

Red light camera photos taken by road-rule enforcement cameras must be viewed by a person before any infringement notice or ticket is issued to the driver, and judged to be satisfactory or not. Verifiers typically must check some or all of the following:

1) no sign of interference with the vehicle detector by objects other than the vehicle
2) license plate readable according to a legal standard
3) make and model of vehicle matches the recorded license plate nunber
4) appearance of the driver in the images is adequate or that it matches the picture on the drivers license of the vehicle's registered owner.

 

It is never fun to get a ticket but sometimes the picture turns out to be funny becuase it caught you with a really angry face or surprised. I am going to create a collage of pictures in the next few months and would like to consider your picture for a laugh. If you are open to me publishing your picture on my web site with your license plate number edited out please send it to me at jeff@photoenforced.com.

Police in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia have just completed a trial of license plate recognition technology and are planning a widespread rollout of the technology in Vancouver. It consists of a camera mounted atop a police car that looks up license plates, checks them against a database and alerts the cop at the wheel if the car is "suspicious". The technology can look up about 3000 plates an hour and they apparently find that they are overwhelmed with the number that turn up as being suspicious - about one in fifty. In my opinion, this technology will no doubt be used in the future in conjunction with speed and red light cameras to catch criminals more quickly.

In Des Moines, Iowa, KCCI's Geoff Greenwood tests whether products that claim to keep licence plates out of the lenses of red-light cameras really work. In this story we also discover that products that block vision of your license plate can get you a ticket as well if you are caught by police. If you watch this in-depth video of PhotoBlocker spray and License Plate covers you will see that they do not work. Click on the link to watch the story.

Illinois is about to go high tech to nab speeders on expressways and in construction zones -- and thanks to clear photographs of drivers behind the wheel -- it's a ticket you can't talk your way out of. Say "cheese" and open your wallet. Illinois police are getting ready to unleash their latest weapon to catch speeders in dangerous construction zones. It's a new photo enforcement van that snaps pictures of drivers behind the wheel, their license plates, and their speed. Here's how it works: within 50 yards of the enforcement van, a radar gun locks onto a vehicle and captures its speed. The driver sees his or her speed displayed on a board above the van -- then flash, police have what they need. Drivers don't know they've been had until they receive a $375 ticket in the mail. That's the minimum fine for a first-time offense of speeding in a construction zone. The second offense will cost you $1,000. And if you hit a worker, the penalty is up to a $10,000 fine and 14 years in prison.