Ok, I understand being in a hurry, if you are on your way to have a baby, besides that, why people are in a hurry to put your life or someone else in play by running a red light is besides me.On the way to work this morning two, I repeat two different people ran red lights just to get up to the next one and stop. The one I recall the most was a white Toyota that flies right by me as I’m STOPPED at the light, he never slows down until wait for it wait for it, the next light is already red and there’s cars already stopped there, or I’m sure he would have ran that one also.
There’s a big push for cameras that take pictures of motorists that run red lights, I’m not 100% on this, because how does one know who is driving the car, so who’s license is affected by this, well there’s the issue with this, the vehicle owner would be subject to the fine, not the driver. So, if you allow a friend or relative to drive your vehicle and they run a red light and a picture is taken, guess what, you will get a $60 fine in the mail.
Currently in the Florida Senate, Senator Carey Baker (Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee) is supporting the use of cameras to fine motorists that run red lights. However, Senate bill 816 that passed out of committee a few weeks ago cuts the fines in half that cities and counties will collect; it takes the penalty from $125 fine to a $60 violation for the first three citations. The fourth violation written to a vehicle owner would get a fine of $125.
Now, I’m guessing and I’m saying I’m only guessing here, that the reason for cutting the fine is that the cameras will get more motorists in that act of running the red lights so in turn the cities and counties collect more. Well that’s just not right, I personally do not believe that a $60 fine will keep people from running these red lights. Senator Mike Bennett is the original sponsor of the bill and has said that he would try to reinstate the higher fines during the bills travel in three other Senate committees.
Now the big picture section of all this… Does the law allow for a ticket to be issued without having a direct drive to assign it to? Well, a 2005 attorney general’s opinion (at the time the AG for Florida was now Gov. Charlie Crist) said cities and counties can issue only warnings, not actual tickets, when using cameras at intersections. A question that I have is how does the cost get covered for the camera’s being installed at the intersections?
If the fine is going from $125 to $60, that would allow the cities and counties only to keep $30 of each violation and at a cost of around $300,000 per intersection, each intersection would need around 10,000 violations and I do not see that happening. Also, we have to get it thought the courts and we all know that our courts in Florida already backed up.
This write up was all because of two people that ran red lights this morning and there was no reason for it, just so they could be the first to the next red light.
Good Night & Good Luck,
SlawDog
