Yellow timing lawsuit lost

Yes, but instead of justice for those treated unfairly, here's another example of "the State" taking it's citizens to the cleaners.

No wonder, respect for government is plunging.

Fred

You are stating the state is responsible for the decision the driver made "to hit the gas" rather than attempting to stop?

a) about the physics.

Based on the limited data- 4 second yellow, 45 MPH speed limit and Ceccarelli stepping on the gas in an attempt to speed through the intersection - one wonders 1) at what speed Ceccarelli was actually traveling, 2) how far from the intersection was he when the light turned yellow and 3) was there any grace period (say, .5 seconds) permitted for entering the intersection after the light had turned red.

b) about the laws.

Why would the city not have had to abide by the state standards for yellow light timings vis-a-vis speed limits?

Nitpicking - should the word should have been "malfeasance"?

PS: I think the ticket should have been dismissed.

Also worth mentioning is that Cary's red light cameras have all been removed due to other problems with the cameras, most notable Cary acknowledging that the camera company was ticketing many people for driving that was completely legal and many people were paying up rather than taking the time to fight the ticket.

if the driver did slam on his breaks and stop in the middle of the intersection? What happens if the driver gets in an accident or worst gets killed. Who's fault would it be and would he get a ticket for causing an accident?

If the issue is safety rather than revenue, longer yellow lights would go a long way to preventing accidents. The light system should protect us from poor judgements of marginal (or worse) drivers.

Fred

"Even if the yellow light should have lasted longer, Ridgeway [the Judge] said, Ceccarelli could have stopped in time by hitting the brakes harder.

My problem with this is the judge, there are guidelines for how long a yellow should be for a reason, seems as if the judge just didn't like the guy saying he mashed down on the gas.

Here in PA local towns can not raise or lower speed limits on state roads, (they can on local roads) only the state can and the light timing would have been changed when the limit was. PA spells out how long a yellow should have been based on the speed limit and other factors. If this case was here in PA and the judge followed the law the guy would have beat the case.

The one critical piece of information we don't have is how long the light had been red before he entered the intersection. The other piece, as JGermann pointed out is how fast he was traveling when the camera was triggered. Most cameras report not only how long the light had been changed, but the speed of the vehicle pictured. Whether or not this was the case in Cary, we don't know.

"He said Cary had met its legal obligation under state law when it established a program using cameras to catch drivers running red lights. Even if it could be shown that state DOT engineers should have set longer yellow-light times at some intersections, Ridgeway said, there was no cause to make the town repay the $50 penalties collected from an estimated 9,500 drivers who were covered in the case."

That's the real issue right there. $475,000 would have to be repaid, and the money's already spent.

As long as the Gov gets the money, who cares, We need to pay for Food Stamps, Welfare, Free Health Care and such. What would you have us do, make people pay for these great services?

That case should have been excused.

Let's assume you are traveling at 45 MPH. That means you travel 66 feet every second. If the light changed 4 seconds before you got to the intersection, that means you had 264 feet in order to come to a stop before entering the intersection. Even giving a reaction time of half a second means you had 231 feet to stop but the defendant stated "he hit the gas."

It really sounds like the particular facts of the case caused the judge to make his decision. It's not that the judge thought the red light timing was appropriate, but rather that the driver should not have hit the gas rather than braking. Ceccarelli's testimony sounds like it sank the case from what I read in the article.

This is a perfect example of how case law can be construed in a variety of different ways. The decision shouldn't be seperated from the particular facts of the case. Little more than a poorly handled class-action case from the look of it to me.

Are you the only one who would come up with a conclusion like that?

Nuvi1300WTGPS

As I mentioned already, that's the way it looks to me.

I will side with the judge. Laws do not have to make sense or adhere to the laws of physics. The law simply states one must stop for a red light. He did not. Now if there was a law stating exactly how to set yellow light times............

In response to this"

Box Car said

Then Nuvi1300WTGPS reacted to that comment

It is certainly clear that "the State" did not treat anyone unfairly. The driver made the decision to step on the gas. The driver made a decision to try to beat the red and failed.

"Even if the yellow light should have lasted longer, Ridgeway [the Judge] said, Ceccarelli could have stopped in time by hitting the brakes harder.

The "State" did not treat this driver unfairly. Justice was meted out correctly, in my opinion.

The state not treating anyone unfairly, maybe, maybe not, depends on the law regarding traffic signals. If the yellow was short, by law, then yes the state was unfair. The statement from the judge seems to say there is a regulation about length of the light cycle. He decided to disregard that because he didn't like the defendant saying he hit the gas is how it reads to me.

Other things not mentioned in the article could have helped make the judges decision too, but they could also favor the defendant. Like weather conditions or how close traffic behind him was. Hitting the brakes harder could have thrown the car into a spin, a little extreme, maybe, but not impossible.

Hey, the guy may very well have had time to stop, safely. My problem is the judge apparently disregarding the fact the light may have been short cycling according to regulations.

The government should have to adhere to the law just like us regular folk, if the light was supposed to be a certain length then the government wasn't following the law anymore than the guy who ran the light, who may not have ran the light if the light was timed properly.

Maybe we will get more info later

Pretty much all espouse the words of Paulie Cisero from Goodfallas.

"business is bad? f you, pay me." "oh you had a fire? f you, pay me." "place got hit by lightning huh? f you pay me."

Governments couldn't give a tinker's dam about you or your rights, they only want your money.

You (and I) are the government. We want services and we have to pay for them.

I just hate these judges.. Most of them have a driver and rarely ever drive their own cars.. It's all about the money..

I know many judges and none of them have a driver.

This group

and this group,

are not always the same people.

not necessarily, a while back an Illinois judge was stopped by a state trooper, the judge got indignant with the trooper and drove off, his only penalty was he resigned from the bench.

This makes sense-

[quote=jgermann
Nitpicking - should the word should have been "malfeasance"?

misfeasance is Doing a proper act in a wrongful or injurious manner

malfeasance is Wrongful conduct by a public official

According to Black's (http://thelawdictionary.org/misfeasance/)

A misdeed or trespass. The doing what a party ought to do improperly. 1 Tidd, Pr. 4. The improper performance of some act which a man may lawfully do.

Read more: What is MISFEASANCE? definition of MISFEASANCE (Black's Law Dictionary)
From the way the original article was written, the city could, and did, change the speed limit from 35 to 45. Their apparent failure to notify the state so the signal could be retimed is the improper performance of raising the speed limit.

I am reading the article differently.

[the judge] said Cary had met its legal obligation under state law when it established a program using cameras to catch drivers running red lights. Even if it could be shown that state DOT engineers should have set longer yellow-light times at some intersections,...

[Ceccarelli] produced evidence that DOT engineers had erred when they set that yellow-light time at 4 seconds, based on the mistaken idea that the Cary Towne Boulevard speed limit was 35 mph.

I read these to mean that the city had already set the speed limit at 45 before the state set the timing.

The argument over mis or mal is non productive and adds nothing.

But I am learning something!!!!!

I do not believe judges enforce guidlines, just laws.

In this kind of case, you're never going to get anywhere close to 100% agreement among judges. It's a crapshoot to take a case like this to court.

I would be sympathetic to testimony that the light was too short to safely stop in time at the speed limit if I were the judge, but I can understand why a judge could take into consideration and find the case weakened by the driver admission that he sped up to beat the light; it undermines his argument that the yellow was too short.

government is not interested in anything but power and money. when the rules are complicated, contradictory and arbitary, then everyone is guilty of something. that gives government the ability to punish anyone they choose using taxpayers money with no liabilty if they loose - the utlimate power.

I don't understand why people should drive any differently just because there is a camera there. I suppose it's human nature. I remember this girl bending over changing her tire on a Saab, causing a huge delay on the expressway. How stupid is that? She should have known better, and DOT should have removed her vehicle from the roadway, so that traffic would flow.

Some day, I'm sure every intersection will have a traffic cam and people will get used to them. Frivolous lawsuits is what we seem to be all about nowadays...

here is a question for you if the light was at the correct time would he have beat the light with out speeding up???

is asking if he also stopped beating his wife.

'is asking if he also stopped beating his wife' is irrelevant to the question asked, the timing of the yellow is a fact, is that fact less than is should have been it would be relevant.

No, the point raised in your statement was "beating the light" instead of coming to a stop. The judge stated there was no reason, based on the facts and arguments presented, he could not have stopped albeit by stepping a little more firmly on the WHOA instead of the GO pedal.

If we are making assumptions can we also assume he was traveling the posted speed limit "Vmax", the light went from green to yellow "T"(a short yellow) and as stated excellerated "Vmax +" and broke the speed limit. Or he was traveling at a speed less than the posted speed limit "Vmax - A+" so he would then have had extra time "T+ Vmax - A+"? So either way he was in the wrong. Now if a swallow were to carry a coconut........

informal definition of beat/beating is To arrive or finish before. which is what I was talking about

Finishing what? getting into the intersection before the light turned red or coming to a stop and waiting for the light to cycle?

This case wasn't so much about the physics as it was the attitude.

That's what I have thought all along.

Let's discuss this rather than bandy about comments about government being corrupt, etc. The decision was by a judge.

My view on red lights is I should not see the red. If I get through the intersection far enough that I do not see the light go from yellow to red I figure I am fine with a little margin. If I see the red I figure I should have stopped. I doubt the driver in this case has a rule similar to this. So I think he is wrong. Speeding up to beat the light is the kind of driver that runs red lights.

I also think red light cameras are wrong. They are revenue and not safety driven. I would be OK with using them at a problem intersection or something as a deterent but I don't think that is how they are generally used.

I also think the city and state are wrong to not talk to each other so that the yellow would be adjusted when the speed limit was adjusted. Guys like me will "see the red" in these sort of intersections even when driving reasonably.

Finally I believe it is wrong that the part of our legal system generally law abiding people encounter has a "prove you are innocent" mindset. You cannot be convicted anywhere else based upon a police officer or other single person's testemony. But in traffic court this is common. You are going to "convict" a lot of innocent people with a "prove you are innocent" approach. But I doubt this plantiff was innocent.

Jim

@JimD1,
I was agreeing with you as I went along reading your post until I go to the last paragraph.

I would think that a great number of people are convicted of wrongdoing on the basis of one person's testimony.

On the question of "innocence", it seems to me that a picture of your car entering the intersection with the light on red does not even need a police officer to testify. There is a difference between "evidence" (the photos and often a few seconds of video) and an accuser (the police officer).

The judge took the path of least resistance, rolling over another motorist rather than requiring the city to issue refunds for the incorrectly issued tickets.

The question here is does NC have a law stating the ITE guidelines on signal timing have to be followed? Remember, when the limit was 35, the timing gave a extra half second. Does that mean those that entered the intersection during the half second before the light turned red during this time should pay as the signal was also mistimed according to the guidelines?

Reflex is happily counting their money, while the town of Cary spent valuable resources defending this case. Kudos for Mr. Ceccarelli for fighting his ticket. The cameras are gone. Maybe the next motorist would present his case better. Then the town would be stuck with paying refunds while Redflex would still be counting the proceeds.

OK, hit the brakes harder and end up stopping in intersection, they still got you the minute you move to get out of intersection, SNAP, Gotcha!!!!

Was this a response to some previous comment?