Baltimore City has suspended camera enforcement

thanks this is good to hear. i was on my way there this week.

Efforts to make major changes to the RLC situation met with limited success. Bill to extend RLC challenges from 30 to 60 days is on FL Governors desk.

Cost to challenge remains high.

If everyone who gets a red light or speed camera ticket would complain to their government officials about the accuracy, maybe all jurisdictions would find removing the cameras preferable to dealing with the complaints.

Hey, even those who haven't gotten a ticket should complain to the elected officials!

Unfortunately, RLC's are income producers for municipalities. Because of this reason, most areas will continue to fleece the public by using RLC's.

Very helpful info.

No question that here in Nassau County, NY, local cash strapped municipalities look on RLC as a miraculous cash cow; manna from heaven if you would. They are planning to increase RLCs by at least 50 during the next year. Of course the joke (on us) is they won't disclose locations in advance like they originally did and retracted same immediately thereafter. So we POI groupies will keep a sharp eye out for the new cameras' locations and advise POI Factory accordingly.

Similar situation here in Suffolk. We're getting another 50 also.

What's the difference getting caught by an officer or a RLC' if you run a red light? If your guilty it doesn't matter how you are caught..

Due process is lacking with the cameras. There is no one with direct knowledge of the alleged violation that can be questioned if you wish to contest it, and yes, the cameras make mistakes. Plenty of them. Also, the violation is sent to the car owner, not the driver, so the wrong person may get the ticket. It's time to ban these things.

Just out of curiosity, just how often does someone other than you drive your car? The only other person that regularly drives my vehicle is my wife (and she drives it more than me actually).

Positive news is good news!

The owner gets the fine for lending the car. If you lend the car, then you are giving up your rights to the driver, thus you are responsible for the ticket/fine. Same goes for the insurance responsibility/liability in case of an accident.

After driving to the doctor this morning I wish they had them at every stoplight!!! Unbelievable how many try to beat the yellow and don't.

Since all the news articles and the official city press release indicate this is temporary, we plan to leave the locations in our content as active.

If we get news that they are physically removing the cameras or have decided to officially terminate the ATVES program, we will remove them.

Thanks~

~Angela

It's all about the money. BIG BIG money!

That's great news indeed! Hopefully other cities and localities will do the same. It is up to us to complain and petition our legislators.

With the Baltimore City fine being $40 and the vender getting (at least was getting) half, the only way to make money is on big volumes. I think there is no way that a court appearance costs the City less than $40. After all, they need to pay the judge, bailiff, clerk, janitor who cleans the floor, etc. So even if you go to court and loose, the city has lost money on you. My guess is that when all the problems became known, the number of court cases went way up. The best way to cut your loses is to stop giving tickets. So when they get the entire system working reliably as intended, you can bet the citations will begin again. Wouldn’t surprise me if they raised the fine also.

Love hearing this.

It seems there always some who insist they never drive above the posted speed, some who say it's a justified means of income, and those that out right despise them completely. I, being the latter, wonder how many on both sides of the fence have installed the red light/ speed POI's HMMMMMMMMMMMM

If you are a law abiding citizen and never speed or run red lights why do you need the POI's. We have many RLC's where I live and are all posted warning you. I don't have them on my Garmin or in dash (oem). Don't understand what all the fuss is about. I don't know what the percentage is but how many people drive around where they live with their gps's hooked up just to be warned of the RLC's?

With technology being what it is today, a person ran the light, or they didn't. So there is no excuse for improper tickets. The system should be checked out, certified, and put back into service asap. The longer the system is not in use, the more rampant red light running will be.

I have them installed and they have warned me a couple of times. I took that opportunity to turn off before I even got to the camera to avoid them altogether as I have absolutely no confidence that they will be accurate.

"Fleece[ing] the public", is such a fitting term for what these desperate things really are!!!

--There really is NO MORE TO IT than that!!!!!

So, the question is... will you vote for the scoundrels who are pro on these ungodly things... or not?

If any one of you who is really a safe driver, yet occasionally pauses through a yellow/red at less than 1/2-mile an hour on a right-turn, when you have clearly seen that there is no other traffic which could be endangered by you when entering your right-turn, and yet would still actually LIKE to receive a fine in the mail from one of these "impartial" RLC's for this from time to time, please raise your hand around election time and definitely vote the same old scoundrels back into office for all of us to enjoy! Thank you!

Because the camera systems often make errors and yellow lights are shortened to intentionally cause revenue tickets.

The RLCs are still installed in downtown Baltimore even if they're not issuing tickets. I guess they're trying hard to find a solution to start issuing tickets again.

that Montgomery County, MD would do the same. My family is averaging 10 tickets per year!!!

still haven't learned.

I hope they do it on my city

I like how Lacey, Washington does it.
The cameras will continue to go off - working as usual. But on a monthly basis, once the fines generated have made up the vendor's fees, no more citations are mailed out. So, at least this city truly does not use it to make money. With the tickets that get revoked, it probably ends up as a net cost (in dollars) for the city.

Baltimore is full of waste and graft. The mayor and city council are addicted to these camera revenues much like junkies. Luckily my fuzz buster and the camera POIs from this great site keep them from fleecing me. For a city it's size, Baltimore has no business being in the top ten cities for cameras.

One, because many cities have been caught shortening yellow lights below the legal minimum, making it sometimes unsafe to stop even if driving below the speed limit. Second, cameras have actually been shown to *increase* rear-end accidents when drivers slam on the brakes in order to stop for the yellow and avoid getting a ticket. The POI serve as a warning to be extra careful around other drivers at these lights.

I don't object to the cameras. I do object to short yellow lights & manipulative policies.

Fred

--Amen!

Ditto!
Maybe I'll make a sound alert that says "Warning! Possible short green-red traffic device ahead".

Today's newspaper says the replacement cameras in Baltimore "may" be operating by the end of September.

I am not for automated enforcement, so I do object to the cameras. I think your standards are too low.

If some cop wants to give me a ticket I will sign it, then I may get to see him in court, free. I like that, a government service.

You need to remember why the cameras in Baltimore where shut down. The newspaper started investigating multiple reports of absurd speed camera infractions. They found big trucks clocked at 70 or 80 mph in traffic and cars stopped at red lights getting speeding tickets. Some judges having speeding conviction rates down around 30% based on available evidence. This is after a "police officer" has reviewed the photos and confirmed that the reported speed was consistent with the photos. Eventually the city could no longer deny what was obvious to everyone.

Some municipalities have imposed 'court fees' that you must pay if you wish to contest any infraction. This sometimes negates the effort of fighting the damned thing in the first place, because even if found innocent, you have to pay.

As of today Aug. 25, 2013, the Baltimore enforcements camera system is still off-line. The system is still disabled just temporarily, the cameras are NOT going to be removed, but no firm date has been set for re-activating the system yet.
.

BTW

- Baltimore City presently has installed:
~ 81 Red Light Cameras
~ 84 Portable Speed Enforcement Units
.

The city posts locations of units publicly on the city gov'ts website.
Check the following URL :

www.baltimorecity.gov/Government/AgenciesDepartments/Transpo...
.

BTW #2

- Quite a few of the Baltimore city alerts in the POI-Factory's
8-21-2013 Speed Cam & Redlight Cam POI file are
......... in point of fact inaccurate.
Many of them are, in fact, only traffic monitoring cameras.
I have experienced & noted this first hand.
.
Not sure how/where to submit corrections.

To myself or via email or the contact tab. If you have pictures or other publicly available documentation it's helpful to include that.

We've been monitoring the Baltimore situation over the last few months and plan to cross-check and update the cameras in that area once their plan forward becomes more definite. The cameras in that area were cross-checked a year ago using the Baltimore City website.

~Angela

Angela -
Thanks for your post to my above message.
Regarding your comment about the reporting of errors/inaccuracies in the Redlight/Speed Cam file.....
. . . . . >> "To myself or via email or the contact tab."
.
I DID send you a separate email/message as directed elsewhere on this site.
Wasn't sure if you saw it since I received no reply or acknowledgement of my message.
.
Anyway, since posting my above message, I tried to pay closer attention to see if the alerts were being triggered because of proximity to a Safety Cam at some *other* intersection which was close-by the stretch of road or intersection I was approaching.
.
While that MAY (?) have been the case in a *few* instances in a dense urban setting with multiple Safety Cams near one another, most often there was clearly no other possible Safety Cams around, though there WERE one or more Traffic Monitoring Cameras evident near the alerts.
- - BTW - I am mindful that Safety Cam alerts are NOT lane nor direction sensitive. - -
.
A second point I would like to respectfully share regarding reporting of the discrepancies is that there seem to be enough of them that it would be difficult & tedious to catalog them for reporting ...... especially while I am driving. - I live in the central downtown area of Baltimore and it's hard to remember them or write them down will driving in a busy inner city area.
I am willing to collect a *small* sample set of apparent/suspected errors for you to examine for reference, but making a detailed or lengthy list would be a difficult undertaking.
Please advise.

((Question- As Moderator are you able to get my email address from my registered profile to contact me directly without my posting it publicly on this forum ? ))
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Thanks for assisting with making the camera files more accurate. All of us appreciate those who make the file more accurate.

I was wondering how you loaded the poi-factory camera files. Most of us just load them using express mode of POI Loader such that the default values are used for alerts based on the keywords in the files. Is that what you did, or did you do a special run in manual mode of POI Loader?

My post here was in response to the post you made which preceded the email you sent me. I did not respond to the email as it seem to be asking the same question you posed on this forum and by responding on here others could see that your concerns were being addressed and if someone were to have similar questions they would have a reference point.

I will be emailing you so we can continue this conversation privately.

~Angela

That really is great news to hear!

That's a good enough reason right there!!

I agree-

I'm really curious to see what happens long-term with this situation. Mainly, what other locations have similar issues and it will be received by voters, etc, if the issues are widespread.

Angela I prefer get an alert of a Camera that is not there and NOT to get one from a camera that is there and is working

Today we spoke with officials with City of Baltimore Dept of Transportation. Both RLC and Speed camera programs are currently suspended. The city does plan to re-activate these programs in the future but they do not currently have a timeframe for when this might happen.

We’ve been watching to see it how long it would take them to resolve their issues and since they still have no timeframe in sight we have decided to deactivate all alerts for the Baltimore area. Our file update on Wednesday will reflect this change.

I will still have all the locations in my system and when the City reaches an agreement with their vendor and the cameras go live once again, I will be able to cross check our content with any changes in locations that they have made.

Thanks to everyone in that area who have been watching this situation and helping to keep our community up to date.

~Angela