Cary RLC shut down at several locations for now.  Wrongful ticket prompts review of Cary red-light cameras

http://www.carynews.com/2012/04/14/55920/wrongful-ticket-prompts-review.html
 

Published: Apr 14, 2012 04:00 PM
 Modified: Apr 13, 2012 04:03 PM

 
Wrongful ticket prompts review of Cary red-light cameras
Video evidence shows a camera ticketed a man for a legal turn

By Andrew Kenney, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

CARY - A stoplight camera malfunction has spurred Cary to review some traffic tickets. Video evidence shows a camera issued a ticket for a driver making a legal turn on a flashing yellow light, according to police.
 

Howard Bond, a Chatham County resident, said his son has been ticketed twice this year for legal left turns at Cary Parkway and High House Road. The first erroneous ticket was dismissed by an employee of the town’s traffic camera contractor, he said. The second prompted a full review of the town’s traffic cameras.

“If my son has gotten two of these, how many other people have gotten some and just paid the $50 (ticket)?” Bond asked. “Apparently this is a big deal.”

The Cary Police Department responded quickly after Bond went to WRAL with his second erroneous ticket. The town has ordered its contractor, Redflex, to turn off several of Cary’s 17 red-light cameras until the problem is resolved.

Cary and Redflex are looking into recent tickets from cameras across town, but the review is centered on cameras that monitor intersections where left turns are regulated by flashing yellow lights; the town is examining all tickets issued by those cameras, said Major Tony Godwin.

Bond’s complaint was the first Cary police heard about the flashing yellow turns, Godwin said. His ticket was immediately cancelled, and he received an apology from the police chief. The town has since received several recent requests for review since the problem surfaced this week, but none panned out.

A chief question for the town, he said, is why Redflex didn’t catch the erroneous ticket. The international company is obligated to have each ticket reviewed by at least three people, Godwin said.

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“We’re trying to figure out what went wrong, where ostensibly a multiple-person team reviewed what happened,” he said. “Why did that happen?”

The town’s red-light cameras are supposed to record infractions when cars pass over magnetic loops beneath the pavement, after the light has turned red. Proceeds from the ticket payments go to county schools; in all, the town’s cameras issued about 11,000 tickets in 2011.

 
Kenney: 919-460-2608 or twitter.com/KenneyOnCary