Two Articles here on Cedar Rapids:

Article 1:
 
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100525/1040399563.shtml
 

Police Just Guessing When They Can't Clearly Read License Plate In Red Light Camera Photos

from the close-only-counts-in-horse-shoes,-hand-grenades-and-red-light-tickets? dept

We recently wrote about a guy "caught" by a redlight camera who had to decode the numerical codes on the photos sent to him to prove he didn't actually run the red light. It was disturbing enough to find out that police were sending motorists tickets when they obeyed the law, but reader Brent points us to an even more problematic situation. Apparently, at least some police are simply taking guesses on license plates if they can't read all the letters correctly -- and they're sending tickets to the wrong people because of it. The police in the story insist that if they can't read the plate, they won't send a ticket, but the reporter covering the story shows at least two cases where that's simply not true, and where it seems clear that police just took a guess -- sending tickets to the wrong parties.

Article 2:

http://www.kfxa.tv/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/kfxa_vid_2633.shtml
 
Cedar Rapids Police going back on their word? That's one guy says after getting a red light camera ticket.

The man got the ticket in the mail on Monday. A ticket he should have never received.

A semi-truck runs this red light on 2nd and 10th. It's all caught on video by the red light camera, but that's only part of the problem. Now look at this picture. Can you tell what that plate number is? You can see it's blocked by what appears to be a metal bar.

"If he can't clearly view that plate number than we are not going to send that to somebody in hopes that we are right," said Captain Steve O'Konek, Cedar Rapids Police, in a November 2009 interview with CBS 2. 

David Draheim got a ticket in the mail last November, after this gray car ran a red light in Washington D.C. Problem is, this isn't David's car. You can see the camera didn't get a good picture of the plate.

"If I got this in the mail, I would question it, too," said O'Konek.

So are cops taking back what they told us in November? There's no question the semi-truck runs the red light, but did the officer get a clear view of this plate? David certainly doesn't think so.

"Yeah, they said they wouldn't do that. They said if they weren't absolutely sure, they wouldn't send out tickets," said Draheim.Red Light Ticket Mistake
 

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