Note- in each of these cases, the motorist was not guilty of the charged offense or the evidence was not properly reviewed, and yet the safeguards put in place did not stop the motorist from getting a ticket and having to contest it or otherwise dispose of it. These situations cannot take place when a human police officer is issuing the ticket based on firsthand evidence. At the very least, these stories show there is a need for regular accuracy tests of any such device.

The below represents less than 2 hours of research online. For each of these innocent people, there are usually many more that did not come forward. Several stories were omitted due to them originating in Australia.

Florida: Funeral Ticketed
7/4/11
You can see the red light cameras flashing as the funeral procession goes through 135th Street and 27th Avenue in Opa-Locka. You may have also noticed the three police officers the family hired, stopping traffic for the procession.

Pedro Dominguez: "You can see my mom's hearse, the limo, everybody going through the red light at the officer's advisement. He's leading us through the red light."
The limo with family members got a $158 ticket. Pedro got a $158 ticket. At least three other cars got tickets, tickets signed by an Opa-Locka police officer who left his badge number. Pedro then filed an appeal with American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona company that runs the cameras. They denied his appeal. Pedro Dominguez: "'The affidavit of non-responsibility did not establish an exemption and will not result in a dismissal or a transfer of the violation at this time.'"
Pedro says anyone who watches the tape can clearly see the officer in the middle of the intersection stopping traffic, the officer at the top on the right in the intersection and the police officer following the procession.
Pedro Dominguez: "If a technician or a police officer had reviewed this, there is no way they would have sent this violation out. It's just plain as day. Obviously, it tells me from the get-go that nobody viewed these photos or video."

Florida: Pasco man gets ticket in mail for going through green light
9/29/11
Randy Rice got quite a surprise recently when he received a $158 ticket through the mail from the New Port Richey Police Department for running a red light.
"Living paycheck to paycheck like I am, you come home on a Friday, imagine that," said the New Port Richey resident.
The ticket stated that he had run a red light at the intersection of U.S. 19 and Main Street on Sept. 2. The piece of paper included two dark photos of his car and license plate.
Rice said he didn't remember running a red light, so he went online to take a close look at the pictures. When he pulled up the website, he discovered the cameras also captured video. What he saw shocked him. "I saw clearly the light was green," he said.
The video shows Rice's blue Hyundai SUV in the far left lane of traffic going through a green light. The camera flashes twice as he rolls through the intersection.

Florida: Red Light Camera Ticketed Wrong Driver
2/3/11
Robert Noeker claims the video shows he stopped when another driver ran the light at International Drive and Kirkman Road. However, Noeker got the ticket.
WFTV researched and found that the same thing has happened to other drivers, but the city said there's nothing wrong with its cameras; instead, it was operator error.
The Noeker family is still upset it received the ticket in the mail Wednesday. The video shows a silver Mercedes Benz ran the light, but that was not Noeker's car. Noeker was behind the wheel of a white Nissan. He nudged over the line, but stopped at the light.
Noeker contacted the city to dispute the ticket, but didn't get far.
"They said if he got a citation it was definitely his car and they wouldn't even review their own video," Harris said.WFTV had the city of Orlando go over the footage Thursday and it admitted a mistake was made.The incident happened in Orlando, but it was reviewed more than 2,000 miles away in Arizona.

Maryland: Speed Cameras Questioned in Prince George’s County
10/4/11
New speed camera concerns were raised in Prince George’s County, Md., when at least one worked overtime a cited several drivers who shouldn’t have received tickets.
By law, the speed camera along High Bridge Road near an elementary school in Bowie operates Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Drivers exceeding the speed limit get a citation in the mail. But one driver complained to police after getting a ticket dated Sunday, Sept. 25.
“On this particular Sunday, Sept. 25, we discovered 18 citations issued incorrectly,” said Julie Parker, of Prince George’s County police. “We then reviewed all of them. We got in touch with the individual drivers. One of them had already paid and was reimbursed. The rest had their tickets waived."

Texas: Red Light Camera Tickets a Man Running a Green Light
9/23/11
Cities that use automated ticketing machines at intersections routinely assert two things: The camera does not lie, and at least three humans review each citation before it is dropped in the mail. That did not happen in Port Lavaca, Texas. On September 12, Port Lavaca Police Sergeant Kelly Flood signed a ticket accusing Dale Price of running a red light and demanding he pay $75 by October 12, but the light was green.

"Based upon my review and inspection of the recorded images, I state that a violation of ordinance #S-1-08 did occur," the ticket stated just above Flood's signature. "I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the state of Texas the foregoing is true and correct."

On September 6 at 12:04pm, Price drove his grey 2009 GMC pickup through the intersection of US 35 and Travis Street. He was making a left-hand turn, with turn signal active, at 17 MPH. According to the red light camera, the light had been red for more than a minute. According to the photographs , and the video evidence, the light remained green throughout his turn. After being notified of the citation, local officials scrambled to order Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company in charge of the program, to cancel the ticket.

Tennessee: $12K in tickets from Bluff City speed cameras might be refunded
9/14/11
About $12,000 worth of speed camera citations issued in late July may be refunded after a former police officer admitted to letting a reserve officer use his log-in information to review the tickets on the city’s computer system.

Colorado: East Denver red light camera ticketing innocent drivers
9/19/11
DENVER -- A photo red light camera at 36th and Quebec in Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood has many drivers seeing red with anger.

Thousands are getting tickets at that intersection for turning right on a red light, even though the Denver Police Department’s own video seems to suggest they didn’t break the law.
We pointed our cameras on that same intersection and watched as a car turning right on red drove through the intersection without stopping and without the camera flashing, while the car right behind it stopped and got the flash.

Iowa: 500 People Given Red Light Tickets Instead of Speed Camera Tickets
(Date unspecified)
Getting a red light ticket is bad enough, but getting one while driving on the interstate?  That has happened to about 500 people now.
The speed camera caught them driving too fast on the interstate, but due to a clerical error they were sent a red light camera ticket instead of a speeding ticket.
Note: Speeding tickets were also mailed after the error was discovered.

DC: Challenging speed camera tickets
6/7/11
Tony Rodriguez got a speed camera ticket he should have challenged. For starters, the ticket information is incorrect.
The plate picture starts with H-9. But it was recorded as H-8. The ticket states the vehicle is a Chevy. But it’s a Mercury. And the car in the picture is a District cab. But Rodriguez’ taxi was a Diamond cab, which have diamond-shaped lights on the roof. That’s not what’s in the picture. He also said he sold the cab years ago.
Will Foreman is on the offensive against speed cameras in Forest Heights, Md. He says they’re not accurate and has used simple math to defeat his last five camera tickets. His business has another 40 pending. Basically, he takes the two time-stamped photos provided, superimposes them onto one image and calculates how far the car traveled between the two photos. Each time, it’s turned out that the tickets shouldn’t have been issued.
“I've seen for a year countless tickets issued to people for speeding when you can prove they're not speeding,” Foreman said. “These cameras are not calibrated properly.”

Ohio: Ashtabula Traffic Camera License Plate Mix Up
7/6/11
An Ohio veteran was stumped when he returned from an out of town trip to find he'd been ticketed by an Ashtabula traffic enforcement camera. Bill Davis from Batavia, Ohio told Call For Action Reporter Lorrie Taylor the $100 citation showed a tan SUV with his license plate number.

According to Ashtabula police it was taken the first week of June when Davis was in Kentucky. "I wasn't very happy to know that cause it's on your record. It's something you didn't do and I don't like being blamed for something I didn't do," he said.

"I knew it wasn't me and my wife was working at the hospital," he said explaining the impossibility of his truck being in Ashtabula.

Davis said he tried to solve the problem by phone but was told the only officer who could help him was on vacation for a couple of weeks. Appealing the citation required payment of the $100 fine before anyone would consider his case, so he Called For Action instead.

… closer inspection revealed the plate in question was from Pennsylvania and not Ohio. He offered to waive the rules of appeal so Davis would not have to pay the $100 fine or make a ten hour round trip to plead his case.

Missouri: Man Mistakenly Given Red Light Ticket
7/7/11
A tanker truck ran a red light at St. Charles Rock Road and Natural Bridge. You can't argue he ran the red light, but Jeff Hopkins knows that he didn't do it because it's not his truck. It is his plate number in the red light camera ticket photo. But Jeff Hopkins knows he is not guilty because he was not driving the truck. Hopkins said that it didn't take much to find that out. He just used a magnifying glass to find the answer.

Magnify the ticket and you'll see the truck in the photo says, Groendyke. It is a trucking company which has an office in Illinois. The company says all company trucks are licensed in Oklahoma.
The red light runner did have the same plate number as Hopkins but it was an out of state plate. Now Hopkins thought it would just take a simple phone call to get him off the hook.

Hopkins called the Bridgeton police saying that they were mistaken. They told him that he still had to pay the ticket. Bridgeton police declined to address the issue on camera. But, they wrote an apology letter to FOX 2 and Hopkins.
 

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