Red-light cameras threaten the public interest in critical ways and should be outlawed across the country.
Fifteen states already have banned automated traffic enforcement, mostly on constitutional grounds. Several key tenets of a citizen’s due process rights are violated by red-light camera ticketing. Among them:
- There is no certifiable witness to the alleged violation. The defendant loses the right to cross examine his accuser in court.
- The driver is not positively identified by the camera, so the default is to charge the vehicle’s registered owner with the violation. The owner, who may not have been the driver, is presumed guilty. A bedrock principle of our justice system – a defendant is innocent until proven guilty – is unceremoniously jettisoned.
- The chain of custody of photo evidence is murky at best, shifting electronically between the camera vendor and the local police department before a ticket is issued. Yet rarely is a representative of the red-light camera company made available to testify in court as to the gathering, handling, or interpretation of the evidence.
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