BloomLegalTV: Red Light Camera Tickets
Posted on Oct 14, 2011 in Bloom Legal TV
Red light camera tickets, as well as camera speeding tickets, are put in by private corporations hired by the City of New Orleans. These tickets do not necessarily correct behavior or have any affect on a driver’s license; these are purely, overtly, a cash cow for the city.
You receive these tickets at home with a nice, pretty picture of your vehicle allegedly speeding or running a red light, and then it’s $75-110. These are non-moving violations. Officials can't prove who was driving the car, meaning these violations do not go on your driving record. However, if these fines remain unpaid it’s like any other sort of bill collector; they come after your credit. The city can file collections against you, ultimately affecting your financial health. This is the threat, the teeth, the city has in handling this issue.
At this point the appeals process is pretty bleak. There is one office on Poydras Street, which is very crowded and unpleasant. The city will show the driver their video, and unless there's something technically wrong with it, the ticket will stand. Not many of these tickets have been overturned, even though many times they were issued unfairly.
The constitutionality of these cameras still remains in question, however, and there may be class action suits in the future. Give us a call at 504-599-9997 so when these class action suits do come up, you’ll be involved.
The biggest issue with these kinds of tickets is, if they are truly put in place to correct drivers’ behavior, why, then, are drivers usually uninformed about traffic camera locations? Many times drivers don’t know camera locations for a number of weeks before realizing the surveillance. For instance, Bloom has received calls from staff at Children’s Hospital, where a camera was recently installed. Say a hospital employee rolled through the same stop sign every day going to work, there is now a lag between earning tickets and even knowing that an offense had been committed. In cases like these drivers were getting three, four five tickets. Some people have even receive up to 22 at a time, which is due to the tickets being sent to an incorrect address or the vehicle leasing institution. That's the biggest problem; that's where you really need to call and you hire an attorney, or go to the offices on Poydras. If you have 22, like a client of mine, all at the same intersection because you work there, it's not fair. Unfortunately, in New Orleans we’re stuck with it for now, although we may see a class action soon.
As soon as we get more information about red light camera tickets we'll be happy to share it with the public. Until then, if you have any other questions give Bloom Legal a call at 504-599-9997. We're located at 700 Camp Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70130. We're here to talk about the law. Nothing I say should be taken as actual legal advice. Each and every ticket and each and every legal situation needs to be looked at by a specific lawyer in your jurisdiction. Thanks and have a nice day.
