Conference kaosws::canada

    
    Sounds like you can easily beat this. This is why robots should
    not be used for law enforcement.
    
    FWIW

    You should obviously be charged for transfering your plates to another
    vehicle. After all you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent
    aren't you ?
    
    
    ; )
    
    Brian V
    

    
    Not to mention having a dirty license plate.  I hear you get sentenced
    to spend a week in an Esso self serve telling groggy, grumpy, frozen 
    motorists to have a nice day at 6:30 AM.
    

    re .3
    
    MY LICENCE PLATE IS NOT DIRTY.  It's the other guy's plate that is
    dirty so it looks like mine.
    
    Seriously, is there any organized effort around to hassle the
    photo-radar folk with some bad publicity???

    What I do not understand is why you put your plates on someone's else
    car. Is it legal ? What's the advantage ?

    Sorry, they just *look* like my plates.  My plates were resting happily
    on my car in my garage on the day in question.
    
    It appears to me that character recognition system mis-read someone
    elses plates as mine, and I'm being accused based on that technology.

    So why did you make another set and give them away?

    
    Wait till you see the graphic home videos of your plate making schemes on 
    the National......Wendy's pretty excited. 
    
    

    Wow... a mean time to silliness of 5 replies.  That's a record for this
    conference!!!  You guys are losing the edge.
    
    

    The Wheels section of Aug20, 1994 Toronto Star has an article listing
    all the tircks to fight a photo radar ticket. Make a copy from your
    local reference library.
    
    If you suspect that the plate should read 3 instead of 8, make a search
    at MTC to find out if the "3" plate is a Chrysler. If it it, with the
    "not on the scene" evidence, you have a very good case in front of the
    JP.
    
    It is also worthwhile to request the original negative of a reprint of
    the original negative to see if there is another car in the photo.
    There are lots of tricks in the Aug 20 article. Obviously any traffic
    laywer of paralegal service people know all these but who will spend
    hundreds of dollor to fight a $50 ticket that puts no points on your
    drivers license.
    
    
    David

         Maybe .0 should have the camera lens dusted for prints.
    I hear that sugar coated fingers (say from a donut) could really
    distort the photgraph when the "employee" performs the daily
    chore of removing the lens cap before sitting back in the comfort
    of his or her warm van.
    
         Just a thought,
    
         Blair.

    I can picture this.

Could someone have planted the plates ? What a plot and quite a plight!
    What can your plea be ?

    
    Only in Ontario you say?   
    
    Pity!

    G'day All,

    Well one guy was clocked at over a 100 Km/h and when he went to court
    over the matter he insisted that he was only doing 60 Km/h.  The lawyer
    asked to see the radar and pointed it at the judge and clocked him at
    over 100 Km/h.  It was found that there was a fault with the radar, I
    wonder what happened to all the fines that were collected from people
    who did not go to court ?
    
    I like the replies they have put a smile on my face.
    
    Regards,
    
    Sunil

    This is a hot topic in Colorado too, it seems.  I took your .15 off to
    that conference, and brought back the following note in return.
    -Mark
    
           <<< GENRAL::DISK$OURDISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY]COLORADO.NOTE;8 >>>
                                 -< Colorado >-
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Note 2195.3                         MouseTrap                            3 of 14
BSS::G_MCINTOSH "Touch Not the Cat, Bot the Glove"   12 lines  31-JAN-1995 17:16
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    	I heard on the radio that in California, after catching a speeder
    on one of these devices, the cops sent a ticket to the driver along
    with a picture of his car with the speed noted on the bottom of the
    picture.
    
    The driver sent back a photocopy of a dollar bill.
    
    And the cops sent back a photocopy of a pair of handcuffs.  
    
    Too funny....Glenn
    

    Continutation of .0
    Well I got a local OPP friend to look up the other licence and confirm
    that it was a Plymouth.  Someone I spoke to at the court house
    said that it was an error, and that I would get a written retraction of
    the supoena (?) but I havn't heard anything yet.
    
    When I pressed to get an official assurance that the fine was ripped up
    because the fine was due in 14 days and the courthouse is a 3 hr drive
    away,. I was told not to worry... "it takes 40 days to process the
    paperwork anyway".
    
    The picture that is emerging is of one totally incompetent old-style
    bureaucracy being fed by a high-speed high tech business generator
    front-end with no checks & balances and no exception processing
    ability.  They're just hoping that people will pay the fines that they
    receive without question.  If this was anyone else but the police
    department, they'd be prosecuted - like the folks that send invoices to
    companies like Digital hoping that the machinery will pay them without
    question.
    
    On a brighter note, I've heard annecdotal evidence that only 30% of the
    photo-radar summonses turn into revenue - virtually everyone who
    fights, wins.   ???

    I hear that there's a list of all of the permanently mounted
    photo radar stations in the Toronto area.
    
    Is this for real ???
    
    If any one has one could you post it.
    
    
    Brian V
    

    There are no permanently mounted photo radar stations, they are all (4
    of them) mobile. Some radio stations still call out locations on their
    traffic reports, most gave it up after a couple months.

	re .19

>    of them) mobile. Some radio stations still call out locations on their
>    traffic reports, most gave it up after a couple months.

	CFRB/CFRX for one. Although the value of propagating this information
	into Massachusetts by shortwave eludes me.

	Tony

    Being a frequent traveller of Hwy 401 I regularly see the photo radar
    vans.  The drivers tend to be creatures of habit setting up in the same
    places time after time.  During the day the vans are particularly easy
    to spot (if you're scanning of course!).  If you see a van at the side
    of the road ... beware.  Occasionally I've seen them off to the side of
    and behind an overpass (eastbound 401 near Milton).
    
    In my opinion they are most likely to get you at night when they lurk
    in the dark.  One of these days someone is going to plow into the back
    of one of these dark vans parked (illegal for you and I) on the
    shoulder (both left and right).  Couldn't believe it when I first saw a
    van parked in the dark on a stormy night on the left shoulder on a
    downhill stretch of the 401 (of course!).  What are these guys thinking
    when they put themselves in such a dangerous position?

    
    An article in the Saturday Citizen (Ottawa) outlined a few recent
    cases of mistaken plate identity. Seems like the robots make more
    than a few errors...and it takes a long time to get it rectified.
    
    Pat

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but from the times that I believe I've seen
them, while slowing down immediately, I noticed that they are Chevy, metallic
jade green colour, with tinted windows.

/Mario

    The vans come in different colours ... but they are all Chevy Astrovans
    with windows (probably tinted).  Handy of them to be consistent in the
    vehicles they use!

    What sort of radar system is used with these cameras? Is it regular
    Doppler or laser?

    Glenn

    
    Radio waves :  RAdio Direction And Ranging, you have Nikola Tesla and
                   Marconi to thank for it. Pulses are sent out and
                   readings are made in the space between the pulses. You
                   can make a lot of readings at the speed of light.
    
    Arf!
    

    This may sound silly, but why dont you take the bus? Has no one thought
    that the problem may be with the auto industry? What if your stinky
    little cars could only go 70 km/h. We wouldn't have to worry about
    nasty little speeding tickets would we? Or better yet why doesn't the
    auto industry build all cars to go 300 km/h? I'd love to watch all the
    spectacular accidents. Take away all speeding limits so only the
    bravest of us would take to the roads. This is a good suggestion, no?
    
    It seems to me that people only buy cars so that they have something to
    really complain about. But really I feel for you, the world is so
    unjust.

    Then why does the government build highways made for speeding? Why do
    the governments allow the auto industry to make fast cars? Because the
    governments make money at it that's why.

    People bury their speedometers in Germany, they seem to be ok.

    Photo radar is nothing more than a money grab.

    Glenn

    The death rate due to auto accidents in Germany is much higher, the
    accident rate is not, just at the high speed you're more likely to die.
    
    They have photo radar in Germany too.

    What I find quite hillarious is how speed limits are applied throughout
    the province.  In most parts of SW Ontario that I'm familiar with the
    speed limit for 2 lane highways is 80 kph.  Having just returned from
    an exciting trip to Thunder Bay and back I noticed that the same 2 lane
    highways have speed limits of 90 kph.  Are drivers better in the north? 
    Then we move to limited access roads like the 401 and the speed is 100
    kph.  In all circumstances there seems to be no correlation between
    what speeds can be drived safely given the road.  For example Hwy 86
    from K-W to Lake Huron is almost a straight line with excellent
    visibility ... speed limit 80 kph.   Hwy 69 with all its twists and
    turns rates 90 kph.  Who makes up these silly limits?  Seem fairly
    arbitrary, nothing to do with type of road and engineering.

    well it appears that municipalities and the province are working
    together to get photo radar at the municiple level. Specifically the
    newspaper article I read talked about permanently mounted radar at
    intersection. The article went on to state that the hold up is because
    to do this would require so new legislation.
    
    
    
    Brian V
    

    Article is mixing two different things
    
    The intersection mounted stuff is photo radar for running red lights as 
    opposed to speeding. Costs about $75K per intersection. Takes two photos, 
    one entering and one in the middle of the intersection. Calgary and
    Ottawa are apparently looking into it.
    
    Also one of the regions around TO (Halton I think, BTW they are a large
    customer of ours) wants to deploy vans as well but the act authorizing what
    we have now was specifically limited to provincial highways.
    
    BTW, what's up with the Urban Myth of the permanently mounted cameras,
    it's patently false but I've seen it all over the place? Where did this
    start?

    
    
    BTW, government pamphlets extolling the virtues of the photo
    radar systems is now available at your local community service
    office.
    
    I've got mine at my desk, (pamphlet that is, not radar system)
    
    Pat

    Resolution of .0
    I called the court a few weeks back and confirmed that the charge was
    "withdrawn", effective 2 Mar   (11 weeks after the offence date).  
    I asked if I would get a written notice of this, and was told 
    "no, we don't have the staff for that".
    Drivers beware!!!

    What kind of radar system is being used with this photo gadget? Anyone
    know?

    I'll ask my brother, he might know, he works in the OPP garage and
    worked on the setup of the vans.

    Thanks!