Oops! Baltimore, MD Sends out Erroneous Red-light Tickets

February 17, 2011 John General 3

Red light and speed cameras are almost universally hated by drivers in our country, and some fight their tickets in court.  If you live in Baltimore, MD and have gotten a red light camera ticket lately, you may have a good shot of beating it in court.

Many motorists see the cameras as revenue generators for whatever city they are installed in.  City officials like to say that the cameras cut down on accidents and speeding.  The rules behind the tickets include having a city police officer review each picture and sign the citation.

While that’s all well and good, almost 2,000 citations have been mailed out with a deceased officer’s name signed to them.  City officials say that their internal copies have the signature of the actual officer who reviewed the cases, but that drivers accidentally got the wrong signature on theirs.

I don’t believe what the officials are saying, and it sounds like the citations are simply being approved without review.  The Baltimore City courts will have to sort it all out.

by John Suit

Source: WBAL

Post Views: 808

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3 Comments

  1. Well, I received a ticket from Baltimore, MD with my name and home address on it. However, neither the car in the photo attached, nor the license number belongs to me. Further, the license number in the photo close-up was no the one printed in text, again neither belongs to me. The ticket worth $75. For me, fighting the ticket (essentially helping someone debug their programming bugs) will surely cost more than $75. Go figure.

  2. Actually, I got one of the same tickets a couple of years ago – expired tags on a car I’d bought new and only had 6 months at the time. It’s easy to fight – just use the phone numbers on the ticket and they’ll clear things up. It might take a couple of calls, but it won’t cost you anywhere near $75 to fight!

    -John

  3. Using the number on the back of the ticket, I waited 40 minutes before I got to talk to a person, who put me on hold while she went researching the case, when the line was disconnected (perhaps by accident). The rep did say there were multiple citations under the cited tag, which was not mine by the way. I do not live in Baltimore, and do not go there. Some dude drove around collecting tickets, and one of them showed up on my door with my name. What a mess of their computer system!

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