Red Light Camera tickets wrong car but Chicago won't fix it

[Por_sha911]

A Chicago couple was allegedly hit with a fine after a city traffic camera snapped a photo of someone else's vehicle blowing a red light – but officials aren't backing down from the violation.

"We’re completely innocent, yet they want us to jump through hoops," Steve Stallings, who along with his wife, Celeste Galizia, was fined $100 for a red light violation four months ago in Chicago, told WG9 last week.

At issue is a ticket the couple received in the mail for a supposed red light violation in Chicago last year, which they say was accompanied by a picture of a vehicle that clearly isn't one they own.

The couple believe the camera simply misread the license plate, arguing that when you zoom in on the image you can see the letters on the plate read "CE," not the "CL" at the beginning of their plate number.

The couple has taken steps to appeal the violation, but a Chicago judge ruled against them. Following that, they sent proof the vehicle in question didn't belong to them to the city's Department of Finance, but that was also rejected and sent back.

"We’ve proven to them that this was not the license plate, yet nobody’s responding," Galizia said.

The couple said during the process the fine doubled and had been sent to collections, but they don't intend to pay the fine.

I wonder why this is a problem to fix the error

[Dantilla]

I got a bill in the mail for a toll booth in Massachusetts for a little truck that was in storage near the west coast.

Got it fixed after a hassle.

Then the 2nd bill arrived. Bigger hassle this time, the plate is a digit off, and on a Subaru wagon, not Ford Ranger.

My solution: I got new plates for the pickup sitting unused.

Grrrr.......

[stomachmonkey]

Reminds me of a story I heard some years back.

Person had a vanity plate, it said NONE.

Anyone wanna take a stab at what the POPO write when they issue a parking ticket for a vehicle with no plates?

[jhynesrockmtn]

Years ago my daughter borrowed my Acura SUV for a week or so while she was in college. I get a red light camera ticket. Hmm, that's weird. It's near the university. I haven't been there in a while. Her little brother gets a grin on his face, logs into the city's website, calls up video with the ticket # and it shows her driving the vehicle a block from her house. Busted.

[A930Rocket]

We got a toll booth ticket one time when he we took our son up to Connecticut for University. We paid all tolls as we traveled, and we still got the ticket. I didn’t fight it…I paid, and it went away.

[pwd72s]

Sadly, it's often easier to just pay the extortion...

[unclebilly]

I got one for my slant nose. The car in the photo wasn’t my slant nose or anything close. I tried to get it thrown out and the idiot city agent would not back down..l fought it in court, the city lawyer looked like an idiot in front of the judge and withdrew it immediately when we were called. The judge was not amused.

[Arizona_928]

I ignore all tickets that come by mail; due process. I keep my registration as a po box.

I have a bunch of tolls from PA, but the fact that they don't have any toll booths and charge double of the e-z pass price really grinds my gears.

[GH85Carrera]

I had a EZ pass as I went over the GW bridge into Manhattan. The light flashed violation. There was a semi just inches from my bumper as we crept across the bridge at 5 MPH. Oklahoma has no front tag, and no way they could have seen my rear tag. And I had the pass that had been working fine all day everywhere else.

They never sent me any notice. All they got a a souvenir photo of a nice 911 with a pair of geezers in the seats.

[David]

We got a red light camera ticket for a company truck. The license plate was clearly misread but in the photo you could see just enough of the offending truck to make out the company's logo. Turns out the company was one we do business with. We called and told them to take care of their ticket. We thought it was pretty funny. They weren't amused.

In college I got a parking ticket from UT Galveston when my car was in Austin. I wrote a sternly worded letter to UT about how it couldn't be my car because it was in Austin. A while later I realized I wasn't in Austin at the time and my roommate had a girlfriend in Galveston, so maybe it was my car

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

I wonder why this is a problem to fix the error

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Sadly, it's often easier to just pay the extortion...

We are talking about Chicago, so extortion and corruption are part of the history of the town. Get enough Internet publicity, and they might back down.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Arizona_928

I ignore all tickets that come by mail; due process. I keep my registration as a po box.

I have a bunch of tolls from PA, but the fact that they don't have any toll booths and charge double of the e-z pass price really grinds my gears.

I'm sure that if pushed you'll be told 1 not criminal and 2 not a fine, but a "safety fee". So there's no "due process" for a safety fee that's not due to a criminal infraction (or something like that).

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by David

We got a red light camera ticket for a company truck. The license plate was clearly misread but in the photo you could see just enough of the offending truck to make out the company's logo. Turns out the company was one we do business with. We called and told them to take care of their ticket. We thought it was pretty funny. They weren't amused.

In college I got a parking ticket from UT Galveston when my car was in Austin. I wrote a sternly worded letter to UT about how it couldn't be my car because it was in Austin. A while later I realized I wasn't in Austin at the time and my roommate had a girlfriend in Galveston, so maybe it was my car

One of my dad's stories is about his days attending college at OU in the 1950s. Like every college then and now, parking is just horrible. He just started parking in a spot and got a ticket every single day. There were no computers in the 1950, and they had no idea who owned the car, so he ignored the tickets.

On graduation day he was in cap and gown about to get his diploma and the head of the police department was walking a b-line towards dad. Dad said he was sweating and figured the police chief was going to take him out of line, and make him pay hundreds in back parking tickets, money he did not have. The cop walked right up to the guy in line next to him and gave him a big hug and said congratulations, and dad realized he had been holding his breath and finally got to relax. He got away with all the illegal parking.

[DavidI]

This happened to me in my truck in which one number was off. I contacted the company and after a short discussion, they removed it. Most of these are not run by the police, rather they are run by private companies.

If a car does not have a plate, police record the VIN that is on the dashboard on the lower portion of the windshield.

[Cairo94507]

Chicago....

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by masraum

I'm sure that if pushed you'll be told 1 not criminal and 2 not a fine, but a "safety fee". So there's no "due process" for a safety fee that's not due to a criminal infraction (or something like that).

AZ pushes compliance by making the mail in tickets civil and consequently attaching court dates and leveling points against one's license.


Tolls go to collections... 🤣

[ckcarr]

I got something like that once several years ago around six months after visiting Chicago. Looked at my bank account one day and they had deducted around $75 for Illinois Tollway. I filed a fraud claim, but lost... I couldn't undo it and thought it was intentional that they wait.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Arizona_928

AZ pushes compliance by making the mail in tickets civil and consequently attaching court dates and leveling points against one's license.


Tolls go to collections... 🤣

I have heard that AZ seems to be pretty militant about the speed cameras, red-light cameras, etc...

In Texas, I'm not sure if we have/had speed cameras (I've never seen or heard of them), but we did have red light cameras. In 2019 the law was changed to effectively ban them, but from what I understand, certain municipalities may be hanging onto them somehow. I'm pretty sure that Houston and the surrounding suburbs got rid of them, or mostly. I haven't seen one in many years.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by DavidI

If a car does not have a plate, police record the VIN that is on the dashboard on the lower portion of the windshield.

Apparently not everywhere.

The documented plates /cases so far have been, NONE, NO PLATE, MISSING, NOTAG, VOID, UNKOWN

[porsche tech]

Where I worked we had some Cayenne loaner cars that would get red light camera tickets. The tickets are time stamped and we kept a log book of who had the car, what time they took it and what time they returned it. Call the customer and never had any real fisticuffs over it.