 Custom Search  How Many Photo Tickets Will It Take Before You Fight Back? GPS is 100% Legal and Pays For Itself. Click Here To Learn More. Winnipeg: Are Your Amber Times Being Shortened?When you have, in Writing, information You would think Data contrary to that information would indicate that there was something wrong and it should be fixed or explained. However when people either don't care or won't respond, it leaves the door open to suspect it may not be a mistake! When nobody cares or responds, it opens the door for people to do whatever they want because nobody is watching. At what point Will You Start To Care and Watch? August 31st,2008 Produced a pleasant afternoon for Judy's Drive to work. The last thing she suspected that day was that she was about to be Robbed. In Fact She wasn't even made aware of it until Two Weeks Later...when She Received the Photo Ticket. Habitually a cautious driver the 64 year old grandmother put a reasonable distance between her and the moving van in front of her. “I could see his mirrors”, she told me. It wasn't until she got to the light at Henderson/Gilmore that she realized the top of the van obstructed her view of the traffic signal. When she saw it, the light was yellow and she believed she made it through on time. She emailed the photo to me and I called her back to tell her the news was good because the camera data showed the Amber light was only lit for 3.9 seconds. It's supposed to be lit for 4 seconds! I explained to her that Four Seconds is the Standard Time for All Intersections in the City according to Ed Pacholok Traffic Signal Systems Engineer for The City of Winnipeg. In Fact He Sent Me an Email (Click underlined text to view) saying this after I was directed to his office from the Winnipeg Police Service Website FAQ regarding amber timing (Question #19). I also Personally Know that the WPS was not issuing tickets in the past if it was under 4.0 seconds.
On Judy's behalf I called the Crown's articling student in charge of the file. She advised me that all the Crown was concerned with is the fact that the light is red. From the Crown's stand point, they have a photo displaying a red light and Certificates from Qualified Testers Indicating the Device was working Properly. Therefore.....and This is Important to Remember as your Reading the rest of this....the timing is not an error. Otherwise the Certificates would be wrong. The certificates do not list the amber time the unit is set at. what the minimum time is for an Amber. The Highway Traffic Act mandates traffic signals comply to the Manual for Uniform Traffic Devices, but nothing regulates signal times. As far as she was concerned, The email I had was useless to her. Call me silly, I guess I just assumed it would be information the Crown should have, after all it's kind of important isn't it? Knows The Minimum Timing..... then how do you prevent the time from being manipulated. She summed it up by saying, “It's not up to me to prove that, it's up to you and others.” So how Do you Prove anything when no one will provide further Information. I had sent 2 follow up emails (# 1 & #2 ) to Pacholok asking, "Is 4 seconds the minimum?" No response was ever sent. To purchase the Signals Manual and updates it would cost about $1000.00, and no one will give us a copy of any guidelines or standard times for signals. This was back in December. After speaking to The Crown's Articling Student, (March 17) I tried to call Mr. Pacholok this time. To do this I Spent 15 minutes on hold at 311 because his department isn't listed and the web link is strictly email. From there, I was connected to his voice mail, they wouldn't give me his direct number or even the office number so I could call back without having to tie up 311. The Voice Mail was Full, so I was automatically transferred to the General number which also went to Voice Mail. I left a message and I'm Still Waiting to hear back from someone.
When I posed that to the Crown, she was surprised that I would suggest that. She advised that all intersections are different and are likely timed differently. Again I pointed out the email she didn't want me to send her. As well I advised I have other photos from other 60kph intersections showing the amber as 4.0 Many people have no prior knowledge about photo enforcement programs anywhere else. If a person takes a half an hour out of their time to do some research they would find that Several Camera Companies have been caught or accused of tampering with Amber Times, amongst other things. I Also Disagree with the Statement that it is up to us to prove it! In reality it Should be Up to The City To Prove That It Isn't Happening. Not the "Oh I didn't realize it was happening" approach like with the Construction Zones. I'm talking about factual numbers that show what Amber Times Are and a record of Tickets that have been issued under 4.0 seconds. Well seeing as The City has already Ignored the Highway Traffic Act when it came to Construction Zones, I thought we should. Protect Yourself Now The Province The City is Playing Unfair! Winnipeg & Area Instantly download the Don't wait till it's too Late! The camera at the intersection Judy got her ticket from was erected on July 28,2005, the stats for that first 1/4 year in operation (July 1-September 30, same time period as Judy's ticket.) were 10 red lights/ 71 Speeders. To be fair I checked all quarters for all years. From what I can tell at least, there was no disruption in service. I say that because Periodically the camera is removed from various poles and rotated to a different one. This is a Practice That I've never understood, after all, If It's About Your Safety, Then Why Not Have A Camera In Every Pole. Tickets increased in winter, however no more then reasonable and the warm months were consistently lower. I compared all the quarters for Judy's time period; 2005- 10 Red Lights/71 Speeders 2006- 63/280 2007- 9/69 2008- 89/106 What was even more interesting was the yearly totals 2005 - ½ year 57/264 2006- 231/751 2007- 173/331 2008 – 243/490 And It's Unusual! You see traditionally a Red Light Camera will do amazingly well in it's first year. In fact if you look over the Winnipeg Stats you will see how that is evidenced across the board. Then the numbers tend to continually decline because people become familiar with the cameras and know to either slow down at the Intersection or to Stop. People will make sure they even put reminders in their cars or use things like GPS Points of Interest to remind them so they won't get a ticket. This is also why we would set up doing Radar down the road from many of the Cameras because the habit is to slow down, clear the intersection and speed up again! and to make sure that we weren't just dealing with an anomaly, I went through all the cameras and viewed all the yearly totals. Also to be fair any odd numbers that appeared to have the camera removed for a quarter year were discounted. From the examination of the Statistics, it appears that some Cameras are taking on a second life. This to me either indicates; Here are some examples and remember don't take my word for it, click here and confirm the Red Light Camera Statistics for yourself. **The numbers Displayed are total of Red light and Speeding offences for the Year.
The majority of these examples show increases in 2007 and 2008.
These increases also match the over all increase in Photo Tickets issued, as seen in the table to the right. We also noticed that some Cameras like the one at Salter and Mountain have been left untouched and are issuing very few tickets. Could this be due to the area and that there have been numerous stolen vehicles driving in that area as well as uninsured vehicles. There is also the likely hood that many tickets in this area, just wouldn't be paid and can't be enforced. After all why not pay more attention to Cameras that are heading to the Suburbs or out of the City. Those who can pay and can't afford hassles are after all much more effective targets. As far as we are concerned, these increases need to be explained. We will not buy the argument that decreases could have been from Construction or other reasons. If Construction was slowing one region then the Camera should have been removed to serve a different location. Want to Send Email and see What they are Doing About This? Just click on the Underlined text below. It's time for the City to open the books on the Program and Prove that nothing is going on here. If they do not then they are Just building more Distrust with their citizens. If the Citizens in turn do not stand up and say enough is enough, then you can be guaranteed that they will do nothing. Speak Out! Send us a copy of Your Red Light Ticket photos, all Privacy Guaranteed. Email to camtickets@trafficticketguru.com Or Click here for our Mailing Address. Slow Down, Drive Safe and Keep Your Money In Your Pocket! Larry Stefanuik PS. In the State of Georgia right now, Red Light Cameras are dropping like flies. Why? Because of a new law that forces City's with Cameras to add One second to the Minimum time of the Amber. Qualified Research recognized by the US house of Representatives proves the extra second virtually eliminates, red light running, speeding at an intersection and all types of Collisions. City's in Georgia recorded huge drops in tickets at the Intersections. Dalton-73% decrease. Duluth-67% Lilburn-80% Norcros-80% Rome-78% Suwanee-81% Atlanta is refusing to change their times. "The additional time on the yellow light has significantly reduced the number of citations because motorists have adequate time to get through the intersection," says state Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Cassville), primary sponsor of the new legislation.
North Carolina saw a similar reaction in 2007 when the state supreme court upheld a decision directing all of the profit in red light camera programs out of city general funds and into the state school system (read final opinion). Charlotte, Fayetteville, Greenville, Greensboro, High Point, Raleigh and Rocky Mount shut down their red light camera programs in the wake of the court's action.
Comments: March 28, 2009 10:34pm Todd I've been waiting for this to be exposed. Short ambers is even more egregious than photo vans. This should become a criminal matter and whomever was involved in perpetrating it against the public should be named and charged. Everybody should join a class-action and demand their money back. Photo radar and so-called red-light infractions. Never did I imagine that our elected officials would start causing traffic lights to pay off for them like VLT machines. How disgusting. _______________________________________________________________ Apr 02 1:48am Jim: I do the site highwayrobbery.net and just became aware of your site, after reading the article on thenewspaper.com. I had a look at the grandmother's before and after photos, and the red is not on all the way in the first photo. It's noticeably brighter in the second photo. Here in California, the judge would throw that ticket out, because our law CVC 21453(a)) requires that the red be "steady." I don't know if you have the same wording in your law, but you might want to check. The Guru- Jim is right, if you look at it closely you can see the difference. Unfortunately Manitoba's HTA's wording is broad. See the wording just below. "Red traffic control light at intersection 88(7) When a red traffic control light alone or with a pedestrian control signal is shown at an intersection by a traffic control signal, subject to subsection (16), (a) the driver of a vehicle at or approaching the intersection and facing the light or signal, (i) shall stop the vehicle at a clearly marked stop line or, if none, then immediately before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then immediately before entering the intersection, and (ii) shall not proceed until a traffic control light permitting the movement of the vehicle into the intersection is shown; "
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