This is what happened to us. We were in traffic and next to bus. Bus put out stop sign, we got ticket even though we never moved. It's all bullshit |
Wow this sounds like something that we never though would happen in developed countries |
Your experience is news worthy. Did you contact a reporter? |
So what happened? You were stuck in traffic and the bus pulled up and put on its red lights? Otherwise, you saw the yellow lights well ahead of time. Every single video gets reviewed by the police and they throw about 25% of the violations out just for that reason. Anything close to being a mistake. |
No, this isn't the way it works. There are multiple cameras and multiple angles and a video, and it all gets reviewed by MCPD police. The bus must have its yellow lights on for both a certain amount of time and distance. If you see the yellow, you need to stop. Then the bus switches to red, and that's when you get a violation. All of those occurrences, including a driver's failure to activate yellow lights, is recorded and reviewed by police. If there is bus driver error, you don't get a ticket. |
This is a known problem with this scam. The cameras aren't calibrated for distance and can never verify if the bus complied with the law on stopping. A bus can flip out the arm and a ticket is issue. The company is allowed to send through 20% of tickets that aren't actual violations and the police don't have the staff to review each one. That puts it on the drivers to take a day off work and go to court on the one day a month those cases are held. Can't take off work? You pay the $250. Win win for MCPS and the scammers. |
Stop for a bus flashing yellow. Easy peasy. |
Scam camera scheme gives out citations for cars that aren’t moving. Schafer gets rich. Easy peasy. |
They don't. There are several layers of review, ending with the Police Department. There are multiple cameras on a bus, and four are used to capture the violation. As you can see from the top right camera, there is a yellow dot showing that the operator activated the yellow flashing lights. Then it turns red when the stop arm comes out. The reviewers see the violation from multiple angles, and can tell if the bus operator acted appropriately as well. https://youtu.be/t2XLbrKOam0 This video shows the approach of a car as seen on two of the cameras, and the actual violation on the other camera: https://youtu.be/TgkYwpxzRmk This video shows a child getting hit in a crosswalk. https://youtu.be/fjdnVHt5A6c |
Oh they sure do. Lots of people get fake citations. Note your fake summary left out that the yellow lights have to be on for 100 yards under the law and the cameras have no way of measuring distance. The cameras fail to enforce the law. |
Prove it. If this were true, they'd be throwing out citations left and right in court. And they don't. |
It's already been proved. Citations can't be thrown out left and right in court because "court" is only held one day a month and not in every month. The vast majority of people given citations can never get to court. For the people that do go to court lots of citations are dropped, but most people can't take a whole day off work on a specific day to appeal these citations. It's a great scheme for collecting undeserved fines and particularly targets low income and people of color. The FBI didn't arrest the head of this company for nothing. |
Not the same company. Not the same CEO. Not the same state. Not the same contract. |
Same company. Same address. Same phone number and same employees. Current president was under guy who went to prison. Same contract and the company attempts this scam in multiple states. Glad to see the scammers are reading this forum. You are on notice that the public is on to the scam. |
People complain because the camera company tickets people who don’t violate the law. They hope people will pay instead of fighting it so the company can make more money. I’ve seen 5-6 instances where people were ticketed when they were five lanes away from the school bus going the opposite direction on a divided highway. The law doesn’t require a driver to stop if they are on the other side of the median. The cameras also ticket people who pass parked buses that don’t have flashing lights. That’s also not illegal. There are no points assessed by cameras because they can’t prove who was driving. It’s purely a revenue generation program. |