Without covering stuff from my previous post, yes, the "camera" cannot tell if or when you broke the plane of the intersection, but the associated timing equipment can, and then they tell the camera that you have been naughty and it takes a snapshot to "prove" that you have.lunchbox wrote:the camera cant see that you broke the plain of the intersection or not before the light turned red
The only possible way to "beat" a red light camera is to prove that the timing is off or the camera is aimed wrong. The system I worked on was to be audited daily, weekly, and monthly for accuracy, with a variety of automated tests. The camera aiming points were registered when the system was finally established after all of the turn up testing, so it is a simple task to check them daily to see whether they are looking at the right spot.
The system I worked on is entirely digital, rather than film based. One of the systems in this area uses film based cameras and they are collected on a regular basis, which entails a time delay that does not exist in the digital domain. The original proposal for the system I worked on was for store and forward of the images, but we proved in testing that the images could be handled on a real time basis under just about all circumstances because our network was very robust. Even store and forward would have resulted in the images arriving in Maryland, where they would take the first step in the review and fine process, on the same day.
The system I worked on uses two cameras, one high resolution still camera which takes three flash pictures of the offending vehicle in rapid succession, and a second which takes a video of the offending vehicle. The video camera runs continuously and buffers the video, and upon a violation event it tags the buffered video from a time interval before the violation to a time interval after it.
The video interval and the timing of the camera and trigger are all software controlled and can be adjusted remotely, which is why I am not sure that going out and doing an on site timing audit for yourself would accomplish anything, if there was a problem, and it was discovered during one of the many audits built into the system, then it may have been fixed by the time one conducts an "independent audit."
The video is supposed to be enough to show the system operators, during the first step of the process, that you made a legal right on red by stopping before the motion detector found you entering the intersection after the light turned red. The video also can show whether the vehicle in question proceeded under other "legal" circumstances, such as clearing the intersection for an emergency vehicle, as well as establishing "probable cause" by showing that the vehicle did indeed proceed at the time and date shown and that the still pics were accurate in their portrayal.
Only when the best will suffice.
