so $162 vs having someone potentially rear-end me and causing more $$ in damage and having my insurance go up...
yeah ill continue to just keep on driving through yellow lights

 

Actually, looks like it's different for camera tickets. $50 cap, cannot be used to raise your insurance, no court costs if you don't challenge (so no processing fee either I'd imagine), doesn't go on your driving record.
EDIT: hold on, old statute, let me find current.
EDIT2: weird, no replacement statute that I can find, but a news report indicates $50 tickets, making me think we'll see a duplicate of the old statute the next time they update the online VA code.
EDIT3: ok, yeah, looks like they've duped the old code (at least the pertinent parts for this discussion), so all the stuff above applies.

They make the penalty low for camera tickets so you don't challenge them and find that they failed to do things like
"consider factors such as (i) the accident rate for the intersection, (ii) the rate of red light violations occurring at the intersection (number of violations per number of vehicles), (iii) the difficulty experienced by law-enforcement officers in patrol cars or on foot in apprehending violators, and (iv) the ability of law-enforcement officers to apprehend violators safely within a reasonable distance from the violation."
or
"complete an engineering safety analysis that addresses signal timing and other location-specific safety features. The length of the yellow phase shall be established based on the recommended methodology of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. All traffic light signal violation monitoring systems shall provide a minimum 0.5-second grace period between the time the signal turns red and the time the first violation is recorded"
or
"evaluate the system on a monthly basis to ensure all cameras and traffic signals are functioning properly. "
or most obviously
"place conspicuous signs within 500 feet of the intersection approach at which a traffic light signal violation monitoring system is used."

or some of the other statutory requirements.

 

thanks for looking that up

 

Anybody driven by one yet? Do they have the 500ft warning signs up?

 

im located in chesapeake and they are a few cameras but no signs

 

Fun Fun. Run the shit out of that bitch, then challenge it (I'm not actually advocating what I just wrote. Don't do it. But if you do find yourself with a ticket, I recommend reading 15.2-968.1 of the Code of Virginia).

Carry a camera with you though and go back to take a picture (or better yet if you have video do that) showing that there is no sign. There is a rebutable presumption that there is a conspicuous sign in place within 500 feet of the intersection. The state law requires that any locality using a red-light camera place such a sign.

My only thought is maybe they haven't done it because it's still in the 30 day grace period.

 

ill remember that
and yeah just to piss off the city i'll challenge a $50 ticket and be a pain in the ass.

i mean couldnt the city be spending money in better ways that red light cameras?

 

VB said early on (before citing safety) that they hope to generate revenue with it. We'll see. Last time they did it some cities in VA were losing money on the program, but some were making 50% more than they were spending.

 

a $50 ticket is hardly revenue.
i just googled it and in Snellville, Georgia it costed them $40,000 a month to maintain the cameras.
So that means that just to break even, there has to be 800 infractions a month. to me thats pushin it

 

I made a typo. When I said 5% I meant 50%. You're right in that it doesn't make much revenue, but I remember VB saying that was the goal in one of the earliest news reports. As far as the numbers of citations given, some cities give out tens of thousands per year, but they also have far higher operating costs than what you cited for that Georgia city.

DC makes good money with camera citations, but the difference is DC has basically no protections (forget waiting 0.5 seconds after the light turns red, they'll have one direction turning green without any delay after the other direction turned red and give you a ticket .001 second after the light change) and just relies on having citizens that are either too ignorant or too busy to challenge. They also have a way of dismissing the charge whenever somebody does challenge.