PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

retmil46 · #7 09-18-2010, 12:29 PM

I'm thinking that, if it's possible for you, it'd be worth your time to appear in court for this one - if for no other reason, to ask them to produce the actual photos and prove that, from the photos alone, they can clearly see you inside the car and say beyond a reasonable doubt that you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

Unless this camera was set up and focused with a narrrow field of view SPECIFICALLY to catch people not wearing seatbelts, personally I'd have my doubts that a normal traffic camera, set up with a wide enough angle to catch your license plate and a good view of the vehicle itself, would show the interior of the vehicle with enough resolution to be able to tell whether or not the occupants were wearing seatbelts, much less how many people were actually in the vehicle.

I'm familiar with the hoorah about the cameras in Charlotte, as I was still living in NC 25 miles north of Charlotte at the time - could be this is a similar situation, a third party company running the cameras - and when they weren't able to assign any other violations to your photos, just decided to claim they could tell you weren't wearing a seatbelt and get some cash out of it. Might be they looked at the date/time stamp on the photos, just minutes apart, figured you were screwing with them by setting off the camera multiple times as a prank, and decided to nail you for something as payback.

If nothing else, from the same date/time stamp, I'd at least make the argument it should be one ticket instead of five, based on the circumstances.