What can YOU do?

If you do not approve of speed cameras being used in Maryland, here are several things you, as a concerned citizen, can do:

1) Join Us
Contact us if you want to help or if you want to be added to our mailing list. We are looking for people to improve this site by supplying TIPS, additional content and information, or photos. Getting information and help from people like you is critical to our efforts.  

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2) Support The NMA
You might also consider joining or making a donation to the National Motorists Association, which is the only nationwide organization dedicated to protecting driver's rights and fighting photo-enforcement. 

Certain other "motorist groups" often speak about speed cameras to the press for public relations reasons, but their real business is as an insurance company and/or travel agency.  When push comes to shove regarding photo enforcement legislation they will treat motorist rights as a bargaining chip which they fully intend to give away the first time they are offered some shiny bauble.  Accept no imitations: a one year NMA membership costs less than a single speed camera citation, and the more members they have in Maryland the more they can do to fight for drivers' rights here. 

3) Contact your State Representatives and tell them that you do not wish to see restrictions on the use of speed cameras weakened, and that you oppose introducing them statewide and onto freeways. YOUR OWN WORDS ARE BEST, but you can use this sample Letter:
"Dear Delegate/Senator ____,
I am writing to you to express my opposition to speed cameras in the state of Maryland. I believe these devices are not appropriate for a free society which values privacy and civil liberties. They harm the legal presumption of innocence and the right of the accused to face a human accuser. Because they can be used for revenue generation, they are certain to be abused and used in increasingly aggressive and sneaky ways to maximize that revenue. This will create an environment which will make ordinary drivers uncomfortable.

In 2009, the legislature voted to authorize speed cameras statewide. Since then the system has been abused across the board.  New School zones have been created solely for speed camera deployments, speed limits are being lowered in some towns, and restrictions on paying contractors a cut of every ticket are being circumvented.  Some towns have even used cameras which are blatantly inaccurate or not operated in compliance with state law.  The only agencies and organizations investigating the matter apparently get a cut of the profits.

I find this unacceptable, and believe that this deceptive and dishonest behavior by local officials at such an early stage demonstrates that we cannot trust that other important restrictions will be respected in the future.

I do not want to see legislation authorizing ANY expansion of photo enforcement of any kind.  The speed camera law should be repealed, or else significant new restrictions and protections for due process rights should be added.

Sincerely, ________"


4) Write to your County Council or local City/Town Officials and tell them you don't want the cameras on the roads you drive every day.

You should not direct complaints, criticisms, or political objections to Police.  Speed cameras are a political issue and police implement policy, they do not set policy.  Also, the email or phone numbers listed for camera programs on citations or city websites are typically answered by the private contractors who run the cameras and collect a portion of the fines -- they will only provide a canned response and your complaint will never reach actual elected officials.  Go to the local or county government website and write to them directly.   

We also recommend writing to the State Highway Administration ( by EMAIL or by mail at 707 North Calvert Street Baltimore, Maryland 21202).  Inform them that you oppose speed cameras and that you believe the SHA has failed to provide adequate oversight over local speed camera programs deploying cameras on state highways.  Inform them you hold Governor O'Malley responsible for the integrity, and the lack thereof, of speed camera programs which he worked to authorize.  The SHA bears some responsibility for cameras on state highways because it issued permits to the municipalities and has been actively promoting the use of speed cameras by local governments, by ignoring the effect of camera deployments on traffic congestion, and by ignoring the impact the cameras have on the rights of motorists.


You should NEVER tolerate an elected official forwarding letters criticizing their policy to police officers asking them to respond on their behalf (which does sometimes happen).  If they do that call them out on it and tell them that your objections to the government's policy is a political issue not a police matter, and that it is the expectation that elected officials treat their constituents as citizens and taxpayers to be listened to, not as "violators" to be talked down to.



5) Speak out
Writing letters to the editor in you local papers, telling your own personal views and stories, is one way to get the message out to many other people.

Camera advocates use the term "safety" to deflect from the profit motives of the system. The safety benefits of these cameras have yet to be proven, and there are other less intrusive "traffic calming devices" which could be used instead. Camera advocates will try to suggest that anyone who opposes these cameras either opposes safety or just wants to be able to violate the law. However the Constitution is the highest law in the US, and the government needs to respect both the spirit and the letter of that document. Responsible citizens, who value civil liberties and privacy rights, or who realize that drivers need flexibility to make the split second decisions required to drive safety, have a right to oppose these devices in good conscience.

6) VOTE THEM OUT

In 2009 Maryland Lawmakers voted to authorize the statewide use of speed cameras.
See how your representatives voted on statewide speed cameras here!!!
Unfortunately most of the state and county officials who voted for cameras are safe until 2014.  We hate to say it but anyone who didn't vote in 2010 when they had the chance is going to get the government they deserve.  

There will be elections in many municipalities before then, check with your local board of elections.   Also, if you've gotten a ticket, consider making a "matching contribution" to a lawmaker that opposed speed cameras.

7) Don’t feed the monster!

It has been demonstrated in other areas that when automated ticket revenues dry up, the cameras disappear as well. You can prevent the government and their contractors from making a profit off of you by:

• Learn the locations of red light and speed cameras in the areas you drive. In Maryland these locations are required to be posted online, and there are now commercial databases for GPS units and IPhones which attempt to catalog photo enforcement locations.
• Stay alert. If you see “Photo enforced” signs, take their word for it and watch your speed closely.
• Don’t speed. Currently, in Maryland, cameras are triggered at 12mph over the limit. However margins are lower in DC, and remember that your speed will tend to drift up when you’re not watching the speedometer closely, and cameras are often placed short distances after a drop in the speed limit. 
• Make sure you don’t end up paying late fees, they make out big $$$ if you do. If the timeframe they try to force you to pay or challenge a citation in is not reasonable you should fight this.
•  If you do pay a ticket, do NOT pay service charges.  The payment websites ( www.montgomerycountymd.gov/safespeedpay, www.public.cite-web.com, www.onlinecitationpayment.com, etc) usually tack on a service charge of $2-$3.5.  That's additional profit straight into the camera company's pocket.  Paying by check will instead force them expend the cost of having human handle the payment.

8) If you get a ticket, fight it

The following applies to Maryland speed camera citations. The situation, laws, and points of contact will be different in other states and DC.

If the ticket you received was the result of a blatant error, for example if it is not your car in the photo, the first thing you could try is to contact the police department issuing the citation. Note that in some previous cases complaints about obvious errors were ignored until the media got involved.  However if you write to the city/county police and/or mayor and council, town administrator of the jurisdiction issuing such a ticket and whatever supporting evidence is appropriate, sometimes you can get a ticket dismissed without a hearing.  Feel free to BCC StopBigBrother@gmail.com on such complaints, or to report such incidents to us.  If you get a citation dismissed this way, try to get something in writing or check back later to confirm that the citation was in fact voided, believe it or not several people in such a situation reported to us that they had been told a citation was cleared up but in fact it was still on their record and in some cases got penalty or registration suspension notices.  Trust but verify.

If you receive a speed camera citation, you have a right to request a court hearing. Fighting citations in court is time consuming, and almost everyone chooses to pay the $40 rather than spend a day in court. Plus the odds will be seriously stacked against you at District Court "Speed Camera Day" where they judge's purpose is to hand out assembly line "Guilty" verdicts NOT to provide due process or justice. The burden of proof will be on YOU, not on the accuser where it is supposed to be.  However despite the challenges and the likelihood that you will not be better off financially Challenging unjust citations is a civic duty. You should ALWAYS fight a ticket if you believe it was issued in error or the driver was really not speeding.  Being a 'submitizen' does not make you a 'good citizen' since it rewards incompetence and/or corruption and will only make matters worse.   Specific reasons why you might wish to fight a ticket include when:

• There were other vehicles in the citation images, meaning the violation may have been improperly assigned to you
  
•  You were not driving the vehicle
• Signs in the area were obstructed, missing, or non standard
• Multiple tickets were received in a short period of time
• You didn’t receive the citation in a timely manner (2 weeks for Maryland residents, 30 days for out of state drivers is the legal requirement. Note: look at the postmarks and SAVE THE ENVELOPE it came in)
  
• You believe proper procedures were not followed
• The ticket was issued by one of the jurisdictions which as been a particularly bad actor, such as Forest Heights, or where there has been a history of errors.

or

• You really really want to 

If you choose to challenge a Speed Camera citation in court, you should know:

a) If you are seriously challenging a citation, you should plead NOT GUILTY.  The court, the county, and its contractor may tell you a variety of lies or threats to try to persuade you to plea 'Guilty with Explanation'.  'Guilty with Explanation' means 'Guilty'.  All it does is waive your right to due proceeds and *guarantee* you will be found guilty and have to pay a fine plus court costs.  I cannot believe how many people go to 'speed camera day', plead 'guilty with explanation', tell the judge that they don't think speed cameras are fair, and then have to pay a fine plus court costs.  Fighting a citation means fighting to win.  Judges do not set public policy or decide where cameras are placed so 'venting' to them accomplishes nothing, and they do expect defendants to follow courtroom rules.  If your purpose  for being there is to make a complaint about cameras in general please see items 2, 3, and 4 above for the proper places to do that.

The only exception to this is if you are fighting 3 or more received in a very short period of time before the first ticket arrived in the mail (that is fairly common if a new camera goes up, especially in those cases where speed limits were lowered or cameras placed right near speed transition zones).   Most judges will force you to pay the first ticket full price and reduce or dismiss all the others, which will reduce the total amount you need to pay.  If you weren't the driver or don't know who was driving for all of the tickets try to support that.


b) If you go to court, they cannot increase the fines or place "points" on your driving record. They *can* charge you a maximum additional $22.50 in court costs.  They *should not* do so if you are found not guilty.  Cases are heard in the District Court in Silver Spring (regardless of where you live).  Most people get reduced fines plus court costs and end up breaking even.

c) When the speed camera law was written, it was written to lower the standard of justice from "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" to "a preponderance of the evidence". This means that you will need to spend some time to come up with a credible argument to support your case.  Basically in Maryland the lawmakers who approved speed cameras believe drivers should have none of the legal rights which murderers, rapists, and child molesters are entitled to.


d) Some drivers have been successful in proving errors by cameras using time-distance calculations.  This has been particularly true of cameras run by several towns in Prince George's county, including Forest Heights.  You need to know the time interval between the frames, then overlay the images to obtain an estimate of the distance traveled, using the length of your car for comparison.  The formula you need to use is:
Feet Traveled =  (MilePerHour * (5280 ft/Mile) / (3600 s/Minute))  * photo_interval_in_seconds
or alternately
MilePerHour = Feet Traveled  * (3600 s/minute) / (photo_interval_in_seconds * 5280 ft/Mile)

The owner of a business in Forest Height has created a video describing how to create a composite image which can be used to challenge tickets issued by Forest Heights and other towns using Optotraffic cameras.

If the car was not fully in frame in the first (closer) image you should site this as additional evidence that the car had not traveled the expected distance in the period of time before the first photo was taken, meaning it .  If asked to respond that you merely slowed down after the speed measurement or that your brakes were on, you should respond that the time before the first photo is take is very short, less than a second, and that you could not have decelerated in that time.  If the prosecution argues that the timestamps are not exact, then you should state that a law enforcement device is supposed to be a piece of precision equipment, and that the timestamps are part of the chain of evidence.  There is an expectation that the information recorded on the citations is accurate and if that is the case then the evidence produced by the machine should not be considered proof of guilt, and that the burden for providing verifiable proof is supposed to be on the accuser.  


Also if the camera was close to a speed transition zone (a drop in the speed limit) you can additionally point out that even if claim that you had merely braked were true (although you do not accept that to be the case), it would show that you were in fact in the process of slowing down to comply with the reduced speed limit and that exceeding the speed limit for 1 second after the start of a reduced speed zone is not what rational people consider to be 'speeding', and that you should still be found not guilty in that case. 





In some cases, citations are issued with timestamps that are only accurate to within 1 second.  This will give an interval of either 1 second or 0 seconds, and it is NOT the actual photo interval.  In this case it was rounded off, perhaps deliberately in order to prevent calculations like the ones above. If you believe you were not speeding and cannot obtain the "real" photo interval upon request (prior to your hearing!) you should argue that the timestamp was not accurate enough for verification purposes and as such the evidence against you should be inadmissible because it cannot be verified.  (some defendants have been successful with this approach, but others were not).

e) The accused has a right to challenge the validity of the evidence. There are specific conditions called out in Transportation Article 21-809 regarding maintenance, calibration, and record keeping for the machines which the state is required to meet.

f) The law states that you need notify the court *20 days before the trial* if you want to have the "operator" appear in court. This is right after the paragraph which says that the operator is not *required* to go to court. However, if you request the operator be present and they do not send the operator, you should ask the judge to dismiss the case on that basis.  Note that local governments have been trying to deny that they need to present the operator upon request , and have had some success in stripping YOU of this important right.  Do not accept it.  If you wish to question the operator you should be prepared to a) document that you sent your request b) present an argument that the state has not met the burden of proof if they do not present the operator upon request (contact us for some suggestions). 

Depending on your defense you might not want to request the operator.  If you have a particularly good defense, for example particularly strong evidence supports that the speed reading was in error, you might not want your case dismissed before you can present it.  Also if you do request the operator, have some significant questions for them prepared about how the device was operated in case they do appear.

g) You have a right to request other data relevant to your defense (from the local government issuing the citation and/or the state highway administration). You will need to do this well in advance of your trial because it may take weeks to get the information you need. Examples of documents you might want to ask for may include :
- contract documents between the local government and their speed camera contractor
- technical specifications of the speed camera
- the annual calibration certificates for the camera along with the actual test procedure performed for the calibration
- documents showing the credentials of the "independent calibration lab" which issued the annual calibration certificates
- "daily setup logs" for the camera issuing the citation
- timecards for the operator signing the daily setup logs (to confirm they were working the day they 'signed' the logs, sometimes they were not!!!  If they say there are no timecards or refuse to produce them, that is because they are hiding something!)
- Maintenance and/or Radar Service Logs for the day of, before, and after citation date
- the local law/ordinance which authorized the use of speed cameras and approved the camera contract
- The permit to use speed cameras on the road from the SHA or county which maintains the road, and the complete application for this permit
 - the latest traffic studies for the location where the incident occurred validating the speed limit is correct (based on 85th percentile speed or other engineering standard).
- work orders for the addition of speed limit, 'photo enforced' or 'school zone' signs (to determine if, when, and where they were added).


Be aware that not all of the above records pertain to all types of cameras or all locations, it will require some research on your part.  If they do not immediately turn over this information willingly, you should cite the Maryland Public Information Act, which gives you the right to have access to most public records from state and local governments. If you invoke the PIA:
- You are NOT obligated to provide the reason why you need these records.
- It is a violation of state law for them NOT to provide the records in question within 30 days or a valid reason why the records cannot be released (only a few reasons are considered valid).
- If they fail to provide the requested documents or state that they will charge you an excessive fee for doing so, request that response in writing and use their refusal/unreasonable demand as part of your defense (and we'd like to know about it too!)

H) EVEN IF YOU LOSE YOU WIN. The minute you decide to vigorously defend yourself the government stops making money off your ticket and starts losing money. The more questions you ask before your hearing, the more true this will be. We also get much of our information from people who are fighting tickets, and when the truth about violations of the law by authorities or camera companies gets out it can cost them more in terms of PR than thousands of tickets are worth.

We would definitely like to hear from anyone who either has or is planning to seriously challenge speed camera citations in court. We have some information which is not commonly known which we can share -- information we learn from people fighting tickets -- so please contact us.. 


Disclaimer: the content of this Blog and any referenced documents should not be treated as legal advice or as a substitute for legal counsel.