Getting a red light or speeding camera ticket is frustrating for many people. Getting a letter in the mail saying that you or your vehicle did something that you don’t agree with can be upsetting.
Many people will be frustrated after receiving these letters in the mail, being accused of something and as a result, responsible for the financial costs of something, that they may have not even done.
For most people, red light and speed camera tickets do not have consequences beyond the fine that comes with them. Meaning, that there are no points and the ticket will not have to go on your record.
However, for commercial drivers, these tickets do have consequences associated with their company points and carrier insurance.
For this reason, some people may feel that it is important to dispute a red light or speeding camera ticket.
Possible defences
There are defences to these tickets, but they are quite difficult to use and typically relate to very specific legal requirements around the type of evidence that can be introduced at trial.
These tickets are proven by what is known as certificate evidence. A certificate is filed in court to indicate that the camera was functioning correctly, that the vehicle depicted was the person’s vehicle and that the information on the ticket is accurate.
Certificate evidence is presumptively admissible, but it has to comply with certain legal requirements, and there cannot be defects in the certificate.
If you can prove that the evidence is wrong, or identify a flaw in the certificate, then you may have a defence to the tickets.
These are very difficult defences to succeed at, and the certificate evidence is subject to very strict legal requirements, and a nuanced understanding of that area of law.
In fact, most cases that deal with the validity of certificate evidence, date back to the 1970s and 80s, so an understanding of a legal history could also play an important role in defending these tickets.
Basically, the certificate must provide all answers about what is seen on the document within the four corners of the paper.
We have seen cases where people have been successful at challenging the certificate evidence on the basis of defects within the document, or inconsistency between the certificate and other evidence.
Scientific defences
There are also scientific defences that people can use. The cameras operate a certain way and speed is measured using a basic physics calculation; distance over time. Because it is measured using distance over time, it can be possible to call into question the reliability of a camera’s measurement of your speed. This may then be used to prove that you did not reach the speed indicated on the face of the ticket, by demonstrating that the amount of distance measured by the camera compared to the amount of time does not correspond.
This may involve actually going out to the intersection where your car was photographed and coming up with a calculation yourself to verify the data is accurate.
Even though it seems like a lot of work to defend a ticket that may only be a couple of hundred dollars, people have been successful in traffic court after calling into question the speed measured by the speed camera ticket.
But be careful, because even if the camera is measuring your speed incorrectly if your evidence shows you were nevertheless speeding, you will still be convicted.
For example, if the camera measures your speed at 110km/h in a 50 zone, but your calculations put your speed at 94km/h, the evidence still proves that you sped in excess of 40km/h over the speed limit, and are guilty of the offence.
This means your own evidence can still be used to convict you, even if you call into question the camera’s measurement of speed.
If you have questions about a red-light camera ticket or a speed camera ticket, you may contact our office, as we are always happy to help.
