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If you’re the type of person who speeds up when the stop light turns yellow, you’re probably also the type of person who gets red light camera tickets.
Yellow lights aren’t always as yellow as you might think. In fact, sometimes red light cameras will even send out tickets for drivers who pass through during yellow lights.
In New York, there are two kinds of red light violations: NYC Red Light and Passed Red Signal.
On average, nearly 70,000 of these tickets are issued each year.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to fight a red light camera ticket.
How To Fight a Red Light Camera Ticket
Fighting a red light camera ticket takes time and effort, like with any traffic or parking ticket. In New York, this is even more true.
The New York Vehicle and Traffic Law (VTL) includes over a thousand ways to get a ticket. Although red light camera tickets make up only a small percentage of those tickets overall, they’re still the 24th and 29th most-ticketed violations.
Here are three great ways to beat your red light camera ticket:
Prove It Was Somebody Else
Like with parking tickets, red light camera tickets go straight to the registered owner of the vehicle. So, even if somebody else were driving your vehicle, you’ll still have to pay the ticket. What, then, do we mean when we say to prove it was somebody else? Simple!
All red light tickets in New York come with photos of the violation. If there is another vehicle in the picture with yours, you could point your finger at them and say, “Well, your honor, actually it was that guy who set off the camera.”
Needless to say, this defense, of course, only works if the car is pictured behind you. If the car in front of you triggered the red light camera, then that just means you were even more wrong to pass through the intersection.
Request Proof That the Camera Was Serviced Recently and In Good Working Order
You may have heard that you can get out of speeding tickets if the ticketing officer hasn’t properly calibrated their RADAR gun. That’s true. And the same goes for red light cameras.
The first thing you should do is call a lawyer. The second thing you should do is request proof that the camera was serviced recently. If it’s been a while since the last time the camera was serviced, you might be able to successfully argue for dismissal on the grounds that the camera was not properly maintained and capable of properly detecting red light violations.
Show That You Only Broke the Law in an Emergency
There are many exceptions in New York’s VTL for emergencies. A great example is roadside fires. If the street is on fire, the government isn’t going to expect you to stop in the middle of the inferno and wait for the light to turn green.
A more practical example is this: Let’s say there’s been a heavy snow and it’s finally starting to melt. Then the New York weather we all know and love comes back and turns the melted snow into ice on the road. You stop at a stop light just fine, but the car behind you loses control and starts to skid on the ice. They’re headed straight for you. Your only option is to gun it and speed through the red light to avoid a potentially fatal accident. That is perfectly okay.
As long as you can prove that you only blew through the red light to avoid an emergency situation, you may be able to have your case dismissed.
Can I Put a License Plate Camera Blocker On My Car in New York?
License plate camera blockers are illegal in New York and you can get tickets for being caught with one. These laws are so strict that even some license plate frames are considered illegal because they make it too difficult for the red light cameras to read your license plates.
There have been many cases of people buying new cars and getting tickets while driving them home from the dealership all because the dealership installed large license plate frames that partially obscured the plate. If you’re buying a new car, be sure to ask the dealership to remove the large frame before driving the vehicle anywhere.
Who Has To Pay the Red Light Camera Ticket?
We talked briefly about this earlier, but here’s the more detailed explanation: The registered owner of the vehicle has to pay the red light camera ticket. This is because the camera takes a photo of the vehicle and its license plate, not the person driving the vehicle.
That being said, if your vehicle were stolen at the time the violation occurred, you will most likely not be held accountable for the red light camera tickets incurred as a result.
Red light camera tickets in New York are treated differently from most other traffic tickets. In fact, they’re treated almost the same as parking tickets. In many cases, parking and camera violations are put into the same data sets, meaning the government doesn’t even consider them in the same category as traffic tickets.
A data set is a collection of statistics and information that researchers use to analyze certain things. When it comes to traffic data, that typically means looking at how many tickets are issued each year. Most of the time, parking tickets and camera tickets are treated as the same thing.
Will a Red Light Camera Ticket Add Points To My License?
The simple answer is no, but this is a tricky question. Red light camera tickets will not add points to your license under any circumstances. That’s mostly because of the fact that cameras are considered more like parking tickets than anything else. And parking tickets do not result in points on your license.
However, red light camera tickets are not the only kind of red light tickets. If a police officer catches you driving through a red light, you might also get a normal red light ticket. Normal red light tickets are worth three points and can have a serious negative impact on your insurance premiums.
The Difference Between Red Light Tickets and Red Light Camera Tickets
Red light camera tickets are tickets that come from red light cameras. If a red light camera catches you driving through the light and issues a ticket to the registered owner, that’s a red light camera ticket.
Normal red light tickets are tickets that come from police officers. If a police officer catches you driving through the light and issues a ticket to the driver of the vehicle, that’s a normal red light ticket and can give you up to three points on your license.
The main difference between the two is to whom the ticket is issued. If the ticket is issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, it functions like a parking ticket. If the ticket is issued to the driver of the vehicle, it functions like a traffic ticket.
Parking tickets cannot add points to your license and will seldom affect your insurance. Traffic tickets can add points to your license and will often affect your insurance.
Will a Red Light Camera Ticket Raise My Insurance?
Nope! Red light camera tickets will not raise your insurance premiums because they function more like parking tickets than like traffic tickets. That being said, there are other kinds of red light violations that can raise your insurance, such as if you get a traffic ticket from a police officer for a red light violation.
How Long Does It Take for a Red Light Ticket to Come in the Mail in New York?
Red light camera tickets come in the form of Notices of Liability (NoLs). These NoLs are official government documents and we all know how fast the government handles vehicle-related matters. Just think about the DMV for a minute.
Because of this, it can take around 30 days for the ticket to come in the mail in New York. That can be quite frustrating for most people. Just because you think you made it through that yellow light doesn’t mean you actually did. Even worse, you’ll only find out a few weeks after the fact.
Can I Appeal a Red Light Camera Ticket?
The first step in fighting a red light camera ticket is to hire a traffic ticket attorney through the WinIt app. The attorneys on the WinIt app have years of experience fighting tickets, countless cases won, and plenty of availability to help you win yours too.
Once you have a lawyer, you go to court and contest the ticket. Many times, this is all it takes to win the case. However, sometimes you’ll lose your case. But even that’s not the end of things.
If you lose your case, you have up to 30 days to file for an appeal. In other words, if you lose your court case, you can get a second court case and have another judge look over the paperwork.
WinIt can help guide you through the entire process, handling much of the paperwork and legal work for you so you don’t have to. There’s usually no need to take off work, miss out on that paycheck, or drop truck loads of cash on a traditional lawyer. WinIt offers affordable, expert legal assistance right from your smartphone.
Do you have a red light camera ticket? Win it with WinIt.
