If you haven’t heard of Mr. Traffic Ticket yet; he may become one of your best friends. A San Diego attorney, Mitchell Mehdy aka Mr. Traffic Ticket is telling a judge to take red light camera tickets, and throw ’em out!

We agree. You get hit with $460 ticket and have to defend yourself against a machine that took your photo. The company that created the cameras, American Traffic Solutions is based in Arizona and are paid over a million dollars. Mehdy relays how it all really works in an interview with San Diego’s news reporter Michael Turko on KUSI:

“What they do is they have a custodial officer,” explains Mehdy, “he gets an evidence package and he opens it up and there are a bunch of statements in there from a bunch of people saying I did everything correctly. Now if you ask the officer any questions concerning the censors or the record history, they’re not going to know that. You’re not going to be able to confront a witness, you’re not going to be able to fight the ticket.”
Mehdy says the city needs to provide a real expert witness in each case. Someone who can testify with firsthand knowledge about how each driver was caught on camera.

“The city wants to be cheap,” he says. “They want to save as much money with the camera system and maximize profits on this thing. This fight is going to change the way they do business, and the way they do business now is just not right.”

Mehdy recommends that if you are dealing with a red light camera ticket the best course of action is to ask for a continuance instead of paying the $460 fine. The challenge against red light tickets is still being evaluated and hopefully a judge will “throw ’em out”

Indeed more and more cases are being thrown out due to lack of evidence as recently reported by KUSI Turko Files. but if you do get one remember an online traffic school is a great way to not have it effect your insurance.