I am not really a fan of traffic cameras. Don’t get me wrong, I understand their purpose and think they can definitely help out sometimes, but I also think they’re more trouble than they’re worth. For one thing, they make me slightly paranoid, especially if I go through a yellow light that turns red when I’m halfway through it. Almost every time that happens I wonder to myself if I’m going to get a ticket in the mail for running a red light. It hasn’t happened, (yet) and I’m thankful for that, but it doesn’t make me any less worried. (And for all those wondering, I try not to blast my way through yellow lights. Sometimes it just happens).

Andrey Rainey, a 20 year-old student from Florida, probably doesn’t like traffic cameras very much right now either. He recently received a ticket in the mail from a traffic camera in Miami, Florida. Here’s the problem – Rainey has never been to Miami, and neither has his vehicle. So how’d he get the ticket? Well, a license plate which looked like his was caught on camera and he was the lucky vehicle owner to get a citation.
Talk About A Blurred Photo
When Rainey received the ticket in the mail, they also helpfully included a photo of his license plate to prove that it was his vehicle in case he wanted to question it. After his initial shock, he looked at the image and noticed how blurry it really was. He also noticed that the back of the vehicle was a lot more rounded, more like a car’s bumper than the truck that he drives. And while looking at the license plate photo, it was really hard to tell if the 4th letter was an O, Q, or a D.

Rainey decided to call the court to let them know they might’ve got the wrong guy. They told him he’d have to deal with the court in Miami. So now, this student from Orlando with 2 jobs is trying to find a way to afford getting to Miami to fight a ticket which probably never belonged to him in the first place.
But at least the traffic camera caught someone breaking the law – now if it can only find the right person.
What do you think? Do you believe traffic cameras are effective?