Red light camera on US 12 @Miller Rd in Lake Zurich, IL flashes based on speed

[dietermoreno]

Is it common for a red light camera to flash even if you come to a complete stop behind the white line, with it actually happening when you were still far back behind the white line with your speed apparently triggering the camera to flash even if you broke no law (at least none that I am aware of) by not crossing the white line?

There were no other cars behind me when it flashed, and no cars in front of me running the red light, so it had to have flashed at me.  That makes no sense that it would flash at me before I even would have crossed the white line (which I didn't).

I was going 70 and going to go through the yellow light but then I remembered that it was a red light camera so I slammed on my breaks to stop before the white line coming to a complete stop behind the white line.

Are these tickets reviewed by humans?  Or do you have to pay court costs for a human to look at the ticket, with a low chance of the ticket being overturned?

I haven't gotten the ticket in the mail yet, because I just was flashed at on Black Friday two days ago.

This red light camera is at the intersection of US 12 and Miller Rd in Lake Zurich, IL.

[Tarkus]

Most red light camera systems actually have an algorithm included in their software that is supposed to "predict" whether or not a vehicle is going to run the red light.  I know that Redflex and Xerox (formerly ACS) systems do, and I'd suppose that the other vendors would as well.  A quick Google search turned up that Gatso (based out of The Netherlands) runs the Lake Zurich cameras (Gatso also supplies equipment for Xerox).  The algorithm is based pretty much entirely off of the vendor's idea of an average stopping distance at a certain speed threshold, and the camera will go off if you hit a certain speed over the sensors, even if you do manage to stop in time.  There was a case of this sort of thing happening in Portland a few years back, which is summed up here. 

Generally speaking, jurisdictions will typically have someone at the vendor's office processing the images, as well as a police officer examining them, but some intersections, particularly those where right-on-red photo enforcement comes into play, can have an insane volume of cases to sort through, and human error and judgment calls can come into play.  It'll probably take them longer than two days to process any potential citation, though. 

Hopefully, they were smart enough to figure out that you didn't cross the white line and were simply flashed in error based off Gatso's algorithm.  Definitely pulling for you not to get a citation.  Red light cameras are mostly skanky cash cows for shady corporations the way they're typically run.

[Brandon]

Is it common for a red light camera to flash even if you come to a complete stop behind the white line, with it actually happening when you were still far back behind the white line with your speed apparently triggering the camera to flash even if you broke no law (at least none that I am aware of) by not crossing the white line?

There were no other cars behind me when it flashed, and no cars in front of me running the red light, so it had to have flashed at me.  That makes no sense that it would flash at me before I even would have crossed the white line (which I didn't).

I was going 70 and going to go through the yellow light but then I remembered that it was a red light camera so I slammed on my breaks to stop before the white line coming to a complete stop behind the white line.

Are these tickets reviewed by humans?  Or do you have to pay court costs for a human to look at the ticket, with a low chance of the ticket being overturned?

I haven't gotten the ticket in the mail yet, because I just was flashed at on Black Friday two days ago.

This red light camera is at the intersection of US 12 and Miller Rd in Lake Zurich, IL.

Nope, that's not normal.  Looks like the red light scamera is malfunctioning.  These tickets are supposed to be reviewed by humans.

[jeffandnicole]

Is it common for a red light camera to flash even if you come to a complete stop behind the white line, with it actually happening when you were still far back behind the white line with your speed apparently triggering the camera to flash even if you broke no law (at least none that I am aware of) by not crossing the white line?

There were no other cars behind me when it flashed, and no cars in front of me running the red light, so it had to have flashed at me.  That makes no sense that it would flash at me before I even would have crossed the white line (which I didn't).

I was going 70 and going to go through the yellow light but then I remembered that it was a red light camera so I slammed on my breaks to stop before the white line coming to a complete stop behind the white line.

Are these tickets reviewed by humans?  Or do you have to pay court costs for a human to look at the ticket, with a low chance of the ticket being overturned?

I haven't gotten the ticket in the mail yet, because I just was flashed at on Black Friday two days ago.

This red light camera is at the intersection of US 12 and Miller Rd in Lake Zurich, IL.

Nope, that's not normal.  Looks like the red light scamera is malfunctioning.  These tickets are supposed to be reviewed by humans.

As Tarkus described, it's completely normal.  And there's no 'ticket' to be reviewed by a human, it's the video that's reviewed. 

However, the camera flashing does not equate to it actually capturing a vehicle.  The first flash is to help get the picture of the license plate.  If the car continued to roll thru the intersection, a second flash would occur, along with video of the incident.

If the video is sent to the reviewer, they should have no problem seeing the car stopped, and no ticket would be sent.  This is all done behind the scenes, so the driver or owner of the vehicle wouldn't even be aware of it.

This actually occurs a lot during the daytime, and most people don't even notice it's happening.  It's only noticeable at night because of the flash.

[Sykotyk]

I've had red light cameras flash me a few times, all in instances you describe. Light changed quick, and I stopped quick (i.e., light went from red to green to yellow much faster than you would ever think). Never got  ticket, even one when I came to a stop past the white line.

Though, personally, I think the lights timing was set on purpose to be quick to catch people off guard. I was still accelerating from where I thought I had a red turn to green to suddenly have to stop again.