Help Stop Speed Ticketing Cameras in California

Some of you may not know that I am also a lifetime member of the National Motorists Association. And as you all know, whatever starts in California spreads like a virus across the United States. Take for example, the AB5 or also known as the A B C rule that makes it almost impossible to utilize the services of Independent Contractors or the California Air Resources Board (CARB) making it impossible for you to keep your trucks. 

I know a lot of you really hate California for all this, I can tell by all the one finger salutes I get in some emails. Well now is the time to throw the gauntlet on the ground and stamp this virus out before it spreads to your state. Tell the current administration that you have had enough. Just be sure to sign the petition.

Sign the petition to stop speed cameras in California. Assembly Bill 645 by Assemblymember Laura Friedman (Glendale/Los Angeles) would allow the use of speed ticketing cameras in LA and five other cities. If this bill becomes law, eventually the entire state will be overrun with ticketing cameras issuing hundreds of millions of dollars in tickets to unsuspecting motorists. This is the fifth or sixth iteration of this bill which we have previously scrapped. Unfortunately, this year it has a much better chance of passing. It already passed the Assembly and is currently being heard in the Senate. Just a few more votes will be taken before it goes to the Governor. We need your voice to tell California legislators – NO speed cameras in California!

• AB-645 would authorize up to 125 ticketing cameras in LA for a "pilot program." Under LA’s reviled red light camera program, the city deployed cameras at 60 locations and issued over 60,000 tickets per year. With 125 speed cameras, the number of tickets that will be issued in LA alone would number in the hundreds of thousands, and fines would total in the millions.
• How bad could it be? In the city of Baltimore, residents were issued 432,836 speed camera tickets from 144 cameras in 2021. In the city of Chicago, which deploys about 160-speed cameras, residents were issued 2.81 million citations in 2021. That’s one ticket every 12 seconds and more automated tickets in one year than there are residents in the entire city, costing residents $89 million. In addition to the fines and add-on penalties, drivers are often subjected to an average 21% increase in insurance rates when these tickets are issued.
• The bill allows the cities to keep 100% of the revenue as long as they use the money to install the government’s desired roadway obstacles to driving, like road diets and bike lanes.
• AB-645 makes the vehicle owner responsible for the ticket and only provides a photo of the vehicle license plate. The ticket will be heard in an “administrative hearing,” much like parking tickets, with no due process and little to no ability to fight the ticket.
• The ticket would be prima facie evidence of the violation, meaning you are assumed to be guilty and must prove your innocence. The burden of proof would fall on the defendant, not the city, to prove their case.
• Most all legal rights afforded to defendants in traffic court would be eliminated including your right to face your accuser, right to discovery, right to subpoena witnesses, etc. The standard of proof would be “preponderance of the evidence” (more likely than not) rather than the higher standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” which is currently used in traffic court.
• California’s speed trap law protections are eliminated with camera-issued tickets.
• AB-645 specifically authorizes the cameras to be used on roadways designated as a “safety corridor” where previous legislation now allows cities to reduce the speed limit by up to 12 mph below the operating speed of the roadway as measured by the 85th percentile of vehicle speeds. AB-645 allows ticketing starting at 11 mph over the speed limit, so drivers traveling below the operational speed of the road based on how it was designed will be subject to ticketing. This alone will result in up to 90% of drivers passing the cameras being cited, resulting in hundreds of thousands of tickets and millions of dollars in fines issued.
• AB-645 allows the use of speed cameras for millions of dollars in fines to times when children are going to and leaving school. The cameras would be allowed to run 24/7 including weekends and late nights, ticketing drivers when no one is around.
• The bill is opposed by law enforcement groups (PORAC), union groups (Teamsters), motorist groups, motorcycle groups, independent truckers, and many social justice groups (ACLU, etc.). The fact that so many different groups that are barely on speaking terms with each other oppose this bill should tell you how toxic it is.

Click here to sign the petition to stop speed cameras in California or click on the button below.