Chesapeake’s New Red Light Camera
G. A summons for a violation of this section may be executed pursuant to § 19.2-76.2. Notwithstanding the provisions of § 19.2-76, a summons for a violation of this section may be executed by mailing by first class mail a copy thereof to the owner, lessee, or renter of the vehicle. In the case of a vehicle owner, the copy shall be mailed to the address contained in the records of the Department of Motor Vehicles; in the case of a vehicle lessee or renter, the copy shall be mailed to the address contained in the records of the lessor or renter. Every such mailing shall include, in addition to the summons, a notice of (i) the summoned person’s ability to rebut the presumption that he was the operator of the vehicle at the time of the alleged violation through the filing of an affidavit as provided in subsection D and (ii) instructions for filing such affidavit, including the address to which the affidavit is to be sent. If the summoned person fails to appear on the date of return set out in the summons mailed pursuant to this section, the summons shall be executed in the manner set out in § 19.2-76.3. No proceedings for contempt or arrest of a person summoned by mailing shall be instituted for failure to appear on the return date of the summons. Any summons executed for a violation of this section shall provide to the person summoned at least 30 business days from the mailing of the summons to inspect information collected by a traffic light signal violation monitoring system in connection with the violation.
In other words, the city can send you a violation notice if you run a red light. It will be address to the registered owner. You can use the information contained on the violation to file an affidavit affirming that you were not the driver at the time of the violation. If you fail to pay or appear in court, the city must them serve a second summons. The next law tell the city how that summons must be served. § 19.2-76.3 says,
A. If any person fails to appear on the date of the return contained in the summons issued in accordance with § 19.2-76.2, then a summons shall be delivered to the sheriff of the county, city or town for service on that person as set out in § 8.01-296.
B. If such person then fails to appear on the date of return as contained in the summons so issued, a summons shall be executed in the manner set out in § 19.2-76. C. No proceedings for contempt or arrest of any person summoned under the provisions of this section shall be instituted unless such person has been personally served with a summons and has failed to appear on the return date contained therein.
That means that they have to physically serve you with a summons before you can be fined for running the red light or for failing to appear. So what should you do if you disagree with the use of traffic cameras and you happen to run that red light? Forget about the violation. Chances are they wont serve you with anything. That costs a lot of money and cuts into the potential profits. If they do, its no big deal, just go pay the ticket.
Note: Running red lights is dangerous and you should never run a red light just in spite of it. Please, for the sake of everyone else, this is only for those times that you, say, don’t want to be rear-ended by the moron tailgating you three inches from your back bumper. Also, I have presented the text of the law for you to interpret and use as you see fit. While I have pointed out that the law requires the hand-serving of a second summons, my opinion does not constitute legal advice. If you want that, talk to a lawyer. Or, just don’t run red lights. If you do, it is your responsibility to know the law and to make appropriate decisions.
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about 1 year ago
The way I see it: simply STOP ON RED (like you’re supposed to) and you avoid paying the fine. And it’s not your fault some knucklehead followed too closely and slammed into you
about 1 year ago
Thanks for this. I always take my legal advice from some faceless basement blog writer on the internet. I can see it working out great for me! “But your honor, the internets told me so!”
about 1 year ago
If you took my blog as legal advice, you might want to 1) finish reading it, where it says its not legal advice, 2) read the law yourself, and 3) try to stay indoors so as not to injure yourself.
about 1 year ago
Folks – there are no points or car registration related connections to red light camera violations in Virginia – see the statute for yourself at va code section 15.2-968.1.
Further, the 2005 VDOT red light camera report confirms that you can throw away your mail-order red light camera tickets and not face arrest or proceedings for contempt fo court unless you are PERSONALLY served:
See http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/05-vdot.pdf:
SNIP
In more detail, the 2005 RLC VDOT report on page 110 explains this as follows:
“The new statute referenced in section A., § 8.01-296, is the provision for service of
process in civil actions, which has been borrowed by the Virginia General Assembly for the
present purpose. It outlines several options for achieving satisfactory service, beginning with an
attempt at personal in-hand service, and moving on to a series of de-escalating forms of
substituted service: delivering to an adult at the defendant’s usual place of abode; posting on the
front door of such abode in conjunction with mailing; and finally, by order of publication in
appropriate cases under the provisions of the applicable code sections. It is the second of these
that gives Virginia its nickname as a “nail and mail” state, meaning that for most civil actions,
posting notice on the defendant’s front door in conjunction with mailing will constitute sufficient
notice. However, this is not so for red light camera citations under the code, for the second
statute referenced above is § 19.2-76 which, as we have already seen, requires personal in-hand
service if the “nail and mail” approach does not succeed in bringing the defendant into court.
Thus, under Virginia’s red light camera statute as it is now worded, the mere mailing of a
citation without personal service by a law enforcement officer does not constitute sufficient
notice under the statute’s own terms. While the statute permits the jurisdiction to make the
initial attempt to summon the accused to court via mail, if that person fails to respond, he or she
is not considered to have been satisfactorily served with notice. Default judgments entered under
such circumstances (when the defendant fails to appear in court on the appointed return date)
would thus not be binding, and the defendant could not be charged with contempt for failing to
comply with such a judgment. Hence, despite its ostensive distancing from the requirements of
Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-76, Virginia’s red light camera statute comes full circle and, in the end,
requires personal service before a default judgment may be entered against no-shows.”
This statutory scheme is a bit convoluted – but that was probably **done on purpose** by opponents of RLCs as a poison pill that many pro-RLC legislators were not aware of b/c it is a complicated do-loop.] or chose to just look the other way.
As the 2005 RLC VDOT report states in Appendix H: Virginia’s red light camera law “ultimately requires a personal notification, which may prove prohibitively expensive for some jurisdictions.”
the only way to slow down growth of RLC installations in Virginia is to scare localities with the potential for budget problems should they put these cameras up – if everyone knows they can blow off the mail order tickets as well as tickets tacked to their door or handed to their spouse at the house, then the profit potential for RLCs goes down.