Speed camera gives ticket to stationary car

This is not the speed camera in question. But it is a speed camera.

(Credit: CC David Bleasdale/Flickr)

Something's wonky about technology in Baltimore.

Earlier this week, I shivered at the idea that the city had been at the forefront of putting audio surveillance in its buses.

Now I hear that its speed cameras appear to have been buying street drugs from extremely disreputable sorts.

You see, a Baltimore camera issued a ticket to Daniel Doty. It claimed that he and his Mazda wagon were going 38 mph in a 25 mph zone.

I hadn't been aware that Mazda wagons could go that fast. Doty, on the other hand, hadn't been aware that you can go 38 mph while standing completely still.

As the upstanding Baltimore Sun has it, the photograph that Doty received with his $40 citation showed that his Mazda wasn't moving. At all.

It showed its brake lights offering an illuminating detail to the scene. Doty told the Sun that it was "shockingly obvious" his Mazda wasn't moving.

For its part, the city was incapable of explaining how it might possibly be that such an injustice coul... [Read more]