Man challenges New Mexico speed camera tickets for car he doesn’t own
By Jason McNabb, T.J. Wilham
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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (KOAT) — An Rio Rancho man says he received multiple speeding tickets from Albuquerque’s speed cameras for a car he doesn’t own, raising concerns about the reliability of the city’s traffic camera system.
Jerry Delmore received a $100 speeding ticket in the mail, but when he opened it, he realized the car in the photo wasn’t his.
“I didn’t do it, so I asked my wife, like, hey, is this you? She says, no. So I opened it up, and it was neither of us,” Delmore said.
The ticket showed a white Ford Explorer with a license plate similar to Delmore’s, but one letter was different. His plate begins with a “D,” while the car caught on camera had a “U.”
“With human eyes, you can see it’s a U,” Delmore said. “It was similar, I’d give it that.”
Dan Mayfield, press secretary for Mayor Tim Keller, said the city’s camera system is designed to prevent such errors.
“Our cameras actually, they take a video,” Mayfield said. “It’s a little short video clip, a three-second video clip of all the cars speeding, plus three different photographs of the cars.”
Mayfield explained that the out-of-state vendor reviews the citations, and Albuquerque Police Department officers double-check the videos and photographs before signing off on each ticket.
“APD officers watch every video, double-check all of the photographs, and then an officer actually signs off on every single citation,” Mayfield said.
Delmore questioned whether the process is being followed.
“This is, it’s sworn or affirmed by this APD person, so they’re not doing their job, or this is just auto-penned,” he said.
Delmore shared a video of one of the citations he received, showing a white Ford Explorer with a plate one letter off from his, allegedly speeding at 75 mph on Coors Boulevard. His vehicle, however, is a blue Ford F-150 truck, and his registration clearly states “blue.”
“Somebody just, they’re just pencil whippin’ this,” Delmore said.
“It’s frustrating, and I think it would be frustrating for most people to get blamed for something that you didn’t do,” he added.
Mayfield said errors like Delmore’s case are rare, occurring about five times per 30,000 tickets issued each month. With 550,000 citations issued earlier this year, that means nearly 100 people could have received incorrect tickets.
“This is a teaching moment for us,” Mayfield said. “We can always tell APD, listen, sometimes these plates, especially in the DV plates, like this one, they’re smaller letters, and just give it a double check.”
After Delmore contacted Target 7, the city voided both of his tickets. However, he said the resolution could have been simpler.
“They called it up, saw it right there on the screen, saw the email that I had sent in with my license plate, saw the mistake. They could physically verify everything that I have said. But they couldn’t do anything about it,” Delmore said. “They didn’t give me an explanation.”
Mayfield said it’s easy to get a citation dismissed in similar situations. Drivers can set up an e-hearing using the link on the back of the ticket and upload a copy of their registration to prove the car cited doesn’t match their vehicle.
“We think there was a mistake, wrong license plate, something like that, wrong car. And you can upload a copy of your registration, and we can prove from that that the registration does not match the license plate of the car that was cited,” Mayfield said.
Delmore, unaware of the e-hearing option, signed up for an in-person hearing.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “But I’m having to deal with a lot of crap because of it.”
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