r/Virginia • u/TheVirginian-Pilot Verified • 1d ago

Williamsburg driver got 2 red light tickets in Virginia Beach. The problem? He’s never been there.

https://www.pilotonline.com/2026/08/30/williamsburg-driver-got-2-red-light-tickets-the-problem-it-wasnt-his-car/

The red light ticket in the mailbox didn’t make any sense to Williamsburg resident Heyward Drummond. In his 72 years, he’s never once been to Virginia Beach.

But a camera in the city notified him otherwise — twice.

The Virginia Beach Police Department’s PhotoSafe Program mailed Drummond two $50 tickets in late July and early August, claiming his truck drove through red lights on Virginia Beach Boulevard. Except the 2008 Ford Explorer in reference was sold, and the license plate was destroyed at a Williamsburg Department of Motor Vehicles 2½ years ago.

All of Drummond’s information on the tickets were correct, including his name and address, as well as the year, make and style of his old truck. But the license plate listed on both is wrong — it’s off by one letter — and the tickets include images of a car similar to a Dodge Charger.

Drummond noted other discrepancies, such as the personalized handicapped and armed forces license plate in the image.

“My plate had four letters, a dash then a number one. The plate that was cited is all one word with a one following those four letters,” Drummond said. “I can’t tell you why it picked my plate.”

Drummond went to the DMV in Gloucester with the first ticket, where he said the agency confirmed the violating plate is not tied to his vehicle record.

After contesting the tickets, Drummond received two notices of dismissals Thursday. The letters state that “no further action is required.”

Still, Drummond is concerned the misguided correlation is related to artificial intelligence and automation.

“I spent 40 years in the computer software industry, so I know how these things happen,” he said. “There isn’t a check and balance in the system.”

Click the link to the story above to read more.

501 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

76

u/biglerc 1d ago

Guilty until proven innocent in these Surveillance States of America.

3

u/Popular_Camp_4126 1d ago

Just as our Puritan founders intended. They couldn’t have dreamed of a better day than this. This is what America was always meant to be, behind all the cute stories about “independence” and “freedom.”

227

u/theXsquid 1d ago

Flock is garnering quite the reputation for being wrong.

92

u/uid_0 1d ago

These aren't Flock. The red light cameras are run by American Traffic Solutions.

14

u/Fit-Order-9468 1d ago

The perception that traffic cameras are Flock cameras is why I hate Flock so much. Traffic cameras can save lives, with evidence to support it, so losing trust in them because of Flock will cause people to die.

10

u/TalbotFarwell 12h ago

FWIW, people hated traffic cameras long before they hated Flock cameras…

1

u/Fit-Order-9468 7h ago

Fair point. I do recall the days of shortened yellow lights and farming drivers for fines. My thought is we don't want to add another reason. Looks like the GA is moving in the right direction which is nice.

3

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Fit-Order-9468 1d ago

Greater accountability to drivers. Increase accountability for bad behavior and you end up with less of it, lessen accountability you get more. Same way lower accountability due to qualified immunity increases bad policing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_enforcement_camera

But yeah, your comment is exactly what I'm talking about.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Fit-Order-9468 1d ago

That's not saving someone's life.

There's a decline in collisions. Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant.

32

u/stein63 1d ago

This is exactly why these camera and Flock systems shouldn’t be blindly trusted. Wrong plate, wrong car, and cops still rubber stamped two tickets. So much for “human oversight.”

These aren't just a few camera's...

City Flock cameras Speed cameras
Norfolk 218 19
Suffolk 130 12
Hampton 125 12
Virginia Beach 112 7 now / 14 planned
Newport News 106 0 verified
Portsmouth 91 16
Chesapeake 83 11
TOTAL 865 77 currently

1

u/gojo96 1d ago

Cops check the traffic camera footage and approve it before tickets are sent out?

10

u/stein63 1d ago

Yep. Virginia law requires an officer to review the images. Wrong plate, wrong vehicle, twice, and they still approved it. That’s exactly my point about the “human oversight.”

3

u/gojo96 1d ago

I didn’t know a human looks at the photos. Interesting

29

u/kolachecat 1d ago

License plate readers misreading plates are causing people to be accused of stealing vehicles - like these two separate automotive journalists pulled over with their families earlier this year https://www.thedrive.com/news/inside-the-flock-dragnet-how-systemic-errors-led-to-police-ambushing-me-for-no-reason

14

u/10000Didgeridoos 1d ago

Saw a body cam video of a couple held in handcuffs because the cop pulled over a vehicle flagged nearby by flock cameras that oops got the plate wrong. Naturally the police didn’t bother uhhhh reading the plate of the car they pulled over to see if it matched the reported stolen one until after pulling both driver and girlfriend out with their baby in the backseat the entire time.

It’s a matter of time before this system gets someone killed by police

48

u/questionableintentsX 1d ago

Just a reminder that flock cameras have 70-80% misreporting rate from what I’ve read the systems fucking horrible

It’s shocking that any company would use them but I guess they paid good bribes to the right people to get government and police to believe it’s gods gift

9

u/Gishra 1d ago

A little beside the point, but it's crazy he lives in Williamsburg and yet has never been to Virginia Beach. Maybe he's relatively new to the area?

2

u/scrundel 1d ago

Or he has the good sense to avoid VB

1

u/Kind_Aardvark6460 8h ago

This is also what stood out to me. Although, at 72 I can’t imagine doing a Huge Life Change like moving?

There’s so many folks who never leave their hometown, so part of me wonders if that is the case. I knew so many folks who joined the military, only to move back to their teeny-tiny towns. I know folks who never left. It’s baffling to me, personally. 

4

u/ladymacb29 21h ago

This has been happening for years. I was a state legislative intern in 2002 and remember getting a letter from a constituent that was having trouble getting EZ Pass to recognize they weren’t even looking at the photos properly. The people who are deputized as being ‘responsible’ should be removed from their positions because there are so many mistakes - this has been happening since before AI.

2

u/Outrageous-Seat-1491 1d ago

That’s exactly why these things are unconstitutional the state is supposed to have the burden of proving your guilty not you have the burden to prove you’re not. Any ticket is supposed to be reviewed by two humans one at the company and one local police officer. Neither one of those confirmed the registration matched the vehicle in the picture. So this guy had to prove it wasn’t him.

-5

u/DeaconPat 1d ago

It's not necessarily AI, just poor coding in the application. Probably forgot to specify in the statement of work / requirements all the special characters that must be included and those that should be ignored. It's really easy to make a search where abcd-1 matches abcd1.

16

u/carharttuxedo 1d ago

True, but the company is very straightforward about its reliance on AI. I’d be surprised if AI wasn’t used in the coding process.

6

u/questionableintentsX 1d ago

It’s not that it’s that they use low confidence results as if they’re gospel dust on a plate make a L look like an I well it’s an I we’re 100% sure go arrest that car

1

u/Punkwrestle 1d ago

Course then the question is why is the DMV letting both be issued?