Is There Another Car With Your Car's License Plate Number?

What happens when you get a automated ticket for running a red light, and the picture has your license plate number, but it's not your car? How do you dispute that kind of ticket? For that matter, how can another car have the exact same license plate number as your vehicle?  Something is definitely wrong here, but what that something is remains unknown. And it seems that having another car with your license plate number isn't uncommon in DC. Here's the first hand account of what happened, as posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv:

Maybe it was just a Halloween trick but I have just received a red light ticket in the mail for $150. Aside from not being at the time/place stated on the photo, the car photographed isn't mine nor it matches the description to my vehicle. However, I was surprised to see that the close up of the license plate does match mine.

Could it be that someone duplicated my license tags without me knowing it?

And the follow-up message:

I was saddened to see that my case is rather common among DC ticketing adventures. I would like to note that I did stopped by the 2nd district on 10/31 to report a suspicion that someone illegally duplicated my tags and was said that my tags = my car, matching to my actual vehicle or not and that the police do not deal with this type of case. The officers wished me luck dealing with the DMV. Unfortunately, aside from adjudication of the ticket DMV doesn't provide any information on reporting duplicated tags.

DC's Mystery Cameras Revealed

Photo by Suki Nyein

What is it? That was the question posed by Cleveland Park Listserv member Suki Nyein, who snapped this photograph at the intersection of Connecticut and Cathedral Avenues. It's not a red light camera, a speed camera, a traffic camera, or not a camera owned by Homeland Security (phew).

The answer is that this is a camera that might or might not evolve into a red light camera. This camera is installed for a few days and used to determine whether or not a red light camera is warranted at a particular intersection. Thanks to Anthony Lopez in Councilmember Mary Cheh's office for solving the case of the mystery camera.