https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/532768

The person continued through the intersection 0.6 seconds after the light had turned red as they felt they were in the way of cross traffic.

There's a couple of things to keep in mind. Whilst the person felt they were in the intersection, when they moved they probably weren't in the intersection. The Mercedes is about 4.8m long, the rear of the car about 0.4m from the back of the car to the back of the rear wheel, thus about 4.4m in front of the stop line.

If you check the intersection using Google's satellite view you'll see the kerb of the cross road. If you imagine the line where the roads cross (this is the definition of the intersection) and measure the distance from the kerb back to the stop line, it would appear to be around 4m. That means if the picture was taken because the car started moving at 0.6 seconds and thus set off the camera, the car would have been 0.4 metres in the intersection.

The real problem is the person can't prove whether they just started moving or they were moving already. If they had a dashcam they may be able to prove they were stationary.

From what I've read many red light/speed cameras now take a video and if that was the case, the police have the evidence they need to show the car was moving or not.

In this case the person had Service NSW review the footage and confirmed he had broken the law. The person accepted they broke the law.

I reviewed my own style of driving and found what I do if a car in front of me is going slowly through an intersection, I'll wait behind the stop line until I know the person will clear the intersection. It is not my desire to block the intersection. Here's an example of where this happened to me. The difference however was the traffic was moving quite slowly after the intersection with a high chance of the cars stopping after the intersection which would mean I would then have blocked the intersection if I entered the intersection.

However I do wonder, if the person was following the slow moving vehicle in front and kept moving at the same speed as the slow moving vehicle, they would not have needed to stop and wouldn't have set the camera off. They would be closer to the street cleaner when the light went red. The intersection is not blocked as both vehicles in theory could continue. The vehicles are just travelling slowly. This is really what everyone does when they drive at normal speed through an intersection.

Kelvin Eldridge