MK Uri Maklev, Deputy Minister of Transportation, on the speed camera at the Ramot Jerusalem/Knesset Channel intersection
Drama in the camera reliability trial in Ashdod: After the expert for the defense, engineer Sharon Farber stated in his testimony that the experiment on which the police rely that the A3 system is reliable was carried out contrary to the manufacturer's instructions and is not reliable, the police asked for an expert to testify on their behalf, who would comment on the matter.
In legal jargon, the move is called "perjury evidence", and it is considered very rare.
Ashdod traffic court judge Liat Shamir Hirsch accepted the request with reservations.
This is one of a number of reliability trials initiated by the police, after in 2017 the judge of the Acre Traffic Court Ya'akov Bakar determined that the police failed to prove the reliability of the Ha3 cameras.
The drivers were then represented by lawyers Tomer Gonen, Yossi Yacovi, Eran Bar Or and Kafir Dor, and the trial was full of revelations.
Among other things, it was revealed that the police never tested the cameras before the state invested hundreds of millions of shekels in their purchase and operation, and in distributing hundreds of thousands of speeding reports to drivers.
Director General of the Standards Institute Ilan Carmit, who was in charge of testing the cameras, testified falsely that he participated in the tests conducted in the Netherlands.
However, it turned out that even a police delegation that was hurriedly flown to the Netherlands to bring evidence for examination, was not successful in doing so.
Even when it became clear to the prosecution that Carmit had given false testimony, Sub-Superintendent Sarit Phillipson, head of the prosecution in the Traffic Division, chose to hide this fact from the court for a long period of time.
Later, the Public Complaints Ombudsman recommended to the state representatives, Judge David Rosen, that she be removed from her position, but Philipson remained in the police and was even promoted later.
The police chose not to appeal Judge Bacher's ruling, in order to avoid a binding legal precedent in the event that the appeal is rejected and they will be forced to stop using the cameras.
Instead of appealing, the police hired the Technion's automotive engineering laboratory to conduct an experiment on the H3 system, and hastened to announce that the experiment confirmed their reliability.
After a year of suspension following the trial in Acre, and at the behest of the state attorney's office, the system was returned to use, but for the time being the police avoids issuing reports without a choice of trial as much as possible, in order to encourage drivers to pay the reports without argument.
Drivers who insisted on presenting the verdict from Acre at the hearings were offered a revised and lighter indictment, and sometimes even its complete cancellation.
In order to "correct" the ruling in Acre, the police initiated three new credibility trials.
The first trial in Be'er Sheva, where the drivers were represented by attorney Uri Gisfan, ended last year with the determination that the cameras were reliable. The
trial in Ashdod, where the drivers are represented by lawyers Tomer Gonen and Kafir Dor, Eran Bar-Or and Yossi Jacobi, who were also involved in the trial in Acre, is once again satisfying New revelations.
In the past, a senior official of the manufacturer of the A3 system, the Dutch Gatsometer company, testified that the Israel Police does not maintain the camera system according to the manufacturer's instructions, which can affect its accuracy. It also became clear that the reliability test carried out by the Technion actually showed that police speed cameras are only accurate when the vehicle that they test is moving at a constant speed, and if he accelerates, or brakes as many drivers do when they approach the camera, the level of accuracy decreases significantly.
A3 camera.
Despite the reliability problems, reports continue to be issued to drivers/Ronen Topelberg
Last week, the defense expert, engineer Sharon Farber, a research engineer and director of the Laboratory for Navigation and Information Fusion for Autonomous Systems at the University of Haifa, testified at the trial.
Farber stated that he identified a number of failures in the way the experiment was planned and carried out, such as the way the laser sensors used in it were placed, and in the Technion's use of new software with an old measuring device, contrary to its manufacturer's instructions.
In the past, the director of the Technion's automotive engineering laboratory, which performed the experiment, said that when analyzing the test data performed with the old device, gaps were created compared to the original data, because "the gaps are a result of the new software processing the data faster than the old software by a fraction of a second ".
Farber was asked about the statement and testified: "This is not true. The test device, the Vibox, is based on hardware from 2018 and there are no differences between data processing between an old and a new processor. The algorithm itself is updated. The hardware cannot operate significantly faster or slower."
When asked by the judge how it is possible that some of the data in the Technion experiment turned out to be correct, Farber explained that "it is probabilistic. All the series of experiments prove that there is a major flaw in the use of the hardware."
He added that "No one can say if the A3 system is accurate, because they have not compared it to another device that is very accurate. It is not that I am claiming that a level of perfection should be reached. The gaps were large. The conclusion should have been that the device being compared to it is replaced. Experiments are prohibited at all to rely on the determination of A3's reliability due to inaccuracies".
To clarify his assertions, Judge Shamir Hirsch asked Farber: "If you distill your opinion, the conclusion is as follows: you are deceiving and dismissing the manner of the experiments that were carried out for the purpose of testing A3, do you not know if A3 is reliable?
Farber replied: "True."
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A3 camera.
The police are preparing to hand over their operation from LLM Tim/Kubi Liani
Adv. Tomer Gonen/Match Point
Attorney Tomer Gonen told Walla Car that "We have claimed from day one that the experiments conducted by the Technion cannot confirm that the system is reliable or not.
In order to approve an enforcement system there are basic rules that must be met, in our opinion this did not happen at all and as evidenced in some experiments even the Technion had huge deviations in the speed measurement.
"Unfortunately, in the parallel proceeding that was conducted in Beer Sheva, no expert opinion was brought on behalf of the defense, therefore the clear data presented by the defense in Ashdod regarding the flawed manner in which they tried to attack the system were not presented to the Magistrate and District Court. It is not for nothing that the Supreme Court ruled back in the early 2000s that without A defense opinion has no real meaning in the matter of credibility determinations by the courts. We will bring the rest of our reference to the court in detail later in the procedure."
The Israel Police stated: "On November 24, 2022, the Magistrate's Court for Traffic in Be'er Sheva, in an expanded composition of 3 judges, determined that "the measurements performed by the A3 system are reliable, and the results of the measurements can be based on the results of a conviction in criminal proceedings."
The determination of reliability was also based on the ruling The judgment of the district court in Be'er Sheva. On July 4, 2023, in a panel of 3 judges, it was determined, among other things: "The reliability of the system has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
" Certain parts of his testimony are currently being examined for perjury evidence, a common procedure in the criminal justice system. Beyond that, there is no room for further reference since it is a pending legal proceeding.
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