What if someone else is driving your car?
That's why you don't get any points on your license - the point system is to punish the actual driver; since they can't identify the driver, they don't assess points. As far as the fine goes, however, the owner of a car generally bears liability for the acts of the person he lends that car to, so I really don't see the problem with fining the owner for having lent his car to someone who then runs a red light with it. The owner is in the best position to prevent that from happening - don't lend your car to someone whose driving you do not trust completely - and therefore should bear the consequences if it does happen.
Another problem is the white line. Some cars were stopped at a red light, but the tires were past the white line, so it was assumed by the camera the car ran a red light.
I can't speak for all of the various types of systems, but the ones that I know of don't use the white line as any sort of a reference point. Instead, the system works as follows:
two cameras are set up for each intersecting street, with the cameras on opposite sides of the intersection. When the light changes to red, a strobe flashes, and the cameras capture an image of whatever happens to be in the intersection at the time. Because of the way the cameras are aimed, your license plates - front and back - will only show up in both pictures if you were in the middle of the intersection immediately after the light changed. If you were to just go over the white line at one side of the intersection, but not actually continue on into the intersection, then only one of the cameras would have a photo of your license plate and you wouldn't get assessed a fine. It's actually an ingenious setup if you think about it.
