Fighting a Traffic Ticket

ryan brown said:
On another note: who has to appear on behalf of the camera? when you go to court to fight a ticket, the officer who gave you the ticket must also show up. If not, it's cased dismissed... and it happens ALL the time.
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Agreed, but in this case there is no need for an officer to show up. It is his word against the picture and the time-stamp.
If they do have a representative to do that then that's their job, they'll be there. Real cops have better things to do.

Also, you'll find that they usually have 3 pictures with time-stamps, not just one.
One that shows you approaching the light just before the intersection, one of you crossing the intersection, and one of you in the intersection. All time-stamped.

I do wish him luck though. Fight it.... you never know.
But if you have to take off work in order to do so you might be out of pocket even more in the end.

Good luck!

Mike
 
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Mike McNeese said:
Well...I was. The picture was taken right as the light turned red, and I have all four wheels right in the middle of the intersection.
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I just have a question.... how do you know that? How do you know that the light didn't change a second earlier? Maybe it is set to take the picture after the light turns red, that way there is no debate when it catches someone in the intersection. Did you only receive one photo in the mail? There's more, trust me. The camera usually take multiple pictures.

Just curious if you have more than 1.
 
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That sucks, but $95 doesn't sound so bad. I know people in SF who have received fines of $360 for running a yellow/red.
 
Do a search online, there are numerous cases where the red light ticket is thrown out, and if you are armed with the right information you might be one of them. You have a right to request the video footage (yes they take video, not photos) of the incident, then you would be able to determine where you were in relation to the intersection at the moment the light changed. In California if you "break the plane", in other words any part of your vehicle crosses the white line of the intersection (yes even if it's just the front bumper technically, though harder to challenge) then you are legally within your right to continue the pass through the intersection. For sure, in California, if all four wheels are in the intersection at the point the light turns red, then you would be in the clear.

I don't know the rules in your state, but should be easy enough to look up. I would research the laws regarding traffic lights and red light cameras in your state, plus I would research your rights as the person being charged so you will have the information you need to either give in and pay, because you are in the wrong, or be armed to fight intelligently.

blando3 said:
That sucks, but $95 doesn't sound so bad. I know people in SF who have received fines of $360 for running a yellow/red.
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Yes, in California the fee is $360 currently
 
I don't know how it is in your state, but in Texas these tickets are for civil offense -- not criminal. Which is actually NOT a good thing. You don't get the same protection under the law (innocent until prove guilty, right to a jury, etc.) in a civil matter. Farking icehole bastages.
 
Mike,
Just to let you know, I've been the recipient of two tickets in my life I didn't think were right. One for having my Blazer slide off the road in the panhandle on Christmas day. "black ice" So my trucks on it's side and the people I was traveling with and I push it back up. I turn around and the Highway Patrol are standing there writing out my ticket. Went to see the judge. He said, "Well it doesn't seem right does it?" I said "No sir." ( I've never had a collision) and he said, "Oh well, pay the fine anyway."
The other I fought in traffic court and it and I got thrown out of court. It was funny but it's a longer story than I want to post.
So the moral? Fight it if you want, but you never know what will happen.
 
After looking at the traffic camera images closer, it looks like I had all four wheels in the intersection 1.19 seconds AFTER tha light had changed from yellow to red. So, I'm thinking that I was NOT fully in the intersection when the lights changed. I'm still researching the laws on what constitutes a violation, but I'm thinking that there's no doubt that I was in the wrong by being a little late for the light.

So, I think the only chance I have is to reason with the judge. I drive through that intersection several times a week, and prior to the violation I was VERY aware that the photo enforcement system was there. As I was coming down the street, the light turned yellow, and I had a split second to decide what to do. I don't doubt that I could have stopped in time, however, I knew that it would be critical for me to apply the right amount of pressure to the brake pedal to stop safely. Otherwise, I would have slid through the intersection, or worse, I would lose lateral control of the vehicle and possibly hit a median or retaining wall. I decided to coast through the intersection, even though it was very likely that I'd receive a violation. I made my decision and acted on it because it seemed the safest thing for me to do.

Or should I not even bother!?
 
Mike McNeese said:
Or should I not even bother!?
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It's worth a shot. He/she may have some sympathy for you due to the weather conditions that night.

Unless you are going to lose too much money from missing work in order to take off the time to show up in court.

It might not be worth it in that case.

Mike
 
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ryan brown said:
Pshhh... show up in court, tell the judge your story, and make sure she/he knows that on that date, there was indeed a bad snowstorm. My guess is it'll be dismissed. That easy.

On another note: who has to appear on behalf of the camera? when you go to court to fight a ticket, the officer who gave you the ticket must also show up. If not, it's cased dismissed... and it happens ALL the time.
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Lucky you - not only did the cop show up in my case, but they upped my fine in the courtroom and told me I wasn't allowed to go to traffic school. Worst part was, it wasn't even me - I was driving a black mustang at the time w/ engine problems and couldn't speed - another black mustang drove by at a super high speed, then the cop came flying by a few seconds later, saw me and thought I was the other guy, trying to hide, pulled me over, pulled me out of the car and started screaming at me. Then I got to pay $500 on top of all that.

Anyways, if you're driving too fast to stop safely, then you're driving too fast, period. And while red light cameras are there to make money, upping the public's safety is a nice little side effect. I'm mostly a pedestrian and there's a number of times I've gone to cross a road when I see a car run the red light at the last second and miss me by inches.

Although, to derail, now my biggest concern is bicycles. They don't stop at stop signs OR red lights, run them like crazy - I've had them miss me by less than an inch yesterday walking with my girlfriend and just a couple of days before walking w/ a friend to an ATM, crossing the street at a stop sign - we were walking out between two parked cars and the bike flew by right next to me. This is getting ridiculous.

People are in such a hurry nowadays. Come on folks, slow down. I'd rather get to my destination a little bit slower than never make it at all.

Mike McNeese said:
Otherwise, I would have slid through the intersection, or worse, I would lose lateral control of the vehicle and possibly hit a median or retaining wall. I decided to coast through the intersection, even though it was very likely that I'd receive a violation. I made my decision and acted on it because it seemed the safest thing for me to do.
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You were driving illegally, you made an illegal decision, and the only reason nobody got hurt was that you were lucky that nobody else was out there. It's your decision on what to do, but I would pay the fine and consider it a lesson learned. If someone had been walking across the street, or an ambulance was hurrying across the other direction, you could have hit them.

Down the street from my house is a major intersection where the highway turns in to a city road. All the lights are timed to allow the highway traffic the most direct and quickest route through the city, but just a couple of months ago there was a car turning left on to that road that saw the light was yellow, turning red and decided to chance it.

The cars coming from the main road were all moving quickly because of the timed lights, and the car didn't make it. One of the much-faster cars, seeing the light turn green, didn't stop in time and slammed in to it. Both drivers survived, however, the impact of the crash pushed both cars directly on to the sidewalk and crushed a college student walking home from class. The cars smashed the bottom half of her body and she bled to death on the hood of the cars before the ambulance showed up. There are still flowers being laid at that intersection.

You know that you're in the wrong on this one. Fight it if you want, taking the time to go to court will be something of a penalty, but running red lights isn't an "I'll chance it" sort of thing. They always call it an "accident," but they're always avoidable.
 
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ConspiracyPenguin said:
In California the law says that if all four wheels are in the intersection before the light turns red, then you are legal.
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i'd really appreciate a link to this information before anyone considers discussing it's validity further, sounds really odd to me.

There's no way around this ticket, sry dude. I totally emphasize with you, I'd probably be doing the same thing, but it's the same as:

If I decide to slam on the brakes completely irrationally and the guy behind me hits me, it will always be his fault. Rationale being he didn't put enough space between us IN CASE something were to happen suddenly (flat tire, animal crossing, meteor, etc).

Now who was actually the asshole here? ME! but the law can't prove that I'm a dick, it CAN however prove that the whole even could have been avoided if the guy simply put some more space between us, like ur suppose to at ALL times. As a rule people don't, including me, but then you have to eat it when stuff like this happens. Literally the price you pay.


You were going too fast, no way to argue around it. I just paid a $300+ speeding ticket (following the flow of traffic) so I'd say be grateful and pay the $95 lol
 
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