Prove Your Conduct Was “Legally Justified”

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You may also successfully argue that your actions were “legally justified” considering the circumstances of your alleged violation. For example, if you were charged with driving too slowly in the left lane, it is a legal defense in all states that you had to slow down to make a lawful left turn. In this situation you do not have to deny that you were driving significantly below the speed limit and causing vehicles behind you to slow down, but you can offer the additional fact that legally justifies your otherwise unlawful action. Such defenses can be very successful because they raise an additional fact or legal point, rather than simply contradicting the officer’s testimony.

Here are a couple of examples of situations in which this defense might work to clear your ticket.

  • You are forced to stop on a freeway because your car has begun to make a loud and dangerous-sounding noise and you fear you would put other drivers in danger if you continued to drive without checking it out.
  • You swerved into the right lane without signaling a lane change to pull over because a hornet flew into your car through your open window.
  • You had sudden and severe chest pain and safely exceeded the posted speed limit to get to the doctor, whose office was only one half-mile away.

These tips have help me win several traffic violations.

 

Fight your traffic ticket

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Challenge the Officer’s Observations and win

In cases where your state law requires an objective observation by the officer (not a judgment call about whether your action was safe), it often boils down to an argument about whose version of the facts is correct. For instance, if you were cited for failing to come to a stop at a red light or for making a prohibited turn, who wins the case will depend on who the judge believes. Unfortunately, the guy wearing the badge usually wins, unless you can cast real doubt on his ability to accurately perceive what happened. However, there are a number of techniques that may work to raise at least a reasonable doubt as to your guilt.

Here are the types of evidence most likely to help you convince the judge that you — not the officer — are in the right:

  • Statements of witnesses, such as passengers or bystanders, who testify to your version of events. Witnesses are probably the strongest defense.
  • A clear, easy-to-understand diagram showing where your vehicle and the officer’s vehicle were in relation to key locations and objects, such as an intersection, traffic signal, or other vehicle. Diagrams are especially important for tickets given at intersections, such as right-of-way, traffic light, or stop sign violations. Take Pictures if possible.
  • Photographs of intersections, stop signs, and road conditions. These can be used to show conditions like obscured stop signs or other physical evidence that backs up your case.
  • Any other evidence that would cast doubt on the officer’s ability to accurately observe your alleged violation. A classic way to do this is to prove his view was obscured — or that his angle of observation made it impossible to accurately see what happened. And therefore the officer is wrong.

Its officially over

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The Los Angeles City Council has voted to end the Red Light Camera program this Sunday.  The Council found that the program was operating at a loss because only 60% of those ticketed actually paid the fines.  The fine were voluntary so the city did not have much power to enforce them.  So what does that mean to those that paid the fines – can we get a refund?  The answer is no because when we paid those fines, must of us admitted to the violations and then tendered our payments.  So you are out of luck if you paid your fine and now what a refund.  For those of you who did not pay you got luck but that may not stop the collection agency from contacting you.

End to redlight camera

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It looks like Los Angeles will be ending its being its experiment with the use of cameras at intersections to issue tickets for redlight violations.  Those who recently received such a ticket will not have to go to court but they will continue to receive telephone calls and letters from collection agency.

The interesting thing to ask is if you do not pay your ticket if the unpaid ticket will show up on your credit records since it is going to collections.  I guess we will soon find out once the legislature finalize everything.

What Not To Say

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Police officers are not out to make your life miserable, but to make sure you’re following the rules of the road and not endangering yourself or those around you.

With a few exceptions, and an egregious traffic violation is top among them, cops aren’t mandated to write tickets. Most would rather send you on your way with a friendly warning — that can save you time and money.

But handle the situation with an aggressive or arrogant attitude and you can expect to squeeze an expensive court date into your busy schedule.

Play Nice

First rule: don’t argue.

“I get this all the time,” said Karen Rittorno, a nine-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department. “‘What are you stopping me for? I didn’t do nothing.’ If they try to take charge of the traffic stop, they’re not going to get out of it without a ticket,” she said. “We ask the questions, not them.”

Accept that the police have caught you doing something that’s against the law, such as speeding or gliding through a stop sign.

“All we do is react to what people do when you pull them over,” said Dennis Fanning, a homicide detective and veteran officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. “We don’t instigate the stuff, but we will react to you. The situation will escalate or de-escalate depending on how that person reacts.”

To argue with cops is akin to calling them idiots. Don’t do that. “That’s implying that I pulled you over for no reason and that bothers me,” Koep said.

Keep It Honest

Don’t lie, either. Cops are trained to note the human characteristics of lying, including twitching and looking to the left, and they know the right questions to ask to suss out the truth.

Fanning estimates that nine out of 10 people lie to him. “It’s an attack on our intelligence,” he said.

Moreover, the truth can set you free. Koep recalled an incident when he pulled a young guy over for speeding.

“He looks straight at me and says, ‘You know, officer, I wasn’t even paying attention. I just had the best date of my life. I just met my future bride. I’m just on cloud nine right now.’

“The guy was completely serious,” Koep said. “How are you going to write that guy up after that? Who makes that kind of stuff up?”

Of course, don’t use pejoratives when addressing the police, unless you’re eager for a ticket. But other words may backfire, too. Rittorno works in a crime-ridden section of Chicago where the majority of people she pulls over for traffic violations don’t have licenses or insurance, she said.

“So I get a lot of, ‘I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean it, sweetheart,’” she said. “I hate being called ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart.’ I’m ‘officer’ to you.”

The police don’t like being talked over, either. “Be polite,” said Chicago Officer Mike Thomas. “You have your rights as a citizen, too, but it doesn’t do you any good to talk while he’s talking.”

Cops know that people are nervous when they get pulled over, and they expect a certain amount of jumpiness when they approach a car. Rittorno even admitted she’s intimidated in the same situation. “I’m the police and I get scared if I get pulled over,” she said.

But did you know they’re on edge, too? You know who they are, but they don’t know whether you’re a good guy or a bad guy. “The only thing on his mind when he approaches you is safety,” Thomas said. “You know you don’t have a gun in your lap, but the officer doesn’t know it.”

Rittorno, for one, said she assumes everyone has a gun. “I’m always on 10,” she said, referring to her high level of vigilance. “I take it down depending on their demeanor or what I see.”

Stay Calm

When those headlights go on, it’s best to pull the car to the right, stay in the car, turn the interior lights on if it’s dark and put your hands on the steering wheel.

Don’t make any quick movements, and don’t turn to grab your purse or put your hands in your pocket or under your seat to retrieve your license — until the officer instructs you to. Then, do it slowly.

Don’t move to open the glove box either, until directed. And do that slowly, too. Let the police shine a light inside the box before you reach in. Many criminals hide guns in glove boxes.

“What’s going to cause the situation to get worse is for the fear factor to rise in that officer,” Koep said. “The officer is more likely to cut you a break as long as you can reduce that fear. …If you’re friendly with me, not arguing or denying what happened, that lowers the fear factor and will make me a lot more cooperative with you.”

Don’t boast about who you know, either. That can infuriate cops. They consider it a veiled threat to their livelihoods. Fortunately, most municipalities have laws in place to insure that an officer is not fired or reprimanded for ticketing, say, the mayor’s daughter.

Finally, never try to buy off a cop. “In those instances where they’ve offered me a bribe,” Fanning said. “I loved making those arrests.”

DUI Requires Breathalyzer

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Starting next month, Los Angeles will be one of four counties to require all licensed drivers found guilty of a DUI to have a breathalyzer placed in their vehicles.  If a driver breathes into the breathalyzer and has alcohol on their breath, their car won’t start.  The pilot program will last five years and will track whether or not the devices have an impact in reducing the number of drunk drivers that are repeat offenders.

The cost of the breathalyzer is  $75 for installation and $50 a month for monitoring the system, for low income people. The owner of a breathalyzer company wonders about people that can afford cars and to get drunk, but not the cost of the monitoring system.

For a first offense, a driver must have the breathalyzer lock installed for five months. For a second offender, a year. For a third time offender, two years.

DUI Check Points

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The police have reported that they have started conducting sobriety checkpoints to make DUI arrest over this Memorial weekend in the North Hollywood area.

That means that checkpoints will be place at random intersection throughout to the city.  So stay sober, use a designated driver, or take a taxi if you have been drinking.

Enjoy the holiday weekend.

Texting Ban

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The Automobile Club of America is reporting that the 15 month old ban on texting while driving is losing its effect.  Driver survey today are texting more and more.  AAA is advocating an increase in the fine from $20 to $100 for the first violation.

Senate Bill 1475 would also impose one point on a motorist’s driving record.  In California, eight points can lead to a suspended license.

Red Light Less Revenue

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The cash strapped Los Angeles county has recently noticed that their red light camera program is not generating the revenue that it was originally projected.

The photo enforcement program, which catches tens of thousands of violators annually, appears to be generating about $3.8 million a year in traffic ticket revenue, said Senior Administrative Analyst Matt Crawford. That is millions less than some previous police department estimates, and roughly what the program costs, mostly for fees paid to a private contractor that supplies and operates the camera systems.

The city’s red-light camera program, one of the largest in the nation, has drawn praise from supporters who say it helps efficiently police dangerous intersections, discourages red-light running and frees up patrol officers for other duties. Critics contend the safety benefits are mixed, at best, and the cameras mainly are revenue producing tools for private vendors and state and local governments.

Recent Los Angeles Police Department estimates indicated the cameras produced several million dollars in net revenue in recent years. But those figures were based on the number of citations issued via cameras, multiplied by the city’s potential share of penalties, officials say.

Further analysis has shown the actual revenue the city collects is greatly reduced by, among other things, motorists failing to pay tickets quickly, fines being reduced by judges, and the growing numbers of drivers doing community service in lieu of paying ticket fees that can top $500.

The downsized cash-flow estimates come at a time when the city is considering doubling the number of intersections covered by cameras and putting the program out to a new round of bidding by contractors. How the latest revenue and cost estimates may affect that effort is not yet clear.

Zine, a former LAPD traffic cop, said the cameras cannot add to the city’s budget woes. And, he said, officials need to carefully examine whether the systems are producing significant safety benefits.

A new police department report argues that is the case. Serious injury accidents and potentially dangerous crashes involving red-light running declined at intersections where cameras were activated, the report says. And while five deaths were attributed to red-light violations at the intersections from 2004 through 2006, no such fatalities have been reported since the cameras were activated, the report says.

Photo enforcement “is basically doing what it’s supposed to,” said Lt. Ron Katona.

However, the study’s data presents a complex picture. Comparing the six months before as well as after camera-equipped intersections were activated, total accidents increased 5%. That figure is misleading, the report says, because many incidents were caused by pedestrians, occurred on private property or mid-block or were otherwise not relevant to the photo enforcement program.

Accidents that were deemed to be red-light related dropped 9% across the studied intersections, the report says. Yet at more than a third of the crossings, those accidents increased.

Studies elsewhere have found rear end collisions, which tend to be less serious than broadside collisions caused by red-light violations, increase with photo enforcement because drivers make panic stops to avoid getting tickets.

In Los Angeles, red-light related rear end crashes remained flat at the intersections, the study found, although total rear end accidents rose about 40%.

Zine said his committee would delve deeper into the accident data. But even using the LAPD’s criteria, a 9% reduction in accidents is disappointing, he said. “It doesn’t seem that significant…you should be in the double digits” of 20% to 40% accident reductions, he said.

Camera Ticket

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Here are the steps that you need to do when you get a red light camera ticket:

1. Take this very seriously because it is a criminal violation if you ignore it.

2. Verify if the ticket is real or not. Go to the court’s website and see if the ticket shows up. There are alot of scams lately trying to solicit personal information through bogus ticket scams. If the ticket shows up on the court’s website then you know it is real and it needs to be dealt with.

3. Camera tickets come with two photos. One of your license plate and one of the driver. These photos are the evidence for your conviction. Check if the photo of your license plate matches correctly. Then see if the photo is you are not. If the photo of the driver is not you then you can ask the court to dismiss the charges. You will have to go to court to show it is not you to get it dismiss.

If it is questionable whether you photo is you or not, you should try to fight it and ask the court to dismiss it. It will be up to the court because there were no witness at the scene of the incident.

If the photo is you then you will need to fight the ticket on technical grounds.

4. Read and learn the vehicle statues in your state regarding red light camera. Most state require that there are warning signs within 300 yards of the intersection that utilize this technology. If the sign are missing, damaged or otherwise fail to notify a driver then your ticket can get dismiss. But you will need to visit the location and take pictures if the sign is lacking. Keep a record of the date of photos and let the court know how close it was to the date of your alleged violation.

5. In California, the police is required to mail your ticket within 15 days of the incident. The ticket must also be signed by a law enforcement officer, include the physical address and phone number of the court. If your ticket is lacking any of these things you can argue that the ticket is not valid.