Category Archives: Speeding

Increase Ticket Prices

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California is looking to its drivings to boost its depleting coffers. The State government is going to look to increase its revenue by raising motor vehicle prices. For example, the ticket for an expired meter in Los Angeles jumped from $40 in 2008 to about $50 last year, and “Fix-it” tickets for minor moving violations such as broken taillights more than doubled.

And officials are now hatching some new ideas to bring in even more money from naughty motorists.

L.A. and other cities are urging the Legislature to allow them to place wheel boots on cars that have as few as three unpaid parking tickets. Currently, the law allows the boot only after a driver accumulates five parking tickets. In L.A. alone, officials estimate the change would help them recover overdue parking citations totaling up to $61 million.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wants cities and counties to install speed sensors on red-light cameras to catch speeding cars. Fines would range from $225 to $325, and state officials estimate the change would generate more than $300 million for the state through the end of 2011.

California is not alone. Government agencies across the country are increasingly boosting parking ticket fees, jacking up the fines for moving violations and looking for other creative ways to make drivers pay more.

Revenue from red-light cameras is also on the rise, doubling in L.A. from $200,000 a month in 2007 to $400,000 a month at the end of 2009, according to estimates prepared by the Los Angeles County Superior Court, which processes ticket payments. The city more than doubled the amount charged for motorists who make rolling right turns against red lights from $156 to $381 in 2008, bringing it in line with other cities.

Additional costs, including traffic school fees, often add to the price drivers pay. Last year, the state increased the fines for traffic tickets and used the proceeds to help renovate courthouses. The changes included a $35 surcharge on traffic tickets.

With California mired in recession and residents unwilling to pay more taxes, focusing on parking and traffic fines is one of relatively few politically palatable ways of raising revenue.

In L.A., the proposal to reduce the number of outstanding tickets before a car is booted comes as officials said they were having trouble collecting parking fines.

About 1.8 million traffic infractions were issued in L.A. County last year, according to the Superior Court, and about 3 million parking tickets are issued each year by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, a figure that has held steady for several years. About one-quarter of those tickets are for violations during street cleaning and run $60. Many parking violators do not pay their tickets on time.

The current policy of five unpaid tickets is an “overly lenient policy that discourages vehicle owners from paying their parking citations in a timely manner,” according to a report by the LADOT.

The threat of getting the boot after three or four unpaid tickets would make owners more likely to pay their citations, officials said, and also boost city coffers.

L.A. collects $19 million under the current parking code. If the number of unpaid parking citations to garner the boot is reduced to four, the city estimates it would recover nearly $26 million in overdue fines. If it is reduced to three, the change would result in an additional $61 million.

Court – Mistake

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If you got a ticket for speeding based on a radar gun and you decide to fight it in court, here are somethings to know:

The officer will testify that he has successfully completed a radar operator course not less than 24 hours approved and certified by the Commission of Peace Officer Standards and Training. He will testify that the device meets or exceeds the minimum operational standard of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and that it was calibrated recently by an independent certified laser/radar repair and testing/calibration facility.

He will come with and provide the court and you will all his certificates. He will provide the Court with the Engineering Traffic Survey report for the area you got caught pulled over at. The ETS tells the court the considered dangerous speed at the area you were allegedly speeding at.

Knowing all of this, what you shouldn’t do (and I have seen this happen many of times):

1. Ask the officer if his radar is working properly
2. Could other cars around you affect the radar ability to track your correct speed?
3. On a curve or turn, don’t ask him if he caught tracked your speed when your car was not at a straight away.
4. Don’t ask him set up questions that allow him to validate or substantiate that he did his job correctly.

The officer is going to answer any question that ask if he did his job correctly in the affirmative.

You are going to need to do better. Remember, you are on trial and you need to put up your defense. If you did your job right, you would have already asked for all the documents about his credentials, the radar certificates, and ETS; and obtained prior to trial – so you would already know after reviewing them if they are in good standing.

So you can assume that he will do his job and testify all the necessary points that will support your conviction. So you will need to read the vehicle code that is the basis of your ticket and see why you didn’t violate that section, or despite dangerous speed limit set in the ETS you were driving reasonably because you were going with the flow of traffic, and etc.

We will get into this more but I wanted to first point out things you should not do in court because I have seen too many people make this mistake.