Fighting red light ticket...
 

Ok, I know this is somewhat of a fools errand because it will cost me money just to go to court - but I have plenty of time off built up and its somewhat of a matter of principal.

What I want to know is if my line of reasoning will (in your opinion) help me beat the ticket.

Here is what I admit, and what the evidence shows:

It was indeed my car.
My car did cross into the intersection while the light was red. (but maybe a half second after it turned red.)

My line of defense is that based on the design of the intersection and the road conditions I was not able to see the light change from green to yellow, thus giving me no time to slow down or stop.

My facts based on evidence:

*There was a large semi-tractor trailer to my right and at the moment the camera captured me I (like me personally in the drivers seat) was approximately 20 feet behind the tail of the tractor trailer and approximately 15 feet to the left.
*The road bears to the right, and all traffic signals that correspond to traffic going straight (and not turning) are positioned on the right side of the road.
*If the yellow light is 3 seconds long (I plan on finding out from traffic control folks) and the speed limit was 45mph, that would give me 198 feet to see the yellow light and react to it. <<Link to street view of intersection at approximately 198 feet>>
*Based on the height of the tractor-trailer and the positioning of it in relation to me I was unable to see the light until it was too late to stop - at which time I accelerated to clear the intersection. (this is pretty much only 15 feet before I crossed the line into the intersection)

I was heading Eastbound on W. Lake Street at County Farm Road.

Feel free to check out street view and approach that intersection. You will see exactly what I am talking about.

I am working on creating pictures and illustrations to show the sight lines at that intersection. Let me know if you think my defense stands a chance.

If theres a semi blocking any light that pertains to you, you need to either get in front of it or behind it. Happens all the time when left turn green arrows go to unprotected green lights, making you yield to on coming traffic. If there's a semi in front, you need to stop at a green light until you can make sure it's still a green arrow for you. Sounds like the same thing pertains.

Just pay the ticket, not worth dealing with it. Unless you have enough points on your license that this will result in loss of said license that is, in that case, gt a lawyer and let them fight it out.

If I were the judge I would let you off. From now on, I will bet you approach that intersection making sure your view is clear to see the light. Lesson learned- sounds like an accident.

Check up on fighting the ticket, you probably have to go through arbitration to fight it. I have 3 red light tickets where two show my car stopped at a red light, the other shows me in the middle of the intersection with a yellow. I paid them because fighting them means going to an arbitration hearing in Arizona.

This should be illegal.

I'd also note how far back the stop-line is from the lights. It's a very wide intersection. This attributes to less distance to make a safe, complete stop upon seeing the light at a later time due to the decreased visibility. Can the truck that was blocking your line of sight be seen in the pictures of you running the intersection?

Take into account that traveling at 40mph (the speed limit as seen by backing up a bit down the street and reading a sign) has you moving at 59 feet per second. With that said 198/59 = 3.3 seconds reaction time...though you should knock off 1 second of that just for see/making a decision/putting your decision into action....so just a hair over 2 seconds (or 129 ft) to make a stop if need be. Given the amount of trucks seen in the area just on streetview, I can imagine that this happens quite a bit at this intersection. I'm sure the local municipality knows this and almost preys on this for revenue. If your local news has a 'traffic guy' or anything, try contacting them and maybe put pressure on the local DOT to change the traffic signals at that intersection....or at least get some publicity.

First thing you need to do is get an extention on your court date to give yourself more time to gather information for your case.

Your only problem is that road tests show that 60-0 of your Jeep is about 130ft, meaning that if you were traveling at the correct speed limit (40-45 mph) you should be able to stop well under 130ft....or within 3 seconds. Though you could argue that it would have taken you slamming on the brakes as hard as you could to come to a stop but doing so could have caused the vehicle behind you to rear-end you as they might not have been expecting you to make an "emergency stop". I wouldn't admit to such data showing that you technically could have stopped until it's either a last-dtich effort or they question your ability to stop in the mount of time you had.


Or you could print off a series of pictures like this showing where you were, the location of the truck and how you couldn't see the light until it was too late and unsafe to come to a stop. This one was made at the moment of the light turning yellow. At 40mph you're moving 59 fps, which would put you 177ft back from the stop line (3 seconds of travel). I assumed you were in the left lane and the truck was in the center lane. The blue is the line of sight to the light and the gold is your view of the intersection.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5290/...dd88c06e_o.jpg
TrafficLight by AnonymousNamelss, on Flickr

If you ran the light... no matter if you skidded through trying to stop/truck blocking visibility/full moon... you still ran the light.

Pay the ticket.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...n_flag.svg.png
Considering the history of socialist and corrupt leadership in your state and city, I don't fault you for your opinion. However in the Lord's Great Republic of Texas we don't put up with shit like that.

if you can't see the light, do you always assume it's green?

If the traffic that is in front of you shows no indication of the light not being green, why not trust them? I know I've been stuck behind large vehicles that were blocking my view of the traffic signals.

It's not the people who run a light as it's turning red who cause the bad accidents (since there is 3 seconds until the other light turns green), it's the people not paying attention who run the light long after it's changed and don't know it.

I've found myself in the exact same situation during a left turn.

Road crests (bridge) before the light, tall truck in front of me, and could not hang far enough back to see the light myself.

I still ran it, no way around it. I looked into fighting these and it's ridiculously stupid. Some company in Arizona runs it, and I even got charged a fee that's equal to 33% of the fine when they sent you a second notice after having never received the first.

Bullshit.

Ok, not sure how they roll where you're at, but something like this is rather easy to fight in AZ. Fight as in don't respond. If it's file under a traffic offense you have to be served the ticket by a uniformed officer, other types I'm not so sure they have to. Before thinking of fighting it, you should look at the ticket itself. Technicalities can save you from all of this.

1. check everything against your registration.
2. If it's a camera ticket, check the picture to see if your face is clear enough to see. (if you can see your smudged face, then they got you. Enhancement of the pic is easy for them)
3. If it's a camera ticket, don't respond. Lost in the mail excuse works wonders believe it or not.

If you're really worried about it, just pay it. If it's obvious that you can't get away with it, pay it. I've skated on a few flasher tickets since the state doesn't have money to come at me, and I never heard anything from them. There's nothing on my record since I have to maintain a security clearance, and I just updated it recently. One of the things they check for is unpaid tickets and I had none. You can usually find a local registry pertaining to civic offenses like traffic violations if you google it. I know my entire criminal/traffic history because Arizona has one.

Check bro and good luck.

If traffic is moving and I can't see the light, I shut down the car regardless of the traffic behind me.

Here it's not a traffic offense, but not paying one will prevent you from being able to re-register the vehicle.

Say that wasn't you driving and they can't disprove it. I read it on the interent somewhere, so it must be true.

NO!!!!!! It doesn't count if you didn't mean to!

then look at the ticket. if the pic doesn't have your face in it, dispute it.

how much is the ticket?

I have a friend who did it one night on purpose. In GA, you have to pay a fine, but no points are assesd nor does it go on your record.

http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/l...o_enforce.html


Anyway. He went out one night and did a massive drift through an intersection, got the picture and now has it framed on his wall.

Sure...if you say so. $75.






Ours come with videos. I got a good laugh out of my wife when she got one right after they put them up at the single intersection in our town. She didn't quite come to a stop making a right hand turn (we are a right-on-red state). I called her when it showed up and she swore up and down she always stops...but after seeing the video just turned and stormed off...LOL.

did she throw your helmet as well?

Aww man, your state/local municipalities are spendy...sending out videos and all. What a waste of time/resources.

if they outlawed red lights, you guys wouldn't have this problem.

i love how we still use the same concept as we did in 1910 in regards to traffic flow.

$75?

You really want to go through the headache of pushing this for only $75? I understand it's the principle of it, but it's only $75.

Admitting that you chose to proceed through an intersection without having clear view of the signaling devices governing that intersection will place the fault at your feet. Learn the lesson and pay the ticket. It is fortunate that cross traffic wasn't already in motion and "timing" the light's change. You might have been injured.

If the truck had been directly in front of you and the light was overhead you would have been guilty of following too closely for conditions. The condition being that you were approaching a controlled intersection.

I will likely pay the ticket. My contention is that under certain conditions it is nearly impossible to see the "signaling devices." Check out the google maps I linked. "Drive" the road into the intersection with google streetview.


The truck wasn't directly in front of me. See that dump truck in the google maps streetview that I linked? Now picture that a full height semi truck and us both over one lane. I was in the left lane, he was in the center. I was approximately the same distance back. You still think I was following improperly?

The first time I even saw a light in any condition other than green was at most about 30 feet before I crossed the line to enter the intersection. At that point it was too late to stop. The semi-truck to the right never even slowed down, and also ran the red light without ever slowing down.

Any person who does slow down and change lanes to prevent themselves from never loosing sightline with a "signaling device" must be real fun to drive with.

I will try and post a video of the approach to the intersection that I filmed on the way to work today.

I say part out and lawyer up.

Umm...what?

I didn't start the fucking thread. Your posts in this thread have been misguided drivel, likely written at the wrong person.

I was simply illustrating another circumstance where following traffic flow can make it impossible to NOT get caught by these damn cameras.

But YES...I at least looked into fighting it. It's 75 MOTHERFUCKIN DOLLARS I WORKED MY ASS OFF FOR....not to mention the principle of the matter.

First: have you timed the yellow light with a stopwatch? The vast majority of yellow lights will stay yellow for 4.9 seconds. The few exceptions (about 3.5-4 seconds) usually exist in 25 mph zones.

Second: It's your responsibility to see a red light and stop for a yellow light. If you can't see over a semi, you're too close - and if you can't see around a semi that you are not directly following, it is your legal responsibility to slow down such that you can stop until you can confirm that the light is green. Yes, it is inconvenient to slow down - Think about how "inconvenient" it would be if that semi was running a red light, and a small car coming from your right with a green light was lucky enough to just barely miss being T-Boned by the semi - only to get nailed in the drivers door by you doing 55 mph because you sped up to get through the 45mph intersection instead of slowing down... It was inconvenient for you to slow down until you could confirm that the light was green, but think of the inconvenience you've caused for someone else because you were impatient. Your argument may help to get an additional signal light put up to the left side of the intersection, but your local legislative branch will not find you innocent based on your argument.

I was driving through an intersection a few months ago in a small town. My traffic direction had a mid-phase green light, and I proceeded through the intersection at the speed limit behind several other cars that were doing the same. Imagine my surprise when I glanced to the left and saw the grill of an SUV coming directly at me at 35mph, and already halfway across the intersection. I can't imagine she missed me by more than a couple feet, and I can't imagine the two cars following me (2 lanes in every direction) missed her by much more than that... I don't want to imagine what would have happened had she been going any faster.

That is on my list of things to do in the next couple days. I didn't feel like stopping today. I might be able to see the time on the video I did though.

This isn't about convenience. At least not in my understanding of convenience. If an intersection is designed and signaled in such a way that the only way that you can see the signals behind a large truck is to either zoom in front of it or drop way back, then the intersection is poorly designed.

What I am getting here - is that to most people my argument fails and likely the judge will see the same way.

My question to those that think I am in the wrong is have you looked at the intersection in question in google streetview. Can you at a distance identify where the lights are and can you identify where you would need to position yourself in order to see the lights? I realize this is likely impossible due to the resolution.

looked at it in streetview, and I can't give you the benefit of the doubt. There is even a supplemental stoplight posted at the front of the intersection for better visibility as you are coming around that curve. I hypothesize that the light may have been green when you had visibility of it much earlier in the curve. After looking at streetview, I believe that you could have seen the yellow light in plenty of time to come to a complete stop before reaching the intersection if you had actually put effort into it (steer your vehicle to the left side of the lane to gain extra visibility).

I also believe that you saw the yellow light with enough distance to stop the car, but decided to accelerate through the intersection instead of stopping.

Lastly, I believe that you assumed the light to be green because the semi that was next to you was continuing through the intersection. I believe that you had no reason to think that you should make a conscious effort to find out if the light was yellow or red. I believe that, when you saw the light was yellow, you had a gut reaction to step on the accelerator instead of the brake, without knowing how long the light had actually been yellow. You also didn't think it would be a "big deal" at the time when you yourself had the positive realization that you had just run a red light.

What was the guy behind you thinking when he saw you run a red light? What do you think to yourself when you're stopped at an intersection and you see the cross traffic light turn red, and then a brief moment later you see a car blast through?

"God, I wish I were a cop so I could pull that asshole over..."

How are you any different from that guy? ... Wait, you are "that guy", aren't you?

I just got a red light ticket in the mail the other day, and I just watched the video of it online. I go through the light, and the Pontiac Vibe that was next to me does a panic stop to avoid entering the intersection. It sucks, but whatever. I'll pay the $75 dollars and be more careful next time

Good to see you are qualified to write my biography. When I get ready to retire I will give you a call.

do photo tickets hold up in court these days? i think it would be funny to get a friend with same car as yours and put your license plate # on his car and then both of you go through a red light at the same time in two different intersections (in differnt towns). then go in and tell the judge, ok, i'll pay the ticket if you can tell me which of these two red light tickets is actually me.

If you think the intersection is poorly designed or dangerous then that is something for you to stand up before the town hall/city council/county commission meeting and speak about. Bring your charts, graphs, videos, and pictures. They might be very interested in what you have to share.

The judge, on the other hand, will very likely tell you what I have already stated. You, as the driver, are responsible for the safe and lawful operation of your motor vehicle no matter what the conditions.

**Bonus Driver's Test Question** If you are approaching a controlled intersection and the traffic signaling devices are obscured from view, you should: A) Proceed at full speed. B) Slow or stop until you have clear view of the signaling devices and the intersection.
or
C) Execute a handbrake turn and do doughnuts in the intersection while flipping-off the red light cameras.

When I brought photos to court to fight my ticket (went around one cone, got "illegal barrier crossing") they would not accept them because I had text on them. I had made a powerpoint with writing here and there to explain the pics and they denied it.

Then they fucked me over and jacked my ticket up another $70. That's the last time I will ever be my own lawyer.

Doesn't matter whatsoever. If you didn't have a clear view of a green signal then you ran the light, period.

spray paint?

"Mama says red light cameras are the devil" and the people that work that meat grinding machine that is behind the whole red light camera market are some money hungry sons of bitches! Stay away from 59th street cost me $150 a month back. ( make sure to come to a full 3 second stop before turning right their timing it)

I hate hate cameras at lights. Like said before, most people who cause accidents are the ones who were not paying attention to the light at all and ran it. In that case the camera does nothing.

I hate even more the ones that get you for not stopping all the way for a right turn on red.

I would just like to see the cost/benefit in some sort of numerical form.

You're a pretty shitty Virginian. I assume you don't open carry either?

In College Station we protested these bitches and had them removed in less than a year.

It was proven the bastards shortened the yellow, and that fender benders increased due to people panic stopping as soon as the green was gone.

This is something that ALWAYS comes up when any redlight camera system is implicated. Every study shows that at every intersection with them there is a significant increase in rear-endings. So not only is the municipality getting revenue from the redlight runners...now they're getting revenue off writing "following too close" tickets.

I am with Hustler. These are unconstitutional. They put them in back home in TN and a mob of people loaded up in a truck with a shot gun and blew the hell out of all of them and ran them over within a week. Then the redlight camera company wanted the poor broke ass local municipality to pay for them for not securing them correctly. Needless to say the remains of the lights were removed never to be seen again.

Where is the constitution does it say that states cant use cameras to catch you performing illegal activities?

No where, but we should add it in there

the Constitution isnt a document to deny power to state gov'ts. It was expressly written simply to outline what the federal gov't can do. Everything else is left up to the states to decided for themselves. If you don;t like it, you need to get a gang mob together and make the change locally.

On a similiar note to the OP, I fucking hate toll roads. Specifically the 183A in texas. I've paid this same fucking toll violation 2 times now. I paid it.. then a month later got another letter saying I still had to pay... it was $3 so I just paid it again to not have to deal with BS. Now today I got another notice, this time for $16 + the toll fee of $3... Now I've had enough of this BS and it's worth my time to fight it.

I love toll roads: No traffic.

I do have a .500 S&W Magnum that's perfect for open carry but typically go for the .40 Glock concealed. :)

I included the story brainy...