What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California
21453(a) Red Light Infraction
Speed: 5 mph
Comments (Weather/Road/Traffic conditions): CDM-H
Palo Alto, CA
The surroundings:
This was a few weeks after I moved to CA and unfamiliar with how the streets and traffic lights were laid out. I'm used to almost all left turns yielding on a green light and few protected left turns. There was also lots of construction on this school campus area so I couldn't take the route that my map told me to take. Normally in intersections there are overhead traffic lights in addition to traffic lights in the corner, but this intersection only had 3 traffic lights, located at each corner. The intersection seemed too large to only have 3 lights. Example:
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== ==
_| |.
_me
The periods are where the lights are located and the straight lines are the intersection. Underscores are used for spaces. There weren't any overhead lights and I had never seen that before. I contacted the traffic for the city and filed a petition that hasn't been resolved yet. A traffic engineer told me that only 3 lights is ok here because the roads aren't very wide and not too much traffic.
The event:
I was driving through the city because I was lost and I spent a while looking for a road sign to figure out where I was. There was moderate traffic because of some event, but it was not too full when I was driving through. I dont remember seeing any oncoming traffic, so I did my left turn at 5 mph. On my side of the road there were cars that were going straight still so there was a green light on my side. The left turn was red according to the officer. I did not notice the left turn light in the upper left corner. It was very sunny (not used to the CA sun) and I had my sunglasses on and perhaps the trees and traffic light blended into each other. A few seconds after doing the left turn, I was pulled over. I had no idea what happened so I asked the officer if I was speeding or did an illegal turn or something. I was doing the turn at 5 mph because I looked around for any traffic and I didn't see any moving traffic so I thought that the traffic on the left and right (east and west) of me had stop lights and were waiting for me. I would consider myself a safe and slow driver. I had people in the car so I would not have ran a stop light on purpose. I got my license at 16 and I've been driving for 8 years and I had never gotten pulled over, but a few weeks moving to CA I got an expensive ticket for ~$450. I realize that this could've been very dangerous had there been lots of moving traffic. This is about 1.3 weeks of work back at home.
Financial situation :
Took an engineering job here in July
Came from MS where our incomes are far lower than here
$30k in student loans
No bank or credit cards until I came here
Rent is high in CA
I was offered traffic school, but that means I have to pay the entire fine without any price reduction?
My deadline after my 30 day extension is right after New Years
If I decide to pay I'll try to take a loan out, but I don't have good credit due to my lack of credit cards and school loans so I fear even higher interest rates. Would a court have a better interest rate? I was planning on visiting home but I might end up staying here for this first holiday so that should free up money.
I would rather be safe than sorry and opt for traffic school to keep my driving record clean and not try to do any trial and risk an insurance hike. The ticket has been keeping me up a few times this month and I keep panicing about my finances. Is my best alternative to ask for the judge to reduce the fine and do traffic school? Doing traffic school generally means I have to pay the full amount? Did anything I say give me a chance of getting the ticket thrown out? The three lights thing was the minimum set by the traffic engineers and I requested a survey so that they look into it but no response after a month. Also, I think I was cited for a red round light, while there is a red arrow if you look on the second image.
Pictures:
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2696/intersection.png
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2633/intersection2.png
21453(a) Red Light Infraction
Speed: 5 mph
Comments (Weather/Road/Traffic conditions): CDM-H
Palo Alto, CA
The surroundings:
This was a few weeks after I moved to CA and unfamiliar with how the streets and traffic lights were laid out. I'm used to almost all left turns yielding on a green light and few protected left turns. There was also lots of construction on this school campus area so I couldn't take the route that my map told me to take. Normally in intersections there are overhead traffic lights in addition to traffic lights in the corner, but this intersection only had 3 traffic lights, located at each corner. The intersection seemed too large to only have 3 lights. Example:
.| |.
== ==
_| |.
_me
The periods are where the lights are located and the straight lines are the intersection. Underscores are used for spaces. There weren't any overhead lights and I had never seen that before. I contacted the traffic for the city and filed a petition that hasn't been resolved yet. A traffic engineer told me that only 3 lights is ok here because the roads aren't very wide and not too much traffic.
The event:
I was driving through the city because I was lost and I spent a while looking for a road sign to figure out where I was. There was moderate traffic because of some event, but it was not too full when I was driving through. I dont remember seeing any oncoming traffic, so I did my left turn at 5 mph. On my side of the road there were cars that were going straight still so there was a green light on my side. The left turn was red according to the officer. I did not notice the left turn light in the upper left corner. It was very sunny (not used to the CA sun) and I had my sunglasses on and perhaps the trees and traffic light blended into each other. A few seconds after doing the left turn, I was pulled over. I had no idea what happened so I asked the officer if I was speeding or did an illegal turn or something. I was doing the turn at 5 mph because I looked around for any traffic and I didn't see any moving traffic so I thought that the traffic on the left and right (east and west) of me had stop lights and were waiting for me. I would consider myself a safe and slow driver. I had people in the car so I would not have ran a stop light on purpose. I got my license at 16 and I've been driving for 8 years and I had never gotten pulled over, but a few weeks moving to CA I got an expensive ticket for ~$450. I realize that this could've been very dangerous had there been lots of moving traffic. This is about 1.3 weeks of work back at home.
Financial situation :
Took an engineering job here in July
Came from MS where our incomes are far lower than here
$30k in student loans
No bank or credit cards until I came here
Rent is high in CA
I was offered traffic school, but that means I have to pay the entire fine without any price reduction?
My deadline after my 30 day extension is right after New Years
If I decide to pay I'll try to take a loan out, but I don't have good credit due to my lack of credit cards and school loans so I fear even higher interest rates. Would a court have a better interest rate? I was planning on visiting home but I might end up staying here for this first holiday so that should free up money.
I would rather be safe than sorry and opt for traffic school to keep my driving record clean and not try to do any trial and risk an insurance hike. The ticket has been keeping me up a few times this month and I keep panicing about my finances. Is my best alternative to ask for the judge to reduce the fine and do traffic school? Doing traffic school generally means I have to pay the full amount? Did anything I say give me a chance of getting the ticket thrown out? The three lights thing was the minimum set by the traffic engineers and I requested a survey so that they look into it but no response after a month. Also, I think I was cited for a red round light, while there is a red arrow if you look on the second image.
Pictures:
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2696/intersection.png
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2633/intersection2.png
Last edited:
