Californians who have dealt with FTAs on fixit tickets...

In My Humble Opinion
1

Oh dear, it’s a Stoid & The Law Thread!

Now that I’ve said that, please do not take snarktastic pot shots or drag in any of the old issues. This is IMHO, I have a problem, I’m asking what other people have experienced. Thank you for respecting my wishes in advance.

**WHOLE STORY IN ANTICIPATION OF POSSIBLE QUESTIONS:
**Due to the insanity of my life over the last few years, not least the profound lack of money, my registration lapsed in 2008. I got a ticket Jan 30 2009. Then I got another ticket April 17 2009. Then I got a ticket while I was parked on the street AND the car was impounded April 28 2009.

On May 2, 2009 I managed to sort out what I thought was all the tickets except the first one because the DMV required me to pay for tickets in order to let me register. I also had to get insurance, which had also lapsed, or I couldn’t register. So I was registered to May 2010. In May 2010 I re-registered. So after the flurry of tickets I got the insurance and registration and maintained them until this year.

Well, I hadn’t paid the first or second tickets that I got in person because I flat didn’t have the money. Bottom line: 2 FTAs: Failure to Appear.

I knew I hadn’t paid the first one, but in fact I had completely spaced out on the second one altogether, apart from maybe assuming I’d paid it as part of getting my car out of impound.

I actually didn’t realize I had TWO until four days ago when I finally pieced together every scrap of paper I had related to these issues and matched everything up…and I realized exactly why I had completely forgotten ticket #2: I got it racing to file objections to the proposed judgment on Friday, missed it, filed Monday but final judgment was filed an hour later…the ticket was very much lost in THAT particular shuffle of ADD girl’s overloaded brain and life…

Having a flawless driving record and not having to deal with a moving violation in over 30 years, and because my life was insane, I knew I didn’t have the money to pay but I had NO idea anywhere in my mind about showing up somewhere instead. To me, you just pay tickets. And I couldn’t pay.

Somewhere along the way, when I didn’t pay the $1800 fine on A (and $1800 on B as well, I now realize I thought they were the same…) my license was suspended. Since I’ve never been pulled over for anything but registration, I wasn’t too concerned and I was planning to get it handled I just wasn’t really sure how since I didn’t have $1800 to spare (which I now know would actually have been closer to $4,000 total anyway!) . ALSO… I didn’t think of it very often because I drive very little…seriously. Usually a couple of miles once or twice a week. (I’ve had my car since it was new in April 2002 and it has 51,000 miles on it. And I live in Los Angeles. And that includes driving 3,000 miles to New Mexico and back.)

Well, now my car is visibly unregistered as of June 1 and I can’t register because my license is suspended and I can’t get insurance without a valid drivers license. So I can no longer risk driving, because my cop friends and research and lawyers are all in agreement: yeah, I absolutely could be arrested for driving on a suspended license, and my car impounded.

So the time has come to find a way out of this.

I’ve talked to about five ticket attorneys, from The Ticket Clinic ($150 for each, flat, not including whatever the court requires) to $1100 for each, plus court costs and fines whatever they are. One of the offices told me that I really should do this myself because these are fixits, I DID fix them even though I can’t anymore, and the chances that I can get out of most if not all of the fines are excellent and it would be an insane waste to pay them big bucks.

The general idea that all of them told me, with individual spins depending on how hard they were trying to sell me their services was this:

Step One: Go to the court. Ask to have the hold on my license taken off, request a court date. Court issues abstract ordering DMV to release my license, schedules a court date.

Step Two: Get license, insurance and registration cleared up before return to court.

Step three: return to court on court date and try to persuade the judge to have mercy on me about the fines.

Step three is where some of the spinning occurred. At least one of the ticket attorneys said they simply count on the fact that cops aren’t going to show up for an actual trial years after the fact on a fixit ticket, and without the cops to testify the charge has to be dropped. This seems like something that makes more sense on a moving violation than a fixit, since teh paper record reflects the fact that I did not have a valid registration at the time no matter who pulled me over. But the same office told me that just recently a cop actually DID show up on a registration ticket, so there’s no guaratees, either.

So the reason I’ve explained all this is to get feedback and input from California Dopers who have been through this process, either on their own or with the assistance of a ticket attorney. I’d especially like to hear from anyone with experience in Southern California, and with experience with The Ticket Clinic. They are cheap as hell and since I have TWO cases the prospect of having to go through all this in two completely different courtrooms is just sickening. Especially after all that I’ve been through over the past five years. You’d think this would be a breeze, but really: no. Hell, the idea of even GETTING there… public transport? Tie up a friend’s life for two days? Ugh.

On the other hand, $300 would pay my registration right now and as you might imagine I have a host of other things that need paying.

So…just looking for your experiences.

Thanks!

2

There’s an excellent lawyer in Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange County. She could probably help you, plus I’m sure you’d get along with her like the proverbial house on fire. In addition to being a highly-respected lawyer, this talented lady is also a dentist, a real-estate agent, an activist as well as an expert on false lashes.

3

Damnit Amber! Did you or did you not get the memo!

4

If I have this correctly:
You have a car with a fair resale value
That you would have to pay 3600 in fines on in order to register
that you use rarely.

Is that right?

Sell it, and sign up for Zipcar.

5

Is she also a black belt?

6

Hello, you missed the crux of the thing:

I’m going to make a wild ass guess that signing up for Zipcar would entail having a valid drivers license.

And the point, of course, is NOT to pay the $3600 in fines…which, again, would actually be to have the suspension of my driving privileges lifted. Registration will cost the usual couple hundred bucks. The only reason the registration is such a big deal is because it is very likely to lead to being pulled over and having my license-lessness discovered.

7

I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss the crux of it:

You’re asking for a hand-out for things you spaced on or chose not to take care of on your on?

8

I’ll address this very limited issue: the cop doesn’t have to be there to testify that your registration was invalid. He has to be there to testify that you were driving. Cars don’t get tickets - even “fix it” tickets. People do.

ETA: I’m pretty sure selling the car won’t help because she’ll still have to pay $3600 to get her license reinstated. Or do you mean sell the car and use the proceeds to pay the fines and buy a cheaper car?

9

Could you maybe sell your car and get a much cheaper one?

10

I’m not asking for a handout for anything or from anyone, I have no idea what you are referring to, unless you consider an attempt to have the court reduce my fines.

11

The car isn’t the issue, the license is. My driver’s license is the issue.

12

Hmm. Still seems kinda cheesy. Obviously I was driving, I got a ticket!

I certainly wouldn’t go that route as my FIRST choice in any case… first choice is go to court and see what I can accomplish. Most of the ticket lawyers seem to feel that this should be easy because my record is clean, the tickets were for papers, and I DID get everything together in May 2009.

Sure hope so. I’ve been studiying LA’s public transit system and it requires study…

13

Sell the car so you’ll have enough to pay them the money, then use the rest to register and then buy a less expensive car

14

Not an attractive prospect - if I sold my car I’d use the money for things that are more important to me than a car and deal with not having one, I wouldn’t pour all that money into huge fines and buy a crappier car that would probably end up costing me a fortune in breakdowns anyway.

Not to mention that there’s no reason to go that route without trying to get the fines lowered or forgiven or a payment plan…there’s lots of less drastic ways to solve this problem before doing that.

15

Sorry, I meant, sell the car, use the money to pay off the fines. Of course you would try to get them reduced but I don’t know what luck you’ll have – I really don’t know how it would work in CA, here in NY after multiple FTA they would have a warrant out for your arrest to be frank.

And whatever is left, if there is any, use for Zipcar registration.

16

Did you? Are you sure it wasn’t somebody else driving your car? Well, you are, of course, but nobody else is.

17

Yes she is! How did you know that? This seems a bit uncanny to me. Can I see your birth certificate?

18

Yeah, well, since I know that’s all it takes. It’s not like I could go to court and in any respect whatsoever attempt to even imply that perhaps I wasn’t the person driving. Not in my skill set, forget my code of ethics.

19

You’re missing the point. You don’t have to imply that you weren’t the person driving. The state has to show that you were.

20

I understand that. But what I also understand is that the state only has to show that if I somehow fail to acknowledge that I was. If I admit it, no one has to prove it. So I would have to “not admit” it. And that would be a lie.

Unless you are telling me that I could somehow say out loud “yes, I was driving and/or yes, I signed that ticket when the policeman put in front of me to sign while sitting in the drivers seat in my car all alone” and the state would STILL have to independently verify my admission, but that seems very unlikely.

Or are you saying that no one could ask me directly? Or that if they did, I could take the fifth? (I so cannot see doing THAT…)