Got a summons in the mail for going 52 in a 35 mph school zone. I remember where I was very well and I saw the school zone sign maybe 50 yards ahead. Took my foot of the brake for just a second, slowing down from 55 which is the usual speed limit, then saw the lghts were not flashing, no school buses or cars or pedestrians around, so I continued on at 55. I can’t contest the photo or time stamp on it. I can’t prove what I just said, no dash cam, but that should not be on me. They should have to prove guilt. There is no violation if those lights were not working. I am going to try and get back to that area, about 30 minutes away, at that time of day to see if the lights are flashing. If not I will film them and I would hope that would get it dismissed. But if it doesnt happen, do I have any chance? I can file my initial protest online, should I ask for proof that the lights were working? Not sure how they could do that.
In the past 7 years I have had 2 minor violations. I have a 4.95 rating on Lyft and 4.9 on Uber over the last 500 rides (passenger ratings) and a 98% driving score on Uber (based upon their monitorg my driving on the app), would mentioning that help? I might have the same thing on my State Farm app. I know it doesn’t prove I wasn’t speeding that day, but isn’t getting something like this dismissed based mostly on being believable? That I am a very carefull driver.
In any case, once I send my appeal in, is there any chance they could dismiss and notify me by mail, or am I going to have to go to court in any case? If so the question is moot, I’ll just pay the $100 since this is a civil case and will not go on my driving record. I would lose most of that taking time to go to court.
In Illinois, they threaten you with “court costs” if you go and lose. I don’t know how it is in the state you live in, but here I would just appeal via mail and pay the ticket if my appeal was denied. If you don’t have the threat of “court costs” hanging over your head, however, I think you would have a greater chance of winning if you went to court and appealed in person.
Are the lights off often? If so, taking a picture during the day of the lights being off might do the trick. It would prove that your appeal has validity.
Where are you that has a 35 mph school zone? I’ve only heard of between 15-25 depending on location.
Are you sure it’s not just a 52 in a 35? No school zone involved.
Do you have an appeal by mail process wherever you’re at? Here in Illinois, as an option we do, and we don’t have to go to court (unless we want to then appeal the judgment of our appeal-by-mail. And it starts getting more trouble than it’s worth.) I’ve made it a hobby of appealing tickets by mail, and for non-parking ones (I think all red light cameras in my particular case), I’ve won three without ever having to show up for court. I’ve never tried appealing a speed one, but I don’t know if I’ve ever had plausible grounds to appeal on.) Is there a video associated with your file where you can see your violation and proof that lights were flashing? Otherwise, can you prove by time of day or day of week that school was not in session and lights would not have been flashing? It’s always worth a shot, in my opinion, if there’s no cost and little effort in doing so. Like I said, in Illinois it’s an established process, and I usually have five minutes to waste to give it a try to fight the system. But I don’t have time or energy to show up to court.
ETA: Oh, I just now saw you can file your initial protests online. That seems even better than what we have here. I’m not sure here in Illinois we could ask for proof that the lights were working in a mail protest. I don’t think the system has time to go back-and-forth with you in this type of situation. But the photo and video evidence they give you here is mostly enough, and I’ve always worked within the constraints of challenging the evidence they have already giving me, not asking for additional evidence to bolster their claim.
Since it seems the OP drives for Uber and Lyft, how does a traffic conviction affect those gigs? The balance of benefits of fighting or just paying may change if that conviction messes up your income.
Around here it is normal to just contact a traffic ticket lawyer, pay them the going rate ($125 last time I needed it), and then a miracle occurs. A month or so later you’re convicted of a parking violation, you owe the court $50 for their trouble, and there is no moving violation, no points, no insurance rate increase, no nothing. On the entire paper trail you just forgot to pay a parking meter and that’s it.
I can’t swear about the OPs jurisdiction, but in most places any sort of camera ticket is basically like a parking ticket without the need to hire a lawyer or fight the ticket- no points on the record because the driver isn’t identified, the owner ( not the unknown driver) is responsible , no insurance increase, etc.
Depends on your jurisdiction. I know in Arizona it used to be (still is?) that they had to give you a real ticket within 30 days (might be 60, it’s been a while) so what they would do is send you a letter asking you to waive your right to that time limit and if you didn’t, we will send a law enforcement officer to hand you the ticket in person. Obviously you don’t want that so sign here.
I ignored it and never got a ticket so it went bye-bye.
On the road where we live, there’s a “school zone” where the speed limit during specified times drops from 55 mph all the way down to 45 mph.
Not sure how they came up with that. There are never any kids in sight, as it’s a church school a quarter mile distant, down a long driveway. I suppose the minimal lowering of the speed limit is because buses might be exiting that drive when school is letting out.
In the next town over, the speed limit is 30mph and the school zone when lights are flashing limit is 30mph. The difference is the school zone has double fines.
I have seen school speed limit blinking lights working at all sorts of weird hours. One elementary school near me was going off at 6am on a Sat. Hint: School doesn’t start for another two hour…on weekdays.
There are ones near the SO’s house that are all kind of wonky, for months if not years on end. Is school really in session at 10:30pm on a Fri, or even Sat night? There’s one elementary school near her that has them on during the entire year. Ummm, there’s no school in July; do I really need to slow down to 15 on those mornings? I’m guessing that no one in the maint unit was informed of the problem to go out & fix them.
My guess for the ones I saw was a power failure borked the internal clock which works like an old VCR or clock radio clock; turning on at midnight once power is restored even if that is at 7am. If I’m right, that could very well have happened in the OPs area meaning the lights aren’t on at the appropriate times.
I’ve seen that on some rural roads. There are no sidewalks (so presumably no walkers) & the school is set back a bit from the road so shouldn’t be too much of an issue driving by at a normally fast for a school zone speed
No speed cameras in my state. During the short time we had red light cameras the citation came to you with a link that showed the video of the violation. If you have that you can get a good idea if you have any argument against it.
The closest school to me goes down to 35 when school is open. The school is set far off the road and there are no houses on the street. In reality it’s a much more dangerous street at night with all of the deer crossing and no street lights.
That’s how it is in Maryland and Washington DC, two places where I’ve gotten camera tickets.
I successfully contested one by going in person and pointing out that the photo was rather blurry so they couldn’t be sure that it was my car, and not someone with a similar license plate number.
I don’t know where you live but I do know where you previously worked because of a certain festival I used to go to at the end of July. The school I was thinking of was 15-20 mins south of your former employer. I’m wondering if we’re thinking of the same school. OTOH, that general part of the state (exurbs) has many schools like that.
Urban, suburban, and rural are very different worlds. My suburbia is much like your suburbia all over the country. But both are real different from ruralia.
I happen to live a couple blocks from the county line. And so do about half my local driving in one county and about half in the other. The school zones in the burbs in my county are all 15 mph. The other county they’re all 20. It pays to read the signs and remember which town you’re in.
Where I live, the flashing lights are solar powered, with a backup battery. The batteries must get old, because on overcast mornings the school zone lights across from my house don’t so much flash as flicker randomly. At another school zone a few blocks away one set of flashing lights simply does not work on overcast mornings.
However, the lights may stay dark, but the school zone speed limit is still in effect at certain times of the day. The same as if a stop sign blows over, you still have to stop at that intersection.
If your ticket is at a time when you could expect the school zone to be in effect, then it is probably not worth fighting. If school lets out at 3:30, and your ticket is at 3:45, you were almost certainly in an active school zone, whether the lights were flashing or not.
However, if your ticket is at a time where it doesn’t make sense for the school zone to be active, like 9:30 at night, then it is probably worth fighting by whatever means are available.
It was 3:49, that is the time the last bus picks up the kids, at an elementary school about 300 or more yards fron the highway, and is not visible from the highway. But I don’t live there, how am I supposed to know that? I’m just going to write and ask that the ticket be dismised on the grounds that no evidence has been provided that the lights were flashing . Then I’ll just describe what happened as I did above. Might work.
At least around here the signs at some school zones say “Speed limit in effect when lights flash” with no mention of the times of day. Other zones have the flashing lights but say “Speed limit in effect 7am-8am and 3pm-4pm weekdays”.
In a zone with posted times I’d be inclined to abide by flashing lights or times, whichever is more restrictive. Unless the lights are on at a clearly silly time of day or day of week.
In a zone with flashing lights as the only indication of the reduced speed limit being in effect I’d be forced to go with just that. And some common sense that if its around the right time of day and I see the streets are loaded with groups of kids all walking towards or away from the school.