Are traffic laws that contain an element of driver judgment enforceable?
For instance, a statute regarding traffic control signals indicates that drivers shall stop for yellow lights before entering the intersection or a marked crosswalk with the exception that “if a driver cannot stop in safety, the driver may drive cautiously through the intersection.”
Who determines when it is safe to stop? If it is the driver, then how effectively can it be argued that the driver’s perception of relative safety is incorrect? If it is a police officer or court, there is the inherent disadvantage to the driver of not being able to know in advance what their judgment would be and act accordingly.
Yes, I got a traffic ticket and am preparing to defend myself in court. I am not asking for legal advice, but I am really curious about how this type of statute that relies on my best judgment is enforceable.
All laws are this way. There is always a gray space between “obviously OK to everyone” and “obviously not OK to everyone.”
Some laws have more gray space than others. It’s in the nature of human society that this must be so.
Where within the gray zone the razor fine line between “guilty” and “not guilty” gets drawn in any one case depends on the totality of what happened, who saw it, how well they can articulate their perspective to the court, the mood of the judge, the trustworthiness of the whole system, and all the rest.
Do the best you can, hope for the best, and accept whatever outcome.
Anybody who goes to traffic court by themselves is being penny wise and pound foolish. For a hundred bucks paid to an expert you’re almost certain to get a much better result. I’d sooner give myself a haircut than represent myself in traffic court. Hair grows back in a couple weeks; traffic convictions can stay with you for years.
There are some laws that are subjective, here is a summary of speeding laws from
" Absolute. Most states have an “absolute” speed law. There is no trick to how this works: If the sign says 40 mph and you drive 41 mph or more, you have violated the law.
Presumed. “Presumed” speed-limit violations are a little more complicated but give you far more flexibility in building your defense. In states that use this system for all or some of their roads—California and Texas, for example—it’s legal to drive over the posted limit as long as you are driving safely. For example, if you are driving 50 mph in a 40-mph zone, you are “presumed” to be speeding. But if it is 6 a.m. on a clear, dry morning with no other cars on a wide, straight road, and you can convince the judge that you were driving safely given those conditions, you should be acquitted. That’s because you present facts that “rebut the presumption” that by going over the limit you were driving at an unsafe speed. (We’ll give you more information about this below.)
Basic. The concept of the basic speed law is even trickier. It works like this: In all states you can be charged with speeding by violating the “basic” speed law, even if you were driving below the posted speed limit. The ticketing officer must simply decide that you were going faster than you should have been, taking into account the driving conditions at the time. Or put another way, if you are driving 40 mph in a 45-mph zone on an icy road in heavy fog, a cop could sensibly conclude that by driving too fast for road conditions you are in violation of the “basic” speed law. This type of ticket is mostly handed out after an accident."
So if it is a speeding ticket you need to know which type your state uses.
Except the section of the statute pertaining to solid red signal notably excludes any reference to safety and simply says that the driver must stop at it.
It is not a speeding ticket. It is a ticket for failure to obey a traffic control device. I proceeded through a yellow light because I deemed it unsafe to stop at the point it had turned yellow, which I registered as occurring at the point I was entering the marked crosswalk.
Any criminal behavior that involves “careless or reckless” is necessarily subject to that kind of interpretation. Courts have wide latitude to apply the “reasonable person” doctrine.
In the first place, rules of evidence to prove guilt do not apply in traffic court, but rather a finding of “responsible”, based on the preponderance of evidence. A traffic judge will listen (one hopes) to descriptions of the circumstances, and make a judgement of whether a reasonable person would have stopped or proceeded, and that will be the basis of the judgment.
At which point the ambiguity attaches to exactly where was the vehicle at the exact instant the light changed to red. If you’re already in the intersection then continuing is not a violation. If you’re not yet in the intersection then it is a violation.
So it comes down to determining three things: the exact location of the edge of the intersection, the exact location of the front of the car, and the exact moment where the relative locations matter. All three of those things have little ambiguity in definition, but considerable ambiguity in measurement as remembered by the people involved. Even a camera has a certain amount of fuzziness in how precisely it’s aligned and timed.
So it sounds like you believe you had already entered the crosswalk at the moment of green-to-yellow transition. Whereas the cop thinks he saw you enter the intersection after the yellow-to-red transition.
Note that in most states the crosswalk is considered inside the intersection. But there may be other painted or invisible lines further back that define the edge of the intersection. So under those circumstances you can be inside the intersection but not yet to the crosswalk. That might be part of your problem.
That’s not 100% true, though. Around here, every few years we have a pretty bad ice storm, where roads are extremely slippery. Often in those situations, you simply can’t stop fast enough safely between the time the light turns yellow and the time it turns red. Most cops or at least judges will overlook something like that when it is clear that the safer option was running the light.
Also, around here, running a red light requires two elements: You have to have entered the intersection when the light is red, and you have to proceed through the intersection while the light is still red. This is how you can “run” a red light if you entered the intersection while it was still yellow. It’s also how you can turn left on a red once oncoming traffic stops, if you were in the intersection with your blinker on prior to the light changing. It’s also how you can legally stop at a red light past the white line, so long as you don’t continue through the intersection while the light is still red.
Obviously, laws are different all over the country, so your mileage may vary.
This is a good answer. I’ve looked up “reasonable person” applications. There is no defense to that purely subjective doctrine that I can see other than an objective offense. Given the fact that the officer was behind another vehicle in a right turn lane across a five lane divided highway from where I was turning left onto that highway and that there was a truck directly in front of me, my argument is that there is no way he could know factually at what point in the cycle that I entered the intersection, at what speed, or how close the truck behind me was. He also stated that he estimated the timing of the yellow light based by counting and did not know the actual timing of the yellow light.
Yes, the intersection does have a marked crosswalk that looks about 8 ft wide. The statute specifically requires drivers stop before the first line and stopping within the crosswalk is a citeable offense. There is also the speed of the approach to consider. I was in a long line of cars well behind the intersection when the light turned green, so I would estimate my speed as I approached the intersection to be anywhere from 15 to 20 mph. It’s a wide turn and I was accelerating at a reasonable pace up to the intersection. At that speed, effective stopping distance is anywhere from 26 to 40 feet. Since I don’t have a photographic memory, I did not record the event and my perception is now being called into question, I cannot say with absolute certainty (although I firmly believe it) when exactly the light turned yellow, but I can say with 100% certainty there would have been no way for me to stop before the intersection even if I had superhuman reaction skills and stood on the brake with both feet, which could likely have resulted in being rear-ended by the truck whose grill was in my rear-view.
Not quite, actually. As to the first part, I believe I was already in the intersection (i.e., crosswalk) when the light transitioned to yellow. (If not, I was close enough that I didn’t register it until I was in the crosswalk.) The cop stated that the light turned red while I was still obstructing the right-turn lanes (there are two) of opposing traffic. However, those lanes (there are two) are off-set and at an angle which is not perpendicular to the highway we were both turning onto to the degree that the location a right turning vehicle enters the left lane that I was turning into is at least a car length beyond the intersection. So, I would argue that the when the light was red, I was effectively out of the intersection.
Then that’s what you have to go to with the judge.
The policeman was estimating (=educated guessing) when you crossed the line vs. the light’s status. You found yourself in a crack and took what seemed to you at the time to be the least-bad option available. Given the requirement to make a decision in a fraction of a second.
It might work. It might not. Good luck. Come back and tell us how it went.
Asking advice on legal questions here at this forum will get you advice that is worth exactly what you paid for it. So far as I can tell, you haven’t mentioned your jurisdiction, or, for that matter, if you are even in the United States. So, with all respect to those who have attempted answers, the answers you’ve gotten to this point are probably not very valuable.
If you want to ask if a certain statute is able to be enforced, we would need to know which statute is in question. If you want to ask if a certain statute is able to be enforced against you under the circumstances of your alleged violation, you need to offer up all relevant information along with the statute (that, at least, seems to be coming out in dribbles and spurts).
If this… maybe that… could be… might be… I think… he says… I want… they did… etc…:smack:
What the heck!?!?
Life, on occasion, involves *** petty*** injustices. It’s 50/50 as far as we know whether you are right or wrong here. What do you want?
Fight your perceived injustice in court to the limit your finance/stamina allows.
My suggestion: Pay the fine, move on with your life, and stop whining.
When you perceive a yellow light, proceed to stop at the intersection, irrespective of what you think is “fair”.
With all due respect, I wasn’t asking for legal advice and specifically noted that in the OP:
The most relevant answer to the question I originally asked was provided by jtur88 in #6. If you’d like to expound upon the “reasonable person” doctrine as an expert or offer another answer to the general question of the enforceability of statutes having a subjective component, I’d be interested to hear it whether it directly applies to my specific case or not. Pick any statute that relies on the judgment of the actor as my example of the yellow light statute does.
If you are interested in providing me legal advice on my specific case, I’d love to hear your expert opinion if you want to offer it, but I understand it’s frowned upon to ask for legal advice. I offered info about my case in response to others. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea. My apologies if I’ve violated board rules or conventions in doing so. Thanks for your input.
If you’re still wondering, the relevant statute is Oregon Revised Statutes ORS 811.260(5):
I’ve bolded the last sentence of paragraph 5. That’s the subjective part I’m interested in. I’m assuming the driver is the arbiter of safe in this instance, so if the driver deems it safer to proceed through the intersection than to stop, the officer would presumably have to show factual circumstance that a reasonable person would not have deemed it unsafe to stop. Without that, it’s unenforceable, right?
My “perceived injustice”? It’s simply not possible for it to be an actual injustice? Police officers never make mistakes or bad decisions?
Here’s the deal, since you’re so bothered this. The fine is very steep for my budget: $240. Paying that will necessitate not paying at least one other bill. I don’t have that kind of disposable income, which is why I’m very careful now about following traffic laws. I don’t speed (really! I’m a regular cycle commuter, too), I don’t run red lights or stop signs, and I am absolutely certain that drove through that yellow light in compliance with the statute as it is written. I am also certain that the officer could not have judged the circumstances because it would not have been possible for him to see what I saw. He cited me based on assumptions. Is it fair? Probably not. Do I have recourse? Sure, according to the court’s website. I can plead not guilty. Why wouldn’t I? I’m not just trying to avoid a fine. I’m defending my appropriate behavior as a responsible driver.
What’s neat about that is that what “he said” is an assumption that I did something he couldn’t possibly have seen. He also stated that it is never legal to proceed through a yellow light. ORS says differently.