I am nearly positive that this question has to have been asked before, but I can’t seem to find anything using the search.
State of California.
Friend just received a traffic citation for running a red light. It was delivered via a photo enforced intersection, in that he received the citation and pictures of the violation other than at the time of the violation. He is a County employee, and was driving a county vehicle. He is the one who is on the vehicle log for the time the violation occurred. It appears that the issuing agency gave the citation to his employer, to give to whoever was driving the vehicle. His employer, the County, delievered him the citation and photos, none of which were signed for by him. The citation court appearance date was 3 weeks before the date he received the citation from his employer.
What is the best way to fight this citation?
I have heard that such citations were not enforceable due to never actually receiving the citation. Thus with typical moving violations, you are required to sign for it proving receipt of the citation, and evidence that it was the signer who is alleged to have committed the violation. Is this correct?
Now sans the signing of the citation, how is their proof that the alleged actually committed the violation? The picture delivered is unclear, and is indeterminable who is actually driving the vehicle.
My understanding is that in NY , these tickets are treated more like parking violations than moving violations- the ticket is sent to the registered owner and doesn’t involve any points being placed on the license. The only thing that needs to be clear is that the car went through a red light- not who was driving it. Perhaps California does the same. It is possible that your friend’s employer passed the ticket on becuase of its own policy, just as my agency requires me to take care of any parking tickets I get while driving an agency vehicle.
Ditto doreen just put some MD suburbs. It doesn’t matter, in MD, who was driving. The owner of the vehicle is responsible. Some Company’s (like my brother’s pass it on to the person they know was driving).
Maybe the tech in the OP is old and crappy --& nothing is fool proof – but these digital jobbies --most out now – are really hard to beat on the "camera made a mistake"plea … They usually have how soon after the light turned red you entered the intersection, how fast you were going and an enhanced shot of the plate. The contractor running it has ungoldly performance metrics on functionality.
I think I’d fight it by showing (or trying to) that I wasn’t driving at the time, rather than “it wasn’t MY van” or “I didn’t sign”
My boss got one in a company vehicle, it had a lovely zoomed in photo of the driver as well as the plate. Even though he was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap it was obviously him.
The question at hand is, according to California statute, doesn’t the issuing agency have to prove that it was the alleged that was driving the vehicle? The vehicle clearly ran the light, that is without question.
The situation I heard was that of a two driver, one car household. The ticket was issued to the registered owner, but the accuser was never able to prove which person was driving at the time of the citation, thus the citation was thrown out. If the photo is unclear as to who the driver actually is, how can the citation be upheld?
And in my specific question, the owner of the vehicle is the County. The County is passing the citation on. Even if the alleged was the driver, is there an issue with the delivery of the citation?
No, most states that have begun using photo-issued tickets have modified their laws so that the violation is issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, and that person is responsible for paying the ticket. Unless they can identify someone else as the driver–some states have that option. You’ld have to check to see what specifically California law says on this.
Maybe, but that issue is between you and the vehicle owner (the county). The state is NOT involved in that issue; they issued the ticket and delivered it to the registered owner of the vehicle in a timely manner, which is all they are required to do.
But you could probably go to Court and explain that the County didn’t deliver the citation to you until after the original due date, and the Judge would likely waive any late fees or additional fines (though you’d still have to pay the original fine).
California law regarding photo-enforced intersections can be found at §§21455.5 et seq. of the Vehicle Code. California does not apparently treat violations of §21453 determined by photo to be a civil infraction; it appears that they are treated exactly the same as if the violation had been witnessed by an officer. The citation is issued and handled in the same way as an officer issued citation. I may be wrong on this, but I can’t find any code sections that indicate otherwise.
If so, then enforcement would appear to go as follows: the county in question has been notified that it is accused of violating §21453 of the Vehicle Code. The California Vehicle Code makes it unlawful to fail to obey any signal erected to carry out the provisions of the code (§21461). The county, as owner of the vehicle, is accused of a crime; presumably the county would be able to notify the court that the actual driver according to the county’s log was Bone’s friend. The court would then re-issue the citation to the friend, who would then have a choice of appearing to contest the citation, requesting that a trial occur, or paying the fine and avoiding the appearance. If a trial were to occur, presumably the D.A. would be required to provide the photo evidence, the DMV record of vehicle ownership, the relevant custodian of the county’s driver log with log in tow, which, frankly, should be plenty sufficient to establish that the friend was driving the vehicle, even if the photos are not clear enough to establish the friend’s identity merely by comparison to his actual appearance.
I won’t go into speculation about whether or not the county as employer can force the friend to appear at the original court date; this gets into murky waters since the employer is a state subdivision. But in the end run, the likely result of having the friend refuse to ‘own up’ and pay the fine will be a pissed off employer, a pissed off DA, and a pissed off traffic court judge. Only your friend can measure the worth of accomplishing that.
