Archive for 2010
No more Toys for Traffic Tickets in Connecticut Friday, December 24th, 2010
The New Haven, Connecticut Superior Court has decided to cancel the program that gave people the option to donate a toy to charity in exchange for dropping the charges cited on certain minor traffic tickets.
Three issues were raised by one Connecticut resident. Did the program coerce people with traffic tickets to make a donation instead of taking their chances with a traditional challenge of the ticket and get the charges dropped without paying anything at all? Did some who deserved some punishment for poor driving get off too easy? Was Connecticut losing too much money when money that may have been payable as a fine was instead used to purchase a toy for donation.
The program was called “well-intentioned” by a spokeswoman for the Judicial Branch. However, it was ultimately deemed “justice bought and sold” which means that, despite the low level nature of the infractions, the program was inappropriate and therefore must end.
Interesting and well-intentioned for sure. However, the decision to end it was probably the correct one.
Submitted by NY traffic lawyer Scott Feifer.
Good timing for some recipients of Houston traffic tickets Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Houston Police Department officers are failing to show up at traffic court without the promise of overtime compensation.
Houston has appare lost millions in unwritten and dismissed Houston traffic tickets. HPD officers are writing about 25 percent fewer tickets than last year, and around one in seven traffic violations were ultimately dismissed because the ticket issuing officer did not show up in traffic court.
Prior to the new overtime policy, Houston police officers were able to collect overtime to sit in traffic court and wait for their cases to come up.
This may not exactly be a “get out of jail free” card, but it’s certainly more likely today than a year ago that a speeding ticket issued today in Houston will be dismissed.
Sacramento County traffic tickets getting dismissed Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Traffic tickets and “happy people” are not phrases that go hand in hand too often.
In Sacramento recently, many who are fighting traffic tickets have indeed walked away quite happy.
Dozens of violations have been dismissed recently because issuing police officers failed to show up for traffic court.
The no-shows stem from a dispute between the District Attorney’s Office and the Sacramento, Elk Grove and Folsom police departments over who is financially responsible for the prosecutor’s traffic court services.
All parties have an interest in fixing the situation as quickly as possible and expect this to be settled within a month or two. Until then, however, many more drivers than usual with red light tickets and speeding tickets and other California moving violations issued in the Sacramento area will walk away happy, satisfied motorists.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/
Washington DC Speeding Tickets Friday, December 3rd, 2010
A small controversy recently over some speed cameras that were put up in a construction zone where the speed limit had been lowered 10mph to accommodate the construction.
While construction has more or less stopped on DC 295 near the Eastern Avenue Bridge, the cameras remain. Of course, they remain for the one and only reason there’s any traffic enforcement at all. “We’re hoping to use these speed cameras more often,” said Assistant Police Chief Patrick Burk. “This is to keep people safe.”
Those that drive there regularly and have been caught speeding by the cameras despite the slowdown in construction see it a little differently. In the 2.5 month period after construction ended, the cameras have generated $3.73 million in fine money.
Maybe it’s not ALL about safety. Would love to hear an official finally admit it’s at least partially about making money.
Camera speeding ticket or other speeding ticket in Washington DC? A quick, free consultation with a Washington DC traffic ticket lawyer may answer some questions.
New York City Speeding Tickets Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
A couple of facts worth knowing if you drive in NYC…
1. If there is no speed limit posted, the speed limit by default is 30 mph. Thus, all those local streets in NYC without speed limit signs are likely 30 mph zones. These are called “unposted” zones.
2. There is no speed limit higher than 50 mph in NYC. Do not drive as if the speed limit is 55 or 60 or even 65 on the highways. Regardless of how open the road may be at any given place or time, 50 mph is the highest limit in the city.
Questions about a speeding ticket in NYC? Feel free to contact NY traffic ticket lawyers Feifer & Greenberg, LLP for a free consultation.
The Tennessee chronological rule Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
In Nashville, there’s a student who went to pay for a speeding ticket. When he got there, he learned about multiple red light camera tickets (3) that he had no idea were ever issued prior to the speeding ticket.
Red light camera tickets and speeding tickets are different types of tickets. The speeding ticket is a moving violation and attaches to an individual’s driver license. Red light camera tickets are attached to the vehicle’s registration because, like with a parking ticket, an individual driver cannot be identified.
What’s interesting here is a Tennessee rule which is forcing this student to pay the red light tickets before he can pay the speeding ticket. The rule sets forth that these tickets must be paid in chronological order.
There’s often a lot of confusion surrounding traffic tickets and camera tickets. How may they affect me, are they within the same agency, how much do I owe, how can I fight, etc. Now add the order in which you are forced to satisfy them to the list.
In this student’s situation, if he fails to pay the speeding ticket on time his license will be suspended yet he needs to first come up with the money for the red light camera tickets–which won’t affect his driving privilege if unpaid–because they were issued first.
Questions about a Tennessee traffic ticket or other issue? Try consulting with a Tennessee traffic ticket attorney.
Seattle traffic ticket fixes? Monday, November 29th, 2010
On consecutive days, charges were dropped against two well connected individuals in the Seattle area and conspiracy theorists are asking questions.
First came a hit-and-run charge against former Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. He was charged with backing into a scooter that was parked downtown in May. Witnesses said he drove off after knocking the scooter onto its side. Ceis paid $413.75 to repair damage to the scooter, and the case was dismissed by the Seattle City Attorney
Next came 84 year old Bill Gates Sr. Back in mid-August, he backed his Mercedes into another vehicle. Gates claimed he was unaware he had backed his car into anything. When no witnesses came forth and Gates claimed to have paid the damages himself, the charges were dropped.
The obvious question is whether one in Seattle can simply leave the scene of an accident and pay for the damages later without any penalty beyond the cost of the damage itself. Some are now saying it’s true but only if you are wealthy and/or connected.
If you have any questions about a Seattle traffic ticket or other related matter in King County, please contact a Seattle traffic ticket attorney for a free consultation.
Virginia Reckless Driving law and new speed limits Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
Three-fifths of the miles on Virginia’s Interstate highways will have speed limits increased from 65 mph to 70 mph by year’s end.
Increases in the speed limit from a maximum of 65 mph to 70 mph affect nearly 679 of the state’s 1,119 miles of interstates.
From a legal perspective, it’s important to note that it reduces the gap between lawful speed and reckless driving. In Virginia anything greater than 80 mph is considered Reckless Driving. Now, just a mere 10 mph over the limit in some areas and a driver faces a potential Reckless Driving Charge. Perhaps the law will ultimately be amended to reflect the new speed limits, but drivers must beware for now.
Virginia’s reckless driving laws are among the strictest in the nation. Maximum punishments include up to 12 months in jail, fines as high as $2,500 and a six-month drivers license suspension. It usually requires a personal appearance in court and often representation by an attorney.
If you have any questions about a speeding violation or a reckless driving charge, feel free to contact a Virginia reckless driving attorney for a free consultation.
Do quotas exist? Yes. Are they bad? Not necessarily. Friday, September 17th, 2010
The New York Times recently reported a story about a clandestine recording made at a Brooklyn, NY police station which, the story set forth, finally put to rest any questions about the existence of traffic ticket quotas.
Great story other than the fact that we really didn’t have any questions about this. Quotas, or whatever you want to call them, do exist. The recording only reinforced what we already knew.
As a traffic attorney, I get questions/comments about ticket quotas all the time. Mostly “do they exist” questions and “he only gave me the ticket because it was the end of the month, he was filling his quota” type comments. Here are some thoughts:
There’s no specific quota or number that an officer must reach. However, if an officer is sent out to do traffic enforcement and comes back with zero tickets issued, is his supervisor satisfied with the job? What about one ticket? Five tickets? Bottom line is there’s some “performance” level which brings either a “bad job”, “acceptable job” or “great job” response from a supervising officer. Consider somewhere between “acceptable” and “great” to be the so called “quota”.
Officers have been candid with me in the past about the existence of some expected performance level. I’ve never heard an officer mention anything about an end of the month rush. I do not believe extra tickets are issued just because it was the end of the month.
And what if extra tickets were issued because it was the end of the month or because a supervisor went on a rampage about issuing more tickets? There really is no inherent problem with this. This would only be a problem if, for example, an officer was expected to write 10 tickets during a period where only 7 violations were committed and he therefore wrote three bogus summonses to satisfy his boss. In NYC, there are thousands of violations of varying severity committed every hour. A “quota” seems more an expectation that an officer will actually pay attention, expend some energy and write some tickets when he sees violations moreso than a call to write X number of tickets whether you observe a violation or not.
Officers issuing more tickets in response to violations they observe because they’ve been asked to work harder is not a story. The real “quota” story will be when an officer admits to making up violations and issuing bad tickets because he was “forced” to out of fear for his job. Just consider that in a typical day at least 10% of the drivers in an urban area likely commit at least a single violation, whether it’s a fail to signal or not wearing a seatbelt or even driving a few mph over the limit. Now consider that way fewer than 10% of all the drivers on a road in a given day will get issued a ticket and it’s pretty easy to see that there are plenty of legitimate violations to go around.
Submitted by Scott Feifer
Chicago traffic ticket quotas? Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley issued a one day suspension to the city revenue director because of and email she sent criticizing the police for not writing enough traffic tickets.
Bea Reyna Hickey didn’t necessarily personally send the email, but she’s taking the fall because it was sent from her department.
The mayor called the memo a stupid email sent by some bureaucrat.
The e-mail noted how fewer traffic tickets issued this year compared to last year would cause a dramatic decrease in revenue.
The biggest question here…Does the Mayor think it’s actually wrong to encourage the city police to issue more tickets or is this only a problem because the encouragement was put in writing?
It’s the old quota issue. We won’t tell you that you need to issue a specific number of traffic tickets, but if you don’t issue “enough” traffic tickets we’re certainly not going to be happy with your performance.
If you have any questions about a Chicago speeding ticket or other traffic ticket, feel free to contact a Chicago traffic ticket attorney for a quick consultation.
Submitted by New York traffic lawyer Scott Feifer
