LA County Docs - Continued - Illegal Red Light Cameras

Docs Set # 2
Countywide Information

The info in Set # 2 is applicable throughout LA County. But only in LA County.

The LA County Superior Court Does Not Report Delinquent Tickets to the DMV!

From the testimony of a LAPD deputy chief, during the June 7, 2011 meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission:

"There's no consequence for not paying the ticket on a photo red light [in LA County].
And currently if a percentage rate is paying and the general public understands that there is no consequence, there is a risk that many more will not pay.
We have petitioned/appealed the [Los Angeles County] Superior Court to put teeth into this so that there will be a consequence. But that has met with the answer that they will not support it.

"So there's no consequence [in LA County].
There's no warrant.
This is not in queue when you renew your drivers license.
This is not in queue when you register your car."

Transcript

Later LA Times articles repeated the same information:
Article, Jul. 26, 2011
Article, Jul. 27, 2011

One issue that is not clear in LA County: If you contact the court (or its website) and request an extension, you are giving them evidence that that you received the ticket. That could allow them to file a Failure to Appear ("FTA") charge if you do not take care of the ticket by the extended due date.

In early August, Mary Hearn, Director of Public Information for the LA County Superior Courts, provided the following statement in response to questions from a reporter:

"Vehicle Code section 40509(c)(1) allows, but does not require, the Court to send notice to the DMV of any person who fails to appear in response to a notice subsequent to a traffic violation captured by an automated traffic enforcement system (i.e., red light camera system). The DMV is subsequently authorized to place a hold on the accused offender’s license, forcing the person to resolve the ticket prior to renewing his or her license.

"The Court supports a collections effort whose results and efficiency are a model for the California courts. However, that collections policy has, for many years, not included the proposed notification to DMV. In creating and administering this collections effort, the Court’s policies are informed both by the need to follow through on the fines issued, and by the need to do so in a fair and just manner.

"In the case of red-light camera enforcement, experience suggests that issuing a driver’s license hold on the basis of a red-light enforcement ticket could result in an unfair result where the owner of the vehicle is denied the ability to renew his or her license, even though that person was not the driver of the vehicle at the time the camera captured a person going through a red light.

"A failure to appear on a red-light traffic citation per notification from the Court results in penalties in addition to the original fine and the matter will be referred to a collection agency if not resolved in the time allotted to do so.

"Questions related to credit scores and insurance premiums should be directed to those businesses."

In early September, Ms. Hearn provided the following statement to a reporter who was writing about the collection process:

"We are not aware of any judicial officer ordering or authorizing GC Services to garnish wages or other income, attaching bank accounts, or filing liens.

"Just as there is concern about requesting that the Dept. of Motor Vehicles place a hold against the license of a person who is not responsible for the red light camera violation, the same concern applies to authorizing severe collections methods against a person who may not be responsible for the infraction.

"As is true in evaluating any action presented in our courts, in situations where sufficient ambiguity exists, our judicial officers must not impose a judgment that is not supported by the facts or the law.

"Our judicial officers must balance their responsibility for enforcing the law with their responsibility to protect the public from abuse of those laws."

In September 2011 memos about the planned closing (in Dec. 2011) of that city's cameras, Gardena Police Department personnel described the efforts being made to get the Court to change its policy.

A Sep. 8, 2011 LA Weekly article described the way the LA Superior Court handles the tickets. (As of Feb. 2012 the article had 93 comments, and readers were continuing to add new comments.)

In a Dec. 15, 2011 article about the planned closing (in June 2012) of that city's cameras, the Pasadena Weekly quoted Police Officer Brian Bozarth:

“More and more people are figuring out that they will not be punished if they refuse to pay the violation fine, let alone have to show up in court at all." "Because the driver who was caught by a camera running a red light did not sign anything promising to appear in court, we have no legal recourse to issue a warrant for their arrest. The citation then gets handed over to a collection agency, but even then after they mail a couple letters and make a couple annoying phone calls, they cannot force the violator to pay the fine.”

Bozarth also noted that ignoring the initial ticket would not affect the violator’s credit rating or DMV record.

Revenue Was Down - By Half !

Court-provided revenue reports showed that beginning in June 2011, ticket revenue dropped, sharply.
(If you wish to crunch the numbers: My Spreadsheet Distribution Tables My Explanation .)
Revenue was off by about half. But this doesn't mean that half of those ticketed still were paying their tickets. It means that if 60% (a guess) were paying their tickets prior to June, after June it was more like 30%.
As of early 2012, revenue had rebounded for many - but not all - cities.

Source documents:
Official Revenue Reports, May10 - Sep11
Official Revenue Reports, Oct10 - Dec10
Official Revenue Reports, Jan11 - Apr11
Official Revenue Report, Oct11
Official Revenue Report, Nov11
Official Revenue Report, Dec11
Official Revenue Report, Jan12

Amnesty!

Do you have an OLD ticket that you've been meaning to pay? In 2012 there will be a statewide amnesty for pre-2009 tickets, of all kinds. See the big box near the top of Section # 3, Handling Your Ticket, on the Your Ticket page.