KERN COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT

TRAFFIC DIVISION EXPERIENCES A “TRAFFIC JAM!”

Due to a large increase in the number of tickets received by the Traffic Division of the Superior Court, many of our customers are being inconvenienced by appearing at the court on the date given on their traffic ticket, only to be given another date because the ticket was not in our system.

In order to reduce these incidents and better serve the public, we are advising our customers to wait until they receive a courtesy notice from the court before appearing. If they have not received their courtesy notice three days prior to the appearance date on their ticket, they should call the court at 868-2382 to check on the status of their ticket or e-mail the traffic division at http://www.co.kern.ca.us/courts/email_privpol.asp?s=t. [Dead link.]

The court is endeavoring to reduce the entry time for this large increase in traffic citations and hope that any inconvenience is short term.

Thank you for your very helpful web site, and special thanks for the Bakersfield yellow light timing information.  The vehicle it appears I was driving was videotaped in June 2004 at the Ming and South Real intersection heading west on Ming.  The speed limit was 40 mph and the vehicle was going 32 mph (which calculates to be 46.9 feet per second) according to 2 photos taken from the video.  The first photo taken at 0.2 seconds after the light turned red shows the bottom of the vehicle's front tire (where it contacts the street) at the first, or most easterly, of the crosswalk lines.  The front bumper of the vehicle was 3 feet into the crosswalk.  At Time Zero (the instant electricity was applied to the red light) the vehicle would have been about 9.4 feet (46.9 x 0.2) back from there, with its front end about 6 feet from the line.  According to the officer who was present at my trial, the crosswalk is 8 feet wide and I would have had to be at or beyond the second crosswalk line under the yellow light to have legal "control of the intersection," which apparently means something like the right of way.  The Judge had some problem with that because the section of the law the Judge was looking at indicated that a vehicle entered the intersection when it crossed the first crosswalk line.  Since the front of my vehicle was about 6 feet from the crosswalk at the instant the red light came on, the discussion between the Judge and the police officer about where the intersection began was moot as applied to my case.  I mention this here only because it might apply to others' cases.

The officer agreed that the yellow lights at Ming and Real were set to stay on for 3.5 seconds until July 20th when they were reset to 3.9 seconds.  The officer was very adamant that 3.5 seconds was the correct timing during the period when my violation occurred.  Apparently he thought that CalTrans had not changed the timing specification until July 20, 2004.  Thanks to your advice, I had visited the CalTrans web site and had made a copy of the regulations affecting intersection lights, etc. (40 pages of which the light timing table was just a small part of one of the pages near the end of the document).  I showed the Judge that document and brought to the Judge's attention the fact that the document was dated May (20th I believe), 2004, so the yellow light should have been set at 3.9 seconds prior to the time I was alleged to have violated the red light.  [Editor's note:  CalTrans changed that spec in 1998 - see Defect # 2 on the Home page of this website.]  That extra 0.4 seconds would have enabled me to be well into the intersection under the yellow light.

I told the Judge that something was terribly wrong with the timing of the light at Ming and Real because tables available at your web site indicated that typically over 500 red light violations occurred there each month and on at least one occasion exceeded 900.  I also reminded the Judge that most of the red light offenses heard in the Judge's Court that morning were at Ming and Real.  The Judge told the police officer that the City of Bakersfield needed to abide by the standards set by CalTrans.  The Judge wanted to review some sections of the law before making a decision in my case, so I agreed to wait for the Judge's decision which I received by mail yesterday.  The letter, which was from the Court Clerk, stated, "You were found not guilty at your trial," and "Cash bail will be returned to postee in approximately four to six weeks."  I had to pay the bail amount prior to being permitted to go to trial.  Bail is set at $371, which is the fine one pays unless one goes to Court to fight the ticket.  It appeared that those who go to Court typically paid about $150 - $200.  Five-hundred-fifty violations per month at $371 per violation is $204,050.  Ming and Real is a real cash cow and it is easy to understand why the City of Bakersfield fights so hard to make those tickets stick."

Regarding the issue of how the officer established the identity of the driver, the Judge had a computer into which the officer was allowed to insert a CD which had the video on it.  I was allowed to approach the bench so that the Judge, the officer and I could view the video together.  The display would have been difficult for the rest of the people in the courtroom, except for the bailiff, to see.

I was surprised to see all of the parties who had apparently plead "not guilty" offer no, or at best, a very minimal defense.  They were most likely hoping the ticketing officer would not show up.  I believe the Judge offered each of them the opportunity to take traffic school, which most of them did.  Fines for red light violations, with the traffic school add-on, were around $200.