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 Ignored Red Light Camera Tickets to the DMV!!!

(This applies to red light camera tickets issued by all cities in LA County, and the MTA, not just the City of Los Angeles.)

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

Paying a LA County red light camera ticket is voluntary - unless you've already contacted the court.

If you contact the court (or its website) and sign up for an extension, you are acknowledging that you received the ticket. If you then decide to do nothing further about the ticket and so do not take care of it by the extended due date, it is possible that the court could report you to the DMV. I do not know for sure. Press releases and articles are provided below so that you can decide for yourself.

Press Releases and Articles

In early August 2011, Mary Hearn, Director of Public Information for the LA County Superior Court, 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 2011, 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 closing 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 red light camera tickets. As of April 2013 the article had 228 comments, and readers were continuing to add new comments, including this new one:

"PERMANENT RESIDENTS, DON'T IGNORE IT! I got a camera ticket in La Habra, barely outside of Covina, this April on my brothers car. So he ends up receiving the ticket for $495 in his name but my photo. Me & my brother have been permanent residents for 20 years. Unfortunately I can't ignore the ticket cus that's putting him in jeopardy. Plus I read the part about the ticket remaining in court records, so that means taking a risk to be denied citizenship when finally applying in the near future. If you're a permanent legal resident & you plan to apply for citizenship, it's a no brainer, don't risk it. Pay the half grand in community service if you have to."

April 2013 online comment found on the Sep. 8, 2011 LA Weekly article. Highwayrobbery.net does not know if the writer is telling the truth (for example: La Habra has no red light cameras, and is not all that close to Covina, which does), but just to be safe we suggest that if you plan to apply for citizenship and you have received a real red light camera ticket from a city in LA County, or from the MTA, check with your immigration advisor before ignoring that ticket.
You still will be safe ignoring a Snitch Ticket.

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

“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.”

On Mar. 28, 2012 another LA Weekly article provided important details about ignoring tickets from cities in LA County, including this:

If you end up in traffic court for some other violation, and the judge asks you about that red-light skeleton in your closet, the same ignore-at-all-costs rule applies. "If you then acknowledge, 'I thought those were being dismissed,' you are now under the jurisdiction of the court," says [Attorney Sherman] Ellison.

Here is the proper response from a motorist:

New caption by highwayrobbery.net.
The French comic book illustration by Dzack & Gaby is at http://destasdeblagues.d.e.pic.centerblog.net/16124dd0.jpg and a version in English is at http://imgur.com/gallery/fZ6QR

As of Feb. 5, 2013 the Mar. 2012 article had 50 comments.

Revenue was Down - by Half !

Court-provided revenue reports showed that beginning in June 2011, red light camera ticket revenue dropped, sharply, in LA County.

This graph covers May 2010 to Mar. 2013. The low point was Aug. 2011. For the very latest graph, click on Revenue Spreadsheet, below.

Revenue was off by about half.
But this doesn't mean that half of those ticketed by LA County cities still were paying their camera tickets. It means that if 60% (a guess) were paying their tickets prior to June 2011, right after June it was more like 30%.

Some cities responded by issuing more tickets. The LA County cities of Baldwin Park, Commerce, Covina, Culver City, Hawthorne, Lynwood, Santa Clarita, South Gate, Walnut and West Hollywood increased ticketing by 50% or more. By early 2012, revenue had rebounded for many cities in the County. To see the actual numbers, see this city-by-city and month-by-month...

Revenue Spreadsheet.

Why Did the LA County Court Decide Not to Report Ignored Tickets to the DMV?

The Aug. 2011 press release (above) contains the official explanation. But the cost of providing arraignments and trials for the 100,000+ red light camera tickets issued annually could have been a factor. And in 2012 there was a forced layoff of 1/10th of all Court personnel.

So, Do You Pay, or Play?

The decision to not report ignored tickets to the DMV was by the court, so it applies to ALL red light camera tickets in the county, whether issued by the County sheriff or by the local police department. Thus, were you to ignore the ticket, you would have a lot of company. About 1/3 of the tickets are ignored, so by now there's probably several hundred thousand people - just in LA County - in the same boat as you would be.

Plus, were the court to change its mind, the most you would have to pay is $300 extra. And there could even be an amnesty, like there was in early 2012, with 50% off (see below).

Amnesty!

Do you have an OLD ticket that you've been meaning to pay? From Jan. 1 to June 30, 2012 there was a statewide amnesty for pre-2009 tickets, of all kinds.
The State still needs the money, so maybe the legislators who created this now-expired amnesty will create a new one. You could ask them to do it.
For more info about the amnesty, see the big box near the top of Section # 3, Handling Your Ticket, on the Your Ticket page.

LA City Tickets

There is more information specific to tickets issued by the now-closed City of Los Angeles camera system, in Set # 9 on the LA City Docs page.