Go ~

Red rover, Red rover; Send your traffic ticket right over

I was driving down a street when the light quickly changed from yellow to red. The light changed waay too quick. I hope that red light camera wasn’t on. I hope I don’t get a ticket from showing this house to a customer who’s not going to use me to buy any house. But knowing me I probably would get a $500 ticket out of this incident and that customer probably seriously wasn’t going to use me to make an offer on a house. I probably just wasted my time and then got charged a $500 bill for nothing. But hopefully that red light camera wasn’t activated.

Well just my luck I received a citation in the mail for running a red light. But I knew something was fishy. It just didn’t pass the smell test. So after I got the ticket in the mail I had to go look myself and verify on line.

Well they caught me red-handed, so to speak. I was a superstar! There was my face, my visage, on video! I looked at all the information on the ticket. Yup. There it was. 3.52 seconds yellow time said the video capture. Definitely felt short to me.

So I pulled out my handy, dandy Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, California Edition, Revised 2021. And what does it say for yellow light timing? That yellow light was way too short. Contesting this ticket for sure.

So I showed up and had my day in court! NOT GUILTY I plead! You ain’t taking a pound of flesh out of me! I got this engineering manual behind me to back me up! So I presented my case to the Judge.

“I received a red light infraction only because the yellow light timing at this intersection is itself set illegally. Therefore it follows that any red light citations at this intersection shall be rendered moot because of the improper and illegal timing set by the City of Citrus Heights. In the following I will show why. 

Citrus Heights is a “general law” city, which means it is organized in accordance with provisions of the State Law in the Government Code. 

The California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices in Chapter 7E, Section 4D.26 Yellow Change and Red Clearance Intervals, Paragraph 14b says, “The minimum yellow change interval for through traffic movement shall be determined by using the 85th percentile speed of free-flow traffic rounded up to the next 5 mph increment. Where the posted or prima facie speed limit is higher than the rounded value, use the posted or prima facie speed limit for determination of the minimum yellow change interval for the through traffic movement.” See Table 4D-102.

What does Table 4D-102 say? 

It says that for posted speed limits of 40mph the minimum yellow interval shall be 4.4 seconds. On the City’s own red light camera it shows that the posted speed limit for this intersection is 40mph and the yellow interval is only 3.52 seconds. Thus, the City’s yellow interval does not meet the legal State standard. Were this intersection to be set at the legally defined minimum standard, I would not be cited for a red light infraction. It is impossible to safely and properly come to a complete stop in under 3.52 seconds. This is why the State sets minimum standards for stopping distances and times. The City of Citrus Heights has not met this standard. 

In addition, you’ll see that I was not even traveling that fast across this intersection. I was only driving 18mph; even within that time frame one cannot safely come to a complete stop prior to the intersection. At the 25mph limit in a school zone ( which does not apply here because this was on a non-school day)  the minimum yellow interval shall be 3.6 seconds. Once again, even at this lower threshold, the City did not meet the legal standard set by the State. 

I adjure the court to wipe away this so called infraction based on illegal standards and that the City of Citrus Heights set the signal timing for this intersection to the legal standard as required by the State. I rest my case.”

That was the starting script. Of course there was a city representative there. She too had her script. But her script couldn’t compete with my script. We had a short back and forth. I didn’t deny the facts of the situation but I noted there is a legal issue here that the City is not adhering to. In fact they have implemented an illegal standard. After receiving the evidence and hearing the presentation from both sides, the Judge could not make a decision on the bench. So he said he would take it back with him and do some research for a few days.

A few weeks later I come back from the DR to receive a lovely letter in my mail.

Victory!

In the case of the The People vs. Lee, Lee wins!

Suckas!