My Ticket

This ticket was dumped in my snail mailbox a week after the supposed event.

This ticket was also ill-prepared, and no human was evidently accountable to explain it to me although somewhere one was supposedly on the hook to show up in court if I pushed for a trial.

Had this ticket been issued by a police officer, I would've been pretty sure it was for real. I would have been told clearly what the ticket was for, how to address it, and I would've been able to ask questions about anything I didn't understand.

As it turns out, it was issued by some headless, automatic, big brother camera system that seemed to be above all of those niceties with no associated accountable human.

The ticket in many paragraphs of fine print essentially conveyed, "Pay the fine or contest the ticket." I had one month.


How much is the fine? The ticket said "Bail amount: [See Courtesy Notice]" but look all through the form and the envelope it came in, I could not find such notice. (Must be free then.) I guess I'd have to work for that number. And if I didn't, my situation was bound to get worse, or so the ticket promised.

But wait - should I even do anything with this? Is this legal? Can this sloppy work be legal? Could be mail spam.

A web search turned up a number of sites explaining how to tell a fraud mail ticket from a real one. If the ticket comes from such-n-such an address and has these other attributes, it should be deemed as real. Gee, maybe they could put a dmv URL on the ticket so that the recipient can easily verify that it is real.

This adventure was like being chosen to involuntarily participate in a geo-caching event where I had to pay for every item, which I was forced to find.

As I reviewed the ticket, I saw images with associated data, including speed and timestamp.

[It sure seems that the piece of paper I received informing me of my infraction should be public record. As soon as I can be sure of that, I will post pics here.]

I tried to figure out what it was saying. It did say "Red Light Violation". But nothing on this paper ticket proved that no matter what subset of data I considered or how I imagined the meaning of each piece of data.

The ticket included two images of my vehicle, each with associated timestamps and speeds. The speed marked on each image was 26 mph. Did that mean that that was the speed they clocked me at in each of these images? If I tried that with my vehicle, it would be strewn about in pieces across the intersection. The two different timestamps showed me traveling about 12 feet in 2 seconds, which is far from 26mph. So what did this number mean? Maybe it was an error? Maybe some equipment needed to be recalibrated?

I already had to act to find out the #$@ fee of the thing. I would go to the window to see if the person could answer this question about the 26mph notation too.

After a half hour wait with 25 other people for one functioning window out of 6 physically available but not staffed, I was able to learn that the price of the ticket was $490. $490??! For my 2mph rolling stop? Why?! Why is this so high? For something so innocuous that everyone does, everyone except for four people who told me adamantly that they always stop - but then one admitted weeks later that they probably don't stop every time. Even a cop admitted to doing this when he's off duty.

So what gives? Am I totally out of whack with rising prices, stuck in some decade past? How much is a speeding ticket? Does it vary given the number of mph one might be going over? How do stop sign and stop light fees differ? How about using a cellphone while driving? Not wearing a seatbelt? I got some hints at these other fees while attending court sessions and no other infraction came close to this $490 fee.

I showed her the ticket and asked if she could explain what this 26mph meant. Maybe she grunted or offered a desperate head nod to the left right left right. I read her reaction as, "Oh please, no, I can't tell you ANYTHING or else I'll lose my job." She was kind enough, though, to give me one more month to resolve it.

I wrote a letter asking about the meaning of the 26mph. I received a curt reply with bold text directing me to pay the fine or contest the ticket.

Where else could I go to get information about this ticket? I went online to arrange a date to contest it. In court. Three months later.

This ticket may not have come with a police officer or a responsible human being or an adequate explanation. But it came with the threat of adding points to my record, taking my license away, and maybe even possible arrest if I ignored it.

Oh, and it did come with a video link.

However, to view the video I had to install a plug-in. What year is this? How many people and businesses post videos these days that don't need plug-ins to view them? Why would this video need a plug-in? From county government? In 2013?

The plug-in wouldn't load on my old machine. And I didn't try it on my new one. I don't load plug-ins lightly on my main working machine and I wasn't going to start now.

The woman at the window did say I could drive a half hour to see the video in the city where this ominous $490 infraction took place. I decided against adding to global warming for this and wondered if I had a friend nearby who might be willing to try and view it. After a few weeks, I found a friend who didn't care about loading the plug-in, not having the Big Brother and hacker concerns like I had.

Sure enough, there I am, Not stopping at the stop line, which happens to be a full car length behind the lane to my left.

[It sure seems that the video which is critical to the case against me and which is admissible in court should be public record. As soon as I can be sure of that, I will post the video here.]

I must have crossed it at a derelict 2 mph. At the point where it really mattered - where I could have actually run into a car - I was going maybe 0.1 mph. Is this ticket for the stop line or for the other point where it was much more important for safety reasons? Can't be sure but I'm guessing an infraction at the latter point which had more critical possibilities would have been considered something like Wreckless Driving. If an officer had issued this, I would know. When it comes from a camera, I'm on my own.

For this particular intersection, the stop line is a full car length back from the lane to my left, not because of anything in front of me but because of a crosswalk to my right.

Placing the stop line there may seem logical to one designing the intersection. But given the rarity of that large of a dropback due to something not in front of the driver, it seems like a trap. Some say we all need to pay attention for oddities like that. I agree to a certain extent. And much is done to make things look predictable so that we're all not having to navigate a totally new driving situation every time. Putting a camera on this one still makes it seem like a trap to me.


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Why isn't the crosswalk across Rollins one whole crosswalk width back into Rollins Rd.? That seems like it would be more typical.

I looked via google maps along El Camino to find another intersection with this anomaly or something similar and I couldn't find one. Now that I'm hyperaware of how atypical the design can be, I still have not come across an intersection similarly atypical in my months of driving and looking for this since I received this ticket.

Full car length setback for stop line

Clear view of anything approaching from the right for many tens of feet as one comes up to this light

View on Millbrae Ave. before turning right onto Rollins Rd. and into BART parking lot

As it turns out, I didn't breach that crosswalk across Rollins Rd. until after deeming that no traffic or errant pedestrians were coming from my left. But, sure, others could start bearing right immediately after crossing the stop line.

It is very clear and easy to see at this corner that there is nothing in the way or even 20 feet away from possibly being in the crosswalk makes no difference here. Every driver has a full view to see that even something as small as a young child is not even close to possibly darting into the crosswalk in the next 10 seconds.

Discretion in applying this law at this intersection seems nonexistent. Some might say discretion should never be applied, that that can and has resulted in unjust application via profiling. I agree that it can result in unjust application. If I had heard that profiling had been going on and now was being brought into balance by giving me a ticket, I'd be just a tad happy to have received this ticket. A tad. A very small tad. But no profiling story has surfaced as of this writing.

I would also argue that discretion is used all the time, often not resulting in profiling, and that we cannot help but use discretion because we have limited resources. Do we really want an environment where each and every person is forced to follow each law to the letter all the time, especially when many don't follow it and no harm comes of it, especially when many in law enforcement don't follow it and no harm comes of it?

But in my case, the camera can pick up the tiniest infraction of this sort with the tiniest of overhead on this atypically designed intersection. The law exists. And the fee is the fee. Amen.

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