Traffic Tickets Expense

[lostkitty]

“to kill the right turn people borders on money grubbing scam.”

Maybe it is an area where people/bikes have a crosswalk, and the 3 second rule would make a lot of sense. They aren’t “killing” the right turn people, just slowing them down a few measly seconds for SAFETY. Jeez.

[BikeRider]

Nancy_s soothsayer, you suck as parents for sure, not I guess. You buy your son a brand new truck and also write a check to solve his traffic problem. Did he work for this truck, or just have it handed to him? Can you say “spoiled brat”? I think a belt to his ass was needed, not a bail out check. 98 MPH. Hmmm, he could have killed himself, or worse, killed some innocent person. When do you plan to let this grown man stand on his own two feet? He’ll get a reality check one day when Mom and Dad can’t fix his problem.

[BikeRider]

CardiffBaseball, you get no sympathy from me. Yeah, big oops. I witnessed what can happen when someone runs a red light. A lady ran a light and T-boned a van with a mom and her kids inside. Bad accident. Hopefully your wife will stay off the cellphone and drive sensible.

[CardiffBaseball]

Oh I never said she didn’t deserve the ticket. I am just surprised at how damn much it costs. Damn sure preventative, and hell why not just charge $1000.

Thanks for assuming she was on the cell phone, which she wasn’t. Can I assume you have an unkept beard, are overweight and lacking in manhood-overcompensating, harley rider?

Also way to go on bashing the other person’s parenting skills. I am sure you are a model parent.

[BikeRider]

CardiffBaseball, I’m overly sensitive to traffic violators because in 2005 a lady turned left into a group of cyclists and took out 3 of the 4 riders. I was the lead rider and my left patella was shattered, requiring three surgeries and leaving me 19% permanently impaired in that leg. Lady never saw us and yes, she was on the phone. We had the ‘right of way’ (yep, dead right), but that didn’t help us much. Two of my buddies didn’t fair much better, one getting both arms broken. The lady got a ticket of ‘failing to yeild right of way’. Should have been attempted murder if you ask me. And as to parenting, I would probably suck as a parent. But, I don’t have any children. I just critique other parents. Kind of like watching a chess game, looking over the player’s shoulder you see all the moves they are missing.

[poorgradstudent]

I’m still interested to hear if people think that traffic penalties should be punative, a deterrant, a revenue source, or some combination therein?

I think people dislike traffic cameras because of the “Big Brother” nature, and they’re always present. At least with live police officers it’s a bit like a game. “Oh, you caught me!”. Alternatively, in the case of an officer, you can direct your anger towards the cop, rather than towards society as a whole, or at the person driving the car.

[CardiffBaseball]

BikeRider, I am curious but it would seem said lady could have been sued. Not that it gets your leg back the way it should be. In any case, one other item here is the profit motive for the company that puts these systems in place which of course drives up the cost of the ticket.

When I finally got around to getting a California License and plates (ignored the 20 day rule), I was leaving the Genessee DMV, and watched someone right beside me miss the light and crunch someone turning left into the intersection. Luckily no passenger in the car turning, so no injury. This person wasn’t merely late into the intersection, there was a good 2 seconds, they just flat didn’t look. Right in front of DMV so cops everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Studies have shown that the ‘red light’ cameras increase accidents, as folks suddenly slam on brakes for fear of running the light and getting a ticket.

Ridiculous, ~$300-400 for a ticket.

Lovely, the conflicts of interest that we have to put up with with government (generating revenue under guise of ‘public safety’).

Lord knows that the only lawyer that I love is my (no longer in practice) wife, but they sure are useful to provide deterrent/punitive action in ridiculous cases.

My idea for highways and streets: assign specific patrolmen responsibility for specific sections of highway or roads, and have them get paid on (1) flow of traffic (higher = better) and (2) injuries, fatalities, and property damage (lower = better). It’s idiotic how much garbage is on the roads (causing flats) and it’s idiotic how long it takes cops to clear accidents. Give ’em an incentive to keep the roads clear, safe, and moving.

[BikeRider]

CardiffBaseball, yes, there was a lawsuit. We all sued her insurance company. It took one year to settle. It takes a long time to go through this type of lawsuit. For one, you have to heal as much as possible, so everyone knows just how bad you are hurt. They base a settlement on the percent of impairment due to the injury. Luckily for all of us, she had a lot of insurance. Three injured riders all at once. The whole experience was a real learning experience. One, I found out that my wife and I had been very under insured. You just don’t think about bad things that can happen and how you need to protect yourself and your assets. If this lady had been an uninsured driver we wouldn’t had gotten much, because we weren’t carrying very high limits at the time. We fixed that. Two, I found out why you should have long term disability insurance. As it was, I had short term insurance through work and it was enough to cover my expenses while I was out of work. If my neck had been broken….. man that would have been bad. Of course the settlement reimbursed all expenses, plus some more $$. As you said, the money doesn’t give me my knee back and I’d rather have my knee working at 100%. The car hit me and my buddies said I went about fifteen feet in the air, spinning like a top. I landed down the road in the ditch. Looked down and where my knee cap used to be was a big dent. I couldn’t get up and both of my legs hurt something awful. Ended up that both knees were hit, but the right knee just had a deep bone bruise and a fracture. The left patella was busted into a bunch of little pieces. The doc put the three biggest pieces back together with pins and wire. I’m 47 now (almost 48), I was 46 at the time. I did road riding to train for mountain bike races. Endurance stuff just for fun. I wasn’t real fast, but could ride for long periods, so was doing 12 hour solo races and 24 hour races. The accident destroyed the cartiledge in my knee, so instant arthritis is the result. I am back cycling again, but not the level as before the accident. I didn’t get enough money out of the settlement to retire (not serious enough injury), but it did give us a nice nest egg. We were already in pretty good shape, so it just made things better. But now there are things I can’t do. I used to run marathons. Not anymore. I can’t run. Can’t squat. The knee just won’t bend enough. My knee just doesn’t work right anymore. I can cycle, but only because I wouldn’t believe the doctor when he said I wouldn’t ever ride again. I made my knee do it. The last time I saw the doctor he told me that he was amazed at my recovery. After the first surgery my knee wouldn’t bend enough to allow a full spin of my bike crank. I would hook my feet under my weight bench and grab my weight rack and force my leg to bend. Tears in the eyes, but over time I got the tendons to stretch back out (or whatever was breaking loose in there). Plus going to physical therapy two days a week for months. It was so much pain involved with recovery, you wouldn’t know. I doubt I will ever race again, though I am going to try someday. I just had my third surgery this past September, so time will tell. I did not know how long it takes to recover from a serious injury. I had never broken anything until that day. All I can say is don’t ever injure a joint. They don’t mend like just breaking a bone.

[Wiley]

Do you really need a $350 fine to persuade you not to run a red light. I know the real motivation is not colliding with whoever might be travelling in the opposite direction. So whats the real motivation of having a camera. It might be a misguided belief that more people will stop but I have my doubts.

I remember reading in the OC register one time about how much money the camera makes daily in San Juan Capistrano (got me one time). I don’t remember but it was unbelievable.

Everyone wants a simple fix to have the perfect world but it doesn’t work that way. Regardless of the laws passed and different means of enforcing them, the same percentage of people are going to do good as well as the percentage of people doing bad.

How many people make 35k a year? We need to fine them 10% of their monthly pretax income to get their attention. I don’t think so. It’s crazy.

[Author]

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