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Boston Police Dept Mailed Stop Light Citation?
MegaMan001
CRNARochester, MNRegistered User regular
CRNARochester, MNRegistered User regular
I just received a mailed citation from the Boston Police Dept. for running a red light on 9/22/2010 and it was written on 09/22/2010, so I'm guessing this means it was written based on a traffic camera?
It's off of Beacon st. and Deerfield which is one of the messier intersections in that part of town. It is where Commonwealth Ave and Beacon St. intersect next to Kenmore Square (which is by Fenway). It's a pretty difficult intersection and traffic at 6pm (which is when it was written) is terrible.
It basically becomes a go-kart track, of course that's not really an excuse I could use to get out of the $150 bucks.
I am wondering if anyone has any experience with traffic hearings and citations in general or if this is even worth the effort? I'm currently in my anesthesia residency so I'd have to take a day off of that to do it anyway, which may not be worth it.
Thoughts?
It's off of Beacon st. and Deerfield which is one of the messier intersections in that part of town. It is where Commonwealth Ave and Beacon St. intersect next to Kenmore Square (which is by Fenway). It's a pretty difficult intersection and traffic at 6pm (which is when it was written) is terrible.
It basically becomes a go-kart track, of course that's not really an excuse I could use to get out of the $150 bucks.
I am wondering if anyone has any experience with traffic hearings and citations in general or if this is even worth the effort? I'm currently in my anesthesia residency so I'd have to take a day off of that to do it anyway, which may not be worth it.
Thoughts?
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This was also during a Red Sox night game and I was driving close to the stadium with a large amount of traffic and if I did run the red light, it was to avoid getting rear ended and slamming on my breaks.
Again, I have a completely clean record.
The citation does have an officer's name on it, if it was a traffic camera do they always send a picture?
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I'm assuming then there's a typo in your OP? Both the dates you listed are 9/22, so I was wondering why you thought it was definitely a camera since it was the same date.
I don't know if it's required or always the case, but in my experience traffic camera tickets come with a picture.
Unless you can easily spare a day to go to court -- and it sounds like you maybe can't -- it's probably not worth the time. If you can go, since you have no other past tickets/offenses, you might be able to get it reduced, but there's no guarantee. Personally I'd just pay it.
The Date of Offense is 09/22 and the Date of Citation is 09/23 which seems sketchy to me? It didn't come with a photo so it's a cop I suppose.
I think I am going to take a swing at fighting this and see what happens. At least get an answer at why the dates are incorrect.
How long ago was that? I deal with automated DC red light / speeding tickets on a regular basis (not mine!) and they all have color photographs detailing the offense.
Sounds like it's someone's job to go through the previous day's red light pictures and write citations, the date thing doesn't seem too irregular to me.
So, no real reason to go contest it in court since I'm sure they have a photo of me.
Also, MA now charges you $25 to just see a mediator about your ticket.
This thread can be locked and I'll be a more defensive driver regardless of spending 14 hours in the OR.
Depending on the state you could have to go to an 8 hour defensive driving course for running a red light. At least, in Arizona you do.
If you try that in tax court they'll fine you five thousand dollars. At least in traffic court all that would happen is the judge would laugh at you.
They were taken down after something like three months because everyone who was caught by one said that they weren't the driver. With no way for the police to identify the driver, most of those cases were thrown out. Oh yeah, something about First Amendment rights or something also helped. Main point is, you could probably use the "I wasn't driving and you can't prove that it was me driving, so therefore I cannot be issued a ticket" kind of defense.
About two years ago, I think. I ended up in court, ready to argue that the thing might be miscalibrated, but every single person I was there with, myself included, got let off because the county name on our license plates wasn't clearly visible.
Edit: And it's not not on the up and up to argue "You can't prove I was driving" if they don't have a clear photo of the driver. That's the crux of the argument against these things, that your right to confront your accuser is gone.
Law and Order has taught me that it's generally a bad idea to do so and that McCoy will throw me in contempt.
After speaking to a few Boston natives I've been told it's not a terrible idea to contest these things. In fact, according to the Boston Globe nearly 40% are overturned by the person showing up at all.
I plan to explain that one, I have only lived in Boston since January and this was only my second day driving in downtown rush hour traffic (during a night Red Sox game even) and I was trying to drive as defensively as possible by moving with the flow of traffic and not slamming on my brakes at intersections and risk a collision with the person behind me.
Second, I have 9 years of safe driving discounts through my insurance company and have never been pulled over or cited for a moving violation. I'll bring my State Farm documents with me.
Third, and this is certainly the weakest argument, but I'm simply not that aggressive of a driver. I've worked in emergency departments as a nurse and now as an anesthesia resident. I've seen the results of these accidents and I'm mortified that I was in an intersection because of the risks involved. I don't remember running a red light and if I did, it was to prevent another collision. If I had been pulled over by an officer, I would have been more ashamed and embarrassed than anything.
I don't remember it happening and I don't think it did. If they have a photo, then those are my arguments of how the photo doesn't tell the entire story.
What's the worse that happens? I lose a day showing up to the mediator and pay the fine anyway. Best case scenario I keep this off of my record and get a reduced fine.
Either way, I've learned a lesson about driving more defensively and being aware of traffic signals more accurately.
Nowhere in this thread does the OP state that they ran the red. Traffic cam pics are supposed to get reviewed by human eyes before citations are mailed out, as I implied in my previous post, it is not uncommon for false positives to get sent out anyway. If you ask to see the picture and you're "running" a yellow light, you should be cleared. If you ask to see the picture and you are running the red, you'll obviously be paying the fine in full.
The OP seems fairly sure that he was in the intersection at the time of the picture, so it would really be best if everyone dropped that right now and I am really not kidding.
Whether or not I ran the red I am not sure, I am 95% certain it would have been yellow because I don't run red lights. I never have before and don't plan to start now.
Which is why I am going to go in and tell my side of the story as I enumerated on page 1.
This really can be locked, I have enough advice and I've made my decision to contest the citation and see what happens. I think it's worth the day off of my residency to find out how these things work in the future.
Lessons have been learned. Experience has been gained. Life will move on.