HEAR ME OUT--Any Angeleno worth his or her salt has had a moving violation or two, perhaps a fix-it ticket. You’re focused on NPR or your favorite Coldplay song when you notice those flashing lights in the rear view mirror. Your heartrate explodes as though you were in the middle of spin class. “License, registration, and insurance, please.” A couple hundred bucks and if you haven’t had a ticket in the past 18 months, along with a few other restrictions, you can drop an extra $64 plus the cost of traffic school to avoid raising your insurance rates.
When I first moved to California, traffic school meant sitting in a room of LA stereotypes, a B-list celebrity, a handful of screenwriters and struggling actors, while an aspiring stand-up entertained with lame traffic jokes. Nowadays, you’re sitting in front of your computer screen waiting till you can click forward to the next page.
Last May, I was on my way home from dropping my daughter at school when I saw those alarming lights in the rear view mirror. I pulled over, handed the officer my license when he noted it was my birthday. Instead of giving me a ticket for going a few miles over the speed limit, he gave me a fix-it ticket for a missing front plate, which seemed like a gift. Little did I know.
Fix-it tickets are given for issues like broken tail lights, tinted windows, and yes, missing front plates, though plenty of drivers on the road seem to be lacking that plate. Once you complete the necessary repairs, you can pay $25 and go on your way. If you choose not to make the repairs, the fine skyrockets to $197 in my case, a no-brainer. Plus, if you’re caught again for the same offense, you will keep racking up violations and fines.
It’s not so easy. Since I would not be able to get a copy of my existing plate, I would need to purchase two new plates from the DMV, which had a wait of several weeks for an appointment. I checked just about every DMV office in a 60-mile radius and determined which offices had shorter wait times for drop-ins. I ended up spending a few hours at the Winnetka DMV in the heart of the Valley.
My number had finally come up on the monitor. I paid my $19, left my driver’s license as collateral to borrow a small screwdriver to remove my back license plate. I drove to the dealer to find out I would need to pay $286 for a bracket to hold my new plate. (I later discovered California Vehicle Code requires that a dealer must not deliver a motor vehicle unless the vehicle is “equipped with a bracket or other means of securing a front license plate” unless the dealer has a signed written acknowledgement from the person taking delivery of the vehicle.)
I was fuming that this misstep of the dealer would end up costing me $300, give or take, when a salesman approached me about trading in my car early. Since I was close to the mileage limitation, I decided maybe time was on my side. Before signing off, I confirmed with the sales manager that the fix-it ticket would not be an issue. She ensured me I could bring the Release of Liability form to the court, which would count as confirmation I had fixed the missing plate.
The next day, I drove to the Chatsworth Superior Court with my papers in hand, waited about an hour for the clerk at the traffic window. (Apparently, the court clerks are so highly specialized that those in the adoption/name change window spend much of the day waiting around while the busier clerks have long lines to see them.)
When I had finally approached the window, the clerk told me I’d need a court date to show the judge since she was unable to process my paperwork. That court date was over six months out.
If I had chosen to keep the car, I could have driven by the sheriff’s department with my new front plate for certification -- for a fee, of course.
Following a mix-up with the court date, the fine had now increased to $880, which, exasperated, I was about to pay. When I explained what had happened to a clerk on the phone, she advised me to show up at court an hour before it opened to get a walk-in appointment to save some money.
I was first in line, arriving while it was still dark and when others began to show up, I heard all their stories. As soon as the doors had opened, we were instructed to go downstairs to the courtroom after going through security when we were supposed to go back to the clerk’s window. Although it was only 8:30 am by now, I was given a 1:30 pm court time. By the time the judge arrived, it was closer to 2:15 pm. I had listened to dozens of cases before my turn.
After all that, I showed the judge my papers and ended up with my case dismissed, which required a $25 dismissal fee.
What did I learn from that harrowing experience in traffic court?
If you should ever get a moving violation, take the court date. It’s a gamble but if the cop doesn’t show, the case is dismissed and you’re only out $25.
Traffic violations and fix-it tickets require lots of waiting, patience, and fees. The state will get you coming and going. I even noticed a sign that those who would take community service in lieu of paying a fine would still have to pay a fee, sometimes $100 or more, just to be able to do community service.
Make sure to put the correct date in your calendar and show up. Quite a few people at the court that day had missed their court dates, although the judge eventually dismissed their “failure to appear” charges once they paid an additional $25 dismissal fee.
The labyrinth of traffic violations and fix-it tickets is frustrating, costly at every turn, and time-consuming. But eventually, you will get through it – all the while vowing to judiciously watch that speed dial, never leave the house without your license, registration, and insurance papers. And don’t even think about having that second glass of wine.
(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles-based writer and CityWatch contributor.) Prepped for CItyWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 100
Pub: Dec 11, 2015
Traffic Court: An LA Story
