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Red Light Ticket

The setting: June 2025, a clear day. I'm in my convertible but with the roof up, driving through the confusing streets of San Francisco, just minding my own business and trying not to die. I turned right at an intersection and next thing I know BAM! A flash of light! What was that? A traffic camera? Was I speeding? Was it someone else? After I got my bearings, I realized I was doing nothing unsafe. A little shaken, I continued on with my day and forgot about it.

Let me preface this by saying I've never had a moving violation before in my life. Of course, I will follow the flow of traffic on highways, but I will always stop at stop signs, use my turn signals, give other drivers and pedestrians plenty of space, constantly be aware of my surroundings, buckle up, and never go on my phone while driving.

Receiving a Ticket

Weeks later, I got a mysterious letter in the mail. What could it be? It was addressed by the Superior Court of San Francisco. My heart sank a bit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be good. I opened the letter and realized I got captured doing a right turn on red. Remembering back to that day, I was a bit confused since there was no indication that right turns on red were illegal. I even checked on Google Maps street view in that location and could not find a no right turn on red sign.

Unfortunately, this letter came with a pin code to view a short recording online. Of course I wanted to see what this bamboozlement was all about. I watched the video, and this is what I saw.

  1. Light turns yellow
  2. Car-in-front makes a right turn
  3. Light turns red
  4. Within a second, I slow down and make a right turn, with my blinker on
  5. I promptly exit the intersection
  6. There are still other cars in the intersection

The whole time I was thinking "what did they get me for?" The reason for the citation was in fact a right turn on red. It still didn't really make sense to me, so I explained my situation to an AI chat bot. It explained back that after the light becomes red, the fact that I didn't STOP COMPLETELY technically validates the citation.

Really.

Fight or Pay

This citation came with a steep fine: $500 and one point on my driving record. I could waive the point by taking an online course and paying an additional administrative fee of $50, bringing the grand total to over $550.

For reference, this is the same fine amount for someone speeding over 100mph in city streets!

The follow-up instructions on the citation were unclear, so fortunately the AI chatbot I was using came in clutch. I had to send a physical letter back to the Superior Court basically telling them what I wanted to do. Confused at everything, I sent a check with the total amount and requested a court date for trial in my letter. I studied up on defenses I could use by watcing traffic court hearings online.

A few days later, someone from the court received my letter, called me back and went over my options, which opened up a whole new path I could take. As it turns out, what I was erroneously trying to do was to plead not guilty and request trial. For this, I didn't have to mail a check. Another option is to plead guilty and pay the fine (by mail or online - but who would pay by mail these days? Oh, wait.) The third, kind of secret option, is to plead no contest and go to a court hearing. The hearing is not a trial, it's simply a read out of the charges against you and you basically agree not to contest the charges for a reduced fine. You do not have to present a defense.

I weighed my options for a bit. Clearly, pleading guilty was right out. I could...

  1. Plead not guilty and go to trial. This would be a longer process, and I would need a defense. There is a chance I could win and free myself from the fine and traffic school, but also a chance I could lose the trial and pay the full fine. In that case I would have wasted all that time spent.
  2. Plead no contest and go to the hearing. This is a shorter time commitment and a guarantee that the fine would be reduced. But by how much, was unknown. So I guess they could reduce it by a few dollars to waste my time.

I decided against option 1 (not guilty), because I was worried what kind of judge would be working that day. Despite how safe and normal my driving was, technically, the evidence shows I did something illegal. It would only take a judge with a bad morning to say "nope, we have you on video, get out of here." So I went with option 2 (no contest) and set a hearing date.

The Hearing

A few weeks later, I headed over to the Superior Court (by bus - no way am I going to risk driving) and I had to walk through a metal detector to get in. There was about 30-40 people waiting out front of the traffic courtroom and we all went in at the same time. We watched a short video explaining our rights and the judge came in. She called people in order of last name and read each one their various charges, and presented their options.

Most people went with the no contest plea for the reduced fine, but a large handful of people opted for the trial date. One person in particular surprised me who asked for the trial date, but didn't want to see the evidence against him.

I was the very last person in the room to be called up. I asked for the no contest plea and was finally free from that courtroom. This dropped my fine from $550 to about $350 with traffic school. Not bad. I did waste about 3 or 4 hours of my day, but I say the savings were worth it.

The Aftermath

The following week, I signed up for online traffic school (only $5) and was able to complete it within a few hours. I promptly paid my citation balance to finally get this mess behind me.

After this experience, I've decided to minimize or completely stop driving into San Francisco. I've always had frustrations driving through those city streets, and this was the final push for me. San Francisco is a great city but it is not driver-friendly at all. Thankfully, it's relatively easy to get into the city without a car if need be.

It sucks that I was the one that got caught, especially with so many bad drivers out there. But, I get the point of all this. Driving is dangerous, for drivers and pedestrians. It only takes a second to make a fatal mistake, and it really can happen to anyone. This experience did help me remember that I should continue to be a safe and defensive driver, and pay close attention to drivers even when I'm not in a vehicle.