Dismissing Traffic Tickets

Getting tickets dismissed in court no longer an option… or so it would seem. According to sources inside the LAPD, officers testifying in traffic court are being strongly urged to “testify to the best of their ability” rather than agree to have traffic citations dismissed because they don’t recall the details of a specific case.

As you may have noticed (or been the recipient of one), traffic tickets seems to be on the increase lately and why not? They are a great source of revenue. Considering that a photo red light ticket goes for close to $500 and we’ve seen a proliferation of these tattle tale devices cropping up all over the state. Defensive driving has taken a whole new meaning.

In a very good article by Joel Rubin of the Los Angeles Times in October 2010, he details the specifics of internal memos that require LAPD officers to testify in court even if they don’t remember the facts at all. They are further asked to have notes on the citation that would assist them in court rather than have the ticket dismissed should their memory be faulty regarding a particular situation.

This has created a bit of a problem with the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which doesn’t want to create an environment of unreasonable expectations on the part of the officers who may be writing dozens of citations each and every day.

The article cites that over a half million tickets had been written by LAPD officers from January to August 2010… and that doesn’t include the Sheriff’s Department. You do the math. The fact that these officers may face disciplinary action for allowing the citations to be dismissed due to their inability to recollect the details of what led to issuing the traffic ticket in the first place seems somewhat extreme.