Red Light Camera News Turning On Red: Doing (Or Not) the “California Stop.” (Part 1)
http://sanrafael.patch.com/articles/turning-on-red-doing-or-not-the-california-stop
Turning On Red: Doing (Or Not) the “California Stop.”
How over-priced red-light camera tickets are ruining California's day ... and week ... and month.
By Richard Rapaport | Email the author | October 22, 2010
Even if the letter was marked "Courtesy Notice," there was nothing even remotely courteous about the early-March post from the Marin County Superior Court's Traffic Division to Alan Lefkort, the now-retired San Francisco advertising legend. The missive was in fact a traffic ticket from late February, the result of a photo snapped by a recently installed automated camera on the corner of Third and Irwin streets in downtown San Rafael.
The series of photos showed Lefkort's BMW taking a turn from Third onto Irwin with a sort of lazy sweep affectionately known as a "California stop." In this case the infraction involved Lefkort taking a left-hand turn from one one-way street onto another one-way street, an act so benign that, in his film "Sleeper," Woody Allen referenced it as one of the few positive features of California.
The infraction was nominally termed a "failure to stop at red light," but what really turned Lefkort's normally benign demeanor stoplight crimson was the "bail amount due." The fine was not $50 or $100, but rather a heart-stopping, bank-account-busting $445.
The third of the four enclosed photos showed a front view of the car with a dot effacing the passenger, in this case, Alan Lefkort's wife, Anita. The final photo zoomed in on the rear license, and also happened to capture the image of a walking stick resting on the rear window deck. The cane offered one reason why the episode should have shamed authorities into reducing or eliminating the fine altogether and why the whole episode was so utterly un-Marin and nothing less that a digital mugging.
Lefkort tried to explain the unfairness in a letter to the judicial officer, in this case, Marin County Superior Court Commissioner William Hochman. The proceeding was scarily titled the "People of the State of California vs. Defendant: Lefkort, Alan." In his letter, Lefkort tried to explain that he had learned to drive serving in the 97th Infantry Division, an outfit which during World War II, served in both the European and Pacific theaters of operations, as well as liberating the Flossenburg concentration camp. The 84-year-old veteran also wondered, "if the fine might not be mitigated by the fact that I have had a nearly spotless 65-year driving record, not even a fender-bender, something of a record," he hopefully noted.
Admitting "the photos tell the story," Lefkort agreed that he had made "a wrong call" in continuing through the intersection rather than stopping short and risking a rear-ender. Throwing himself on court's mercy, Lefkort asked if the Judge had "any advice" to share. Whether the judge did or not, was hard to tell; in the charge sheet, Hochman did not even bother to sign the document, his name was rubber-stamped instead. This would have been bad enough, but to add injury to insult, the court added an additional $49 to the fine, presumably for the time not taken to read and respond to Lefkort's missive. They even managed to spell Lefkort's name wrong.
Adding even more insult and injury, was the fact that Lefkort's notice was sent not from San Rafael, but rather from Phoenix, Ariz., seemingly out-of-the-jurisdiction of Marin County. The answer was that Redflex Camera Systems, the company that has installed and managed San Rafael's "Candid Camera" system, handles its U.S. business from Arizona. What made this so galling was the fact that Arizona is a pariah state that many Californians currently go out of their way to avoid if not boycott altogether. Redflex, which takes a percentage of the catch, is helping ruin people's days and getting major chunks o' change in return. But not only is Redflex employing Arizonans rather than locals, but is also sending its profits offshore to Australia, the company's corporate home.
In August 2010, recognizing a rancid smell emanating from the "turn-on red" controversy, San Mateo Democratic Assemblyman, Jerry Hill introduced AB 909. Hill had noticed that in San Mateo as well as Marin, the introduction of traffic camera's had led to a huge increase in the overall number of tickets, which, coupled with stratospheric fines provided both Redflex and county governments with an ill-gotten windfall. To re-jigger the equation, Hill introduced legislation designed to keep red-light-camera fines in equilibrium with the more sporting and human activity of a cop actually catching a 'turn-on-redder' in mid-intersection, and writing a ticket on the spot. Hill's "correction" was designed to bring the fee down from $445 to a more manageable $220 fixing what Hill called an initial "drafting error," that included the fines that were taking the breath away from Alan Lefkort and many other Californians.
A happy ending? Not quite. In August 2010, the State Legislature passed ABA 909, but the following month it was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who argued that "modifying existing law to make red-light violations from a turn less egregious sends the wrong message to the public."
In the meantime, Alan Lefkort, along with several thousand other gouged Californians eagerly await the coming-to-their-senses of jurists like Hochman who seem to have put profits ahead of justice, never a good thing.
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