Originally Posted by
GriddleCakes
Please, don't do this. This is one of the reasons that the U.S. justice system is so slow and inefficient. Sure, you might get out of the ticket, but not without cost. It costs money to employee the judge, prosecutors, bailiffs, and other court officials to hear your, frankly, unethical legal challenge; money that comes from the pocket of every U.S. taxpayer. If you ran the light, then you know you are guilty. If you know you are guilty, then it is most definitely unethical to plead otherwise. And it wastes the system's time to have to hear your spurious challenge, time that could have been used to address another citizen's possibly reasonable challenge.
We all have the right to challenge the justice system, and it's a right we must have to ensure that our justice system remains just and our citizenry remains free. But, as citizens responsible for keeping our society both orderly and free, we also have a responsibility to use that right wisely; not just for our own personal gain, but for the good of our society as a whole. Every one of us that wastes the court's time creates a little more drag in the system, a tiny twig in the dam of waste that slows the flow of justice.
By weaseling out of a ticket, by taking advantage of our communal rights for your own personal gain, you cost all of us. You cost us in misspent tax monies. You cost us in safety and order; how can laws be enforced if everyone can avoid the consequences of lawbreaking? It might suck to get a ticket, but it surely would suck worse to live in a city where stopping at red lights was a suggestion rather than a rule. And you cost us a efficient justice system, which robs us all of our right to an expeditious trial.
OP, do the right thing. Pay the fine, learn your lesson, get on with life. Too many people avoid their responsibilities in our society, and we all suffer as a consequence. Sure, they have the right to do so, but that does not make it the right thing to do.
I would have agreed with this in the past. However, with the new approach to electronic tracking, along with the new philosophy that says, "good people do not make mistakes, any illegal acts are evidence of bad character," make any admission of guilt in to a, potential, life long mistake. As has been mentioned, potential employers want driving records, as proof of character. When I was a CPS investigator, driving records were used in court as evidence of character.
Further, such an admission will have the potential may raise your insurance rates, so the cost is not just the $270, you may pay that in increased auto insurance just in the first year. The fact that th eincident was on a bicycle is, often, not considered relevant; after all, it is evidence of character. As has been already mentioned, it will weigh against you in future traffic court, and other courts.
Tell the truth, pay the price, and move on was good advise once; but no longer. The new approach to electronic tracking and linking information, along with the assumption that any error is evidence of ill character, make any fight a fight worth fighting.
Yes, going this far for a red light is madness. However, a system that allows a red light violation to haunt you for years is its own kind of madness.