^ Yea i was gonna say how much is the surcharge?

I wonder how much Emanuel paid for this?

How do they determine the actual fine? That is incredibly vague.

I once got a jaywalking ticket in L.A. The face value of the ticket was something like $35. The actual amount I had to pay was around $280. Totally ridiculous.

fight it, it can't get any worse

Trackstanding start, you can make it at least halfway through an intersection in 1.5 seconds. And if the light is still red that's going to look like a pretty blatant RLJ.

Dang, I see a number of cars pulled over in my area every single week.

How does one fight an obvious RLJ to which he has already admitted to committing here in this thread? What would be the point of trying? To insult the judge's intelligence?

Add this to the end of your google searches:
And it should bring up predominantly BF stuff.

I have found that Judges don't really care what is right, wrong, or appropriate.

However, if the light is on a switch, and there is no reasonable way to reliably trigger the switch, and no cars sitting on the switch, then one might be able to fight the citation. Especially after ascertaining there is no cross traffic.

Also, one could argue that T-intersections into bike lanes, or perhaps right turns into bike lanes operate independent of traffic flow.

Except the location in question is 2 cross streets with center dividing lines on both streets, and traffic lights in all directions. OP was going west on W Madison and jumped the light at N Woods St.

Just a quick bit of Google Maps trolling using the info in the OP. :)

If he stopped and then did go with no traffic, or knew that the light would not change from detecting his bike, then yeah I suppose fighting it would be a possibility. Lots of time and hassle, though, plus more money probably if you lose.

Illinois has a law applying to motocyclists and bicyclists allowing them to proceed on a red light after waiting for 120 seconds. Also, the law does not apply in the city of Chicago.

Really? My commute is from River North, through Old Town and Lincoln Park.
(Are you in Chicago? See your tag says Memphis...my commute details may be irrelevant)

I lived in a small town. Part of my regular commute was a 4way stop at an intersection. On my way out, the road to the right is one way coming out, so there's no left to right cross traffic in that approach. Sight lines are immense, hundreds of feet in all directions, so I usually slowed for the intersection, but rarely stopped, and in some cases, just blew through it at speed.

One of the times I totally blew the stop, there was a car parked in a lot to the right, just before the intersection. As I go by, I have time to think, "Wait, was that a..." and then I'm through the intersection. So blatant.

Cop honked his horn to let me know he'd seen me, I acknowledged with a wave. No chase, no ticket. If I'd got one, I would have accepted it gracefully and paid the "I'm an idiot" tax...

Nah not in Chicago, just relating my experiences in Memphis and surrounding areas.

From what I could get out of the person at the department that handles these citations, the administrative hearing officer will determine the final amount at the hearing next month.

That's what they told Josef K.

the purpose to fighting a ticket is to win. he learned his lesson.

I fight all my tickets. haven't lost a case in 20 years. the last one took 14 months but it was dismissed

pay your tickets and rack up the points if you want to but you don't have to. again, you have nothing to lose.

Impressive. But isn't it easier to not get tickets in the first place?

I once had a coworker asking around about a good speed detector after getting like ticket number 3. I said, "Give me $200 and I'll tell you how to never get a speeding ticket again."

The punchline is "don't speed", right?

Only 14 months?

It took me a decade to get a dozen citations dismissed.

For the most part that is true.

But, there are cases of blatant police harassment where one has no choice but to fight the citations in court.

I got a 490$ ticket for going around the interesection and waving at a cop, stupid cops in california.

At least here there are number of potential responses to a ticket. You can send it in and pay the price as indicated. You can bring it to a representative of the court (not sure what they're called) who if you have an otherwise good record will cut a deal with you. In the case of a speeding ticket I got a few years ago, you'd either get a reduced fine or the option of keeping it off your record if you don't get ticketed again in the next 12 months. Note: They don't care what your excuse is.

Lastly you can take it to court and hope the police officer doesn't show up, and they often don't because it's not worth their time. If they don't, you're off the hook. You used to be able to plea "Guilty with explanation" and maybe the judge would cut you some slack. Don't know if you can do that anymore.

Chicago is probably completely different.

From the county's perspective (or whatever the jurisdiction is), it's pretty expensive to spend a court's time on a $200 ticket and I think ultimately that's why fighting them often results in favor of the person who got the ticket.

I'm glad that people have recourse to fight tickets that they shouldn't have gotten or when the fine is out of line with the offense and puts undo burden on someone with less income, but I do get a little angry when people take up the court's time (and our tax money) to fight a ticket they deserved and can easily pay.

oh of course, absolutely, during that 14 months I had to be real careful and watched my driving conscientiously. I still now have better driving habits because of it. fighting a ticket does the same as getting the ticket in the first place, if not more to curb bad driving. most ppl don't look for speed limit signs but I do. route 84 and 95 through NE and NY are notorious for jumping from 65 to 45 mph and so many ppl fly at 80+ regardless of any posted speed limits. I was caught going 71 in a 50 on 95 in the Bronx. me and kids were traveling from Boston area for wifey's uncle's memorial family gathering cuz he had just passed away suddenly. i was told a time to arrive and was on schedule and traveling at normal moderate speeds the whole way. wifey had gone down the day before and was already there when the early birds were arriving. we were the last to show up. she started texting my kids cuz she was freaking out as if we were disrespectful. so I slowly started driving faster and moved into the left lane simultaneous to the speed dropping to 50
I came around a bend the same speed as everyone else including a cement mixer but because I was in the left lane I got nailed. the NY cop also saw the Red Sox stickers and my kids and he was the most polite a-hole I ever met and said TWICE that driving in the STATE OF NEW YORK was a privilege. there would be no leniency regardless of my polite nature and explanation and apology. so anyway I tried fighting it by hiring a NY traffic attorney and eventually got it dismissed. I don't even know why!

I have to agree here. Too many riders think laws don't apply to them. Now perhaps it's a bad law. Perhaps it's one that should be looked at, or perhaps that intersection needs a redesigned to accommodate bicycles. Thing is till change happens, you still have to follow the law. I have lost count of how many bicycle riders have blown past me just this year while I was on my bike, waiting at a red light. It makes us ALL look bad.

Before pleading guilty, find out if it will add points.

I would fight that ticket because you have nothing to lose. I won both my tickets but had to take a “Personal Day” off work to attend the hearing. In the first case, I paid a “Lawyer” who worked at the court to represent me and the officer just walked away! The second time, I just showed up and they discharged the ticket just for attending!

Also, find out if this is going to add points to your license.

I've heard that if you show up to fight your ticket, and the officer doesn't show up, you automatically win. And the officers almost never show up.

You got it!

If that was the case then people would speed all the time. Oh, nevermind.

another unique story about fighting speeding tickets

I was in court to argue why I had sped up over the speed limit on the road outside my condo. this isn't the story but bear with me. the exit to my condo is at the top of a hill and you can't see very far in either direction especially to the left. you have to look both ways twice and then make a judgement call when it is safe to exit. in the morning this rd is used as a cut through for out of towners on their commute so there are these out of towners speeding on this rd making it dangerous for us in this condo complex. so cops occasionally stake out the rd. anyway, one morning I looked both ways twice and then made my right turn, but some ahole was speeding up from the left and I didn't see him until my car was already committed to exiting into the lane. to avoid being hit I accelerated more than I would have normally. at this point there is a downhill section and after I avoided being struck I just coasted with this ahole on my tail. since I was in front I got nailed. that was my argument but the cop didn't show so I got off

but here's the unique speeding story. while I was waiting my turn this other guy gets up, and his state trooper is there. he was doing 80 in a posted 55 zone I think, in a mercedez not that it matters. route 128 in Waltham area. he says this to the judge: "I admit I was speeding your honor, and I'm sorry, but I have a clean record and I'd like to keep it that way" the judge let him go, just like that.

you can never predict what will happen in court, and even if you are guilty, you have nothing to lose by fighting it. I beat a parking ticket once, I was parked facing the wrong way on a one way street, but the person who filled out the ticket was missing some info, like the date or something, and I got it dismissed

I can go on if you like :-)

When I was young and stupid I street raced a buddy's car, there were cops, and I was the one who got busted. I went to court to try to keep it off my record. But it turns out that the cop wrote down something that usually applies when there's a crash (there wasn't) and so the judge let me off with court costs only.

Another time (again young and stupid) a trooper coming the other way clocked me at 113 in a 65... short story is I was trying to distance myself from an a-hole driver in a pickup. Cop said he could have hauled me to jail but had to be somewhere. This was in the next county over from me. So I went to the county courthouse in person, paid the fine of $200-something, NO court appearance, and apparently it never went on record because my insurance never changed.

Thankfully I don't do stupid stuff like that anymore.

Rather than coming from Tax rates, at the top tier, like in the 50s, paying for governing,
the Police have to become revenue collectors .

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/op...-gop.html?_r=0

A true martyr stays their course without complaint. On the right of you, and on the left, lesser brethren will deny their faith and live (or simply save 10 minutes on their commute). You are called to a higher order of existence. Rejoice, and stop sniveling.

This isn't a moving violation. It's an administrative citation that a whole different city department handles. They use the same tickets to write people up for smoking on the CTA or getting busted with a joint. So it doesn't affect your driving record.

This isn't court, it's an administrative hearing. The city specifically set this up because with all the minor citations that the cops were handing out (read: $$$ for the city), cops were having to spend too much time showing up in court. So the cop doesn't have to be there. I would assume it's possible to fight this and demand a day in court (where the cop would have to show up), etc., but Chicago being Chicago, that would be an exercise in masochism.