Traffic School - What a load of shit

[yulog]

Okay, i have had a ton of experience with these, Phoenix has these pretty much everywhere, almost every intersection has a red light clicker , they also put up vans with a camera in more rural areas ,they even put up a speeder catcher on an almost deserted stretch of highway(i believe Arizona is the first to do this). The first time i got one of these in the mail i got a letter from someone else about my ticket (i believe he was a paralegal or law student that had been in the papers and on tv for this situation) he said for 35 bucks he could show me how to not pay this ticket or any other red light ticket ever without having anything happen to my license.

The big thing is you cannot send in anything back to them! Once you send something back to them you are screwed!

I decided to take a chance and send him the money and in return he sent me paperwork that showed all of his research into the laws regarding this, i cant remember all of it but the key points that i remember are :

You have to be served a ticket by an officer of the law(they serve as a witness to the event) the cameras are run by a profiting company that are not police officers They're an outside company.

The other big thing is these letters come regular mail(not certified, or return receipt)If you don't send anything back to them , there is never any proof that you received this in the mail. If you send something back questioning the charge your screwed.




I worried about it staying on my license, but this guy said legally they couldn't put it on your license. There is some fine line with this violating our rights, that by them sending these by mail it would generate money for them because people would be afraid that they would get in trouble if they didnt send the money back to them.

Well , i never responded to the ticket, never received anything else about the ticket, received 3- 4 more of these over a 10 yr period . i threw all of them away. I got pulled over once or twice and there were no warrants, nothing came up, nothing has changed on my insurance(actually my insurance rate has decreased)

More and more people were being made aware that this was somewhat of a ploy to get money, it would show up on the news from time to time. I remember the police force saying that they were going to allocate funds so that they could have a police officer actually go serve these tickets(sounds like proof that something wasn't being done correctly), but i think that was just a scare tactic. They make so much off the 85-90% of people sending in money because they dont know their rights, its just not worth there time to go after the others.

Sounds like the exact same way you get out of jury duty. Shred it and deny you ever received it. Those come regular mail too.

Bingo!

[scarygirl]

Ah speeding tickets. I know them well. In October, I received two in ten days. One going twenty-five over. The other going sixteen over while on a 2 for a dollar Mc Donalds apple pie run. I must have been in the throughs of a sugar rush because I didn't realize a cop was behind me until I made the turn for home. A week later I was siitting at a red light when a tractor trailer backed over the hood of my car and then proceeded to drive off. FUN TIMES!

Between the three incidents I must have spent $1100 in lawyers, court and insurance deductible fees. It was worth the money though because the two tickets were dropped and my insurance didn't go up due to the tractor trailer being a hit and run. I have been driving five miles under the limit and a thousand miles away from tractor trailers ever since.

[Journey Mom]

My son had to go to traffic school for a ticket he got too. In the county he got the ticket in, you're not allowed to do online traffic school. He said it was the dumbest thing he's ever seen. At the end of the class, the instructor told everyone the answers to the test, and then handed out their certificates. What a waste of time and money.

[StevePerryHair]

My guess is that certain states could have different rules but if you get one of these tickets you should look up on the internet for your state if someone is selling the info for you to avoid or beat it in court, pay the 20-40 bucks more than likely it will be well worth it. the ticket in Arizona was a $ 80-100 ticket i paid $35 and saved on 3-4 tickets, + all the people I helped with this info , best 35 bucks i ever spent.

Yeah, it must vary. Our small city in FL has the red light cameras on major intersections. There is a police officer whose job it is to sit and watch the tapes, searching for the true violations, and ticketing the appropriate people. So it is coming from an officer. Guess they don't mind paying someone to do this to be sure the tickets stick. Red light running is a real problem in our part of Florida. Lots of accidents. And cops can't sit at every intersection. I have had to relearn slowing down at the stop bar though, before rolling forward on those right on red turns. It does make you think a lot more.

[bluejeangirl76]

Okay, i have had a ton of experience with these, Phoenix has these pretty much everywhere, almost every intersection has a red light clicker , they also put up vans with a camera in more rural areas ,they even put up a speeder catcher on an almost deserted stretch of highway(i believe Arizona is the first to do this).

You can not so much as change the radio station in your car in AZ without someone getting a picture of it. One of those vans used to sit just up the road from my home, it was always planted in the school zone.... damn thing flashed on me one day, but I never received anything... most likely because the USPS where I lived was absolutely worthless and if they didn't feel like delivering, they'd just throw it all in a bin and return to sender. So maybe that worked out for avoiding tickets!! But I know it flashed on me and I was the only car at the time, so I don't know why I never got one.

It's been awhile since I lived there but not long before I moved, they put those cameras up on the 101, all the way along the part that runs through Scottsdale because at the time that was the worst stretch for speeders... which was the same part I traveled every day to get to work. People talk about CA drivers... AZ is so much worse especially on the freeways. After awhile I started taking take Hayden Rd. instead because that 101 freeway and the way people drove it scared the ever loving christ out of me. But yeah, those cameras, good lord, Maricopa County much have got a sweet deal on them because they bought enough to film every car at the same time.