Disregarding A Red Traffic Signal

[littlelamont]

State of Virginia, I was at an intersection making a left turn. i thought all the signal lights were green, i yielded to on-coming traffic & made a left turn. I was stopped & given a ticket for turning on a red light!! there is a small pole in the intersection that apparently controls turning in addition to the normal lights hanging above. I did not notice such a small light on the pole as I was looking at the normal lights & for oncoming traffic. (I believe the sm light was across the intersection also but will have to check again if there was a small pole on my side also) These small poles are only in this one area - most of my virginia beach area you can turn left on green without a violation. I did not even know I had run the light as I thought I had a green light above. The ticket is $100 + cost of court!! Im due to have a baby in Feb & do not wish to give all my $ to VA court system. This does not seem fair to me, what can I hope to do???? Prayer for judgement? Inproper Equipment? Dropped & Dissmissed!!??
Also I have a NC drivers lis. & was driving a car with NC tags, which I think had something to do with him not giving me a warning!! Will this be reported to my NC DL & insurance?? (my insurance is already too high due to speeding tix in NC) Any advice you can give??? Should I try to go talk to the da before court?

[Mr. Knowitall]

You can see if you are eligible for traffic school, although that may be complicated if you are from another state. You can try to negotiate with the prosecutor for a lesser offense, but I would not expect that a lesser offense will carry a dramatically lower fine.

I have no idea what the intersection looked like, so I can't comment on how reasonable the layout and lights were.