I am posting to this forum in the hope that I can get some factual responses rather than people's opinions of my guilt or innocence.

My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of California for making a u-turn where no u-turns were allowed. I am not questioning whether u-turns were allowed in the intersection. Clearly they were not. I am questioning whether what I did actually constituted a u-turn.

The definition I found is:
665.5. A "U-turn" is the turning of a vehicle upon a highway so as to proceed in the opposite direction whether accomplished by one continuous movement or not.

The actual circumstances were I went to the end of a street (Street A) that ended with a one way cross street going perpendicular to it (Street B). To the right of Street B there was a parking lane for dropping off beachgoers. The parking lane was roughly the width of Street A. I pulled into the parking lane to drop my family off at Venice Beach. Before they got out I backed up a car length or so to get away from other traffic coming down Street A. Once they got out I signaled and merged with the traffic on Street B. I then drove forward a bit on Strret B and made a left turn onto Street A after signaling. A half block up Street A there was an officer standing in the street pulling cars over for illegal u-turns. It would seem to me that stopping and dropping people off and reentering traffic and turning is different that turning back up the street you came down. I need good advice on whether I can defend myself to avoid the $160 ticket. My basis for this would be that my actions did not constitute a u-turn. Any other approaches to fighting the ticket would also be appreciated. Since I live out of state I will be doing this by writing rather than in person.

Thanks in advance.
Dave