What Constitutes a U-Turn in California

[brakeshoe]

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

[Mr. Knowitall]

I don't fully understand your description of what you did. It sounds like, forwards or backwards, you spent some time driving the wrong way down a one-way road.

[brakeshoe]

Mr Knowitall:
Thanks for looking at my post. My description may have been hard to follow. I did not spend any time going down a one way street the wrong way. I came down the first street and parking in the beach drop off lane to the right of the one way street. In order to park out of the way of cars turning onto the one way street I backed up a bit in the drop off lane before I parked. Once my passengers got out I merged onto the one way street before making a left turn onto the street I originally came down.