My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: Washington
Hello all,
This is a weird one. I moved in March to a house that is near a north-south highway in Seattle (HWY 99). You can turn east off the highway to a residential 2-way street that is one possible way into my neighborhood. When I moved in March, we took that road and parked the U-haul there. I've gone down the street many times.
Now when I moved in, there were no Do Not Enter signs there at all. Over the intervening months, I have seen 2 Do Not Enter signs there (not directly where the highway and street intersect, mind you, on the next block after that), but they were facing north and south (which makes sense because the north-south road on that block are both one way going opposite ways from that intersection...sorry if that's confusing). Sometimes the signs were there and sometimes they weren't. Sometimes they were facing diagonally. Twice over the past 3 months, I've seen them facing west (which would prevent you from going more than one block east up that street from the highway). But most of the time, if they're there at all, they face north and south (i.e. one faces north, the other faces south).
So yesterday I turned east off the highway and saw the signs facing west. I was confused but went past the signs and bam, a cop rolled out from a parking spot and issued a $124 ticket. I tried to explain that sometimes the signs weren't there, and that they most often face in other directions so I was never sure what to think but he wasn't having any of it. He did say something about how people remove or mess with the signs all the time but that "they're here now".
I think this is completely unfair and told him so. I'm trying to decide if I should do a mitigation hearing or a contested hearing. I know there's some kind of pre-hearing conference for the contested one. Just not sure if my (true) story is too convoluted or would even help, since I did technically commit what I'm being accused of.
(And of course I'm driving by there every day to snap a picture if I see the signs gone or facing a different way!)
Thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide!

