My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: California
Last month I receive a ticket for an unsafe turn, I have a few questions about how to fight the ticket or any ways to have the price significantly lowered.

Here is a detailed description of what took place:
I was driving down a one way street late at night (there was literally NO traffic)with some friends ( of course I agreed to DD to keep everyone safe!) I had never been in this part of town, so my friend in the backseat was giving me directions. She let me know too late that I needed to turn left. I was in the middle lane and needed to be in the left turn lane. The light was red, so I turned my blinker on indicating that I needed to turn, instead of going straight. Before the light turned green a car pulled up into the left turn lane, but the car stayed back, not pulling all the way up to the line. When the light turned green, I waited for the car to go so I could safely make my turn after him. The car never went, I probably waited 10-15 seconds, then I assumed that because he didn't pull up to the line that he must have seen my blinker and was letting me go ahead of him. I then made my turn in front of the car, which turned out to be the police car that pulled me over for an unsafe turn.

My questions are:
1. Should my action be considered "unsafe" after I made numerous safety checks before proceeding?

2. With the description of my infraction noted, should I describe the scene when sending in a Trial By Declaration? I read that you could state that you only stood by your plea of not guilty instead of going into detail..but I'm not really sure how the whole TBD thing works, is it just a waste of time?

3. I hate to play law is against me card, but I feel as though the officer knew exactly what I needed to do and he waited for me to go, so he could pull me over, it totally screams set-up! :P would this help my case or make me look stupid for even mentioning it?

I have only ever had one other ticket which was five years ago and it was a very small ticket that I just paid, so I know I would get approved for traffic school, but I would really like to have it taken off of my record because I feel like I was being very safe, even though I wasn't in the proper location to make a left turn.
Any advice would be much appreciated!! Thanks so much!