Failure to stop at a Red Light in Washington

[Phatty5693]

Last week I got a ticket at around 10 pm for "failure to stop (traffic signal)". It is a four-way, major intersection. On the street I was on, there are inactive train tracks accross the road (no tracks on either side of the road, it is just to expensive to dig them out or something) about 10 feet before the curb with the solid white line behind the tracks. If you stop at the the white line before the tracks while turning right, you cannot see the traffic in order to execute the turn.

On the night in question I came up to the intersection and stopped sufficiently to see that there was no traffic in the intersection. I then completed the right turn. After the turn I see a police car take the same turn and he pulls me over. After going through the motions he says that he I did not stop and also that there was traffic in the intersection, yet somehow he was able to pull out behind me with no other cars between us. I did not see any other traffice as cars were stopped at all 4 streets of the intersection.

Is this something worth fighting? I have a clean driving record, though I did have a deferral within the past 7 years for a speeding ticket (don't even get me started on that one). The $100 for the ticket isn't a big deal, but I don't want to see my insurance go up.

[chuckycheese]

I've got a suggestion that might be helpful. Write an email message to someone in the traffic engineering department of your city government. Find out who's there so you can address it to someone specifically. Don't mention the ticket but do bring up the fact that circumstances with the rail tracks have changed and that the stop sign should be removed.

If you're lucky, you will get some sort of favorable reply (such as the department is aware of the issue and it is planned or, at least, under consideration). It's a bit of a long shot but might be viewed favorably in court.

Last year, I received a ticket for running a red light on my motorcycle (which I did do). I wrote to the city asking why the signals won't change for bikes and whether the city planned to address the issue. I got a nice message back stating that they were actively searching for intersections where it was a problem. To make a long story a little shorter, I went to court (so did the cop)...and I won the case! Good luck!