Results tagged “ticket”

The City says no, that intersections with red light cameras are not more dangerous with them, pointing out that red light runner crashes are down. That may be true, but an investigative report by CBS2 finds that accidents are up at most of the red-light camera intersections if you include crashes caused by people stopping earlier than expected to avoid running a red light.

78-year-old Mong Kim Tran does not like getting pulled over. Via the Daily Breeze, here's the craziness that took place last week: "When he was told he was getting a speeding ticket, Tran came within three inches of the officer's face and began screaming... When the officer told Tran to back off, Tran took a fighting stance, and struck the officer twice with a closed fist and then kicked the officer in the groin... The officer pushed Tran back to the ground and handcuffed him. Tran sat on the curb while paramedics responded. As more officers arrived, Tran again stood up and kicked the officer in the groin."

Causing excessive noise, speeding, splitting lanes dangerously, motorcyclists can sometimes be exasperating. Not only that, statewide statistics show that motorcycle fatalities are on the rise, increasing 51 percent in the past eight years. In L.A. County, deaths have increased 62 percent in the last four years, most drastically in the 21- to 24-year-old and 55 plus age groups.

Under current written law, Santa Monica police are able to throw any cyclists, whether a city resident or not, into jail for not having a bicycle license. Fines can range up to $1,000. The 1995-created law directly contradicts a 1996-written California Vehicle Code section, which states the law shall apply to residents of a city issuing bicycle licenses.

Never will we understand why people don't like or forget to wear seatbelts, but it happens all the time. Many like to complain, citing the usual government fundraiser line, but if you look a little closer, there are two facts to consider. Obviously one is the safety factor: seatbelts save lives. There are those who will call survival of the fittest in those cases, but many survive seatbelt-less crashes, ending up in the hospital. And that's where we have a big problem: who foots the bill for those drivers without drivers or health insurance?

It only took four minutes for the LAPD to show up after The Green Truck's General Manager, Bobby Allen, pulled up to the curb on Wilshire for the lunch hour. The truck's health permit, although paid for, was not on display because the LA County Health Department was late in sending out bills and permits, explained Allen. But officers would not accept a note from the Health Department that should have excused the Green Truck from being cited and shut down. The truck can only open back up for business when they have proof they paid for the permit.

Just like they eventually did with the Orange Line, Metro is beginning to install red light enforcement cameras along the Gold Line. By the end of August, the agency expects to have installation complete at a few intersections along First Street. An opening date for the new light rail line between Union Station and East LA has not been announced.

The company contracted by Los Angeles to install, maintain and monitor cameras that record drivers running red lights, eventually prompting a costly traffic ticket by mail, has filed for a court receivership, an alternative to bankruptcy. Now city officials are looking at what options they have when the contract expires with Nestor Traffic Systems, which could go out of business or be purchased by a another company.

Since last week's death of Michael Jackson, crowds and media have flocked to various locations related to the superstar. In Hollywood, it was his Walk of Fame star; on the Westside, his Holmby Hills rental mansion; and in the Valley, his family home on Hayvenhurst Ave., just off Ventura Blvd.

Violating school bus laws brings in a hefty fine of $500. And it seems the city of South Pasadena held a big fundraiser on Wednesday when police handed out 160 tickets totaling $80,000 to drivers on the six-lane Huntington Drive at Milan Ave. It was quite an elaborate sting, involving no schoolchildren but lots of lights and sirens described one driver who was cited to the LA Times. “It was a circus of lights and chaos,” she said of the sting that also involved from Alhambra, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, San Marino and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Temple City station. “No one was speeding, I mean people were literally just trying to figure out what was going on and what to do to to keep away from whatever the activity was. I thought I was being directed along with other motorists away from whatever it was that was happening.” One commenter at LA Times noted that the tickets are bogus noting that "VC Section 22454 states that the bus must be 'stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading any schoolchildren'."

Every month LAPD Senior Lead Officer George Aguilar takes a look at his area's traffic patterns and behaviors and focuses enforcement on one issue. In the past, he's done pedestrian crosswalk stings along Ventura Blvd., catching drivers who ignore those walking across the street, and enforcement on the various no left turn signs on Van Nuys Blvd. This month, he's going after speeders in these general areas, including nearby side streets: Woodman/Ventura, Van Nuys/Ventura, streets surrounding Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park and Valley Vista between Sepulveda and Coldwater Canyon. He encourages people to spread the word (so tell your friends), but he won't say what days each area will be heavily patrolled. Basically, if you keep it cool, there's nothing to worry about.

Enforceable times at parking meters are still confusing residents as LADOT makes it way through the city updating extended times at signs and meters. The problem? Here's an example: a sign on West 3rd Street says "2 Hour Parking 8am to 6pm Except Sunday” but corresponding meters say Mon-Sat 8am-8pm and Sunday 11am-8pm, notes Tasha Nita Adams at her blog Blackburn & Sweetzer. This is an issue LAist looked at back in January and we thought all signs would be updated by now... apparently not. "It would be inappropriate [to ticket] without the new signs," the department spokesman Bruce Gilman explained back then.

Ask a motorcop why they write tickets to cars disobeying signs and pedestrians walking against the man's hand and you'll hear a lot of them say it's a sign of "arrogance." When justified like that, they have no problem writing hundreds of tickets. Last Friday, StreetsblogLA blogger Damien Newton observed a sting at Western and Wilshire: "I counted two pedestrians who didn't make it across before the red. One of whom was an elderly woman who started as soon as she got the white person and who received no help from the LAPD officers busy writing tickets," he observed.

What's free to hybrid drivers costs the city $300,000 annually. With the budget taking a dive into the red, the LA City Council today voted to end free parking at meters for hybrids beginning in March. "Hybrid vehicle owners who park at meters during the month of February will be given written notices about the end of free parking," notes NBC.

When LAPD Senior Lead Officer George Aguilar responded to an accident earlier this month on Ventura Blvd., he experienced first hand how unsafe the Valley's popular artery is for pedestrians. Even with a police car next to him, he felt like a "bowling pin." Aguilar, whose area covers most of Sherman Oaks between the 101 Freeway and Mulholland Drive, announced last night at a monthly neighborhood watch meeting that he's upping the traffic enforcement along the street, including ticketing cars that don't yield to pedestrians on marked crosswalks. So you've been warned, come to Sherman Oaks and speed or blow off peds, they're looking for you.

The answer to that may depend where you live. If you're a UCLA student, parking on the sidewalk may not get enforced, but if you're in a different part of the city--let's say the Valley--a ticket could be there waiting for you. The inconsistent parking enforcement is now park of a lawsuit against the city. "This lack of enforcement continues even though parking on a sidewalk violates both the California Vehicle Code, Los Angeles Municipal Code and may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)," explains Damien Newton at Streetsblog LA. "The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Barden v. Sacramento sets a nationwide precedent requiring cities to make all public sidewalks accessible. As a result, cities must remove barriers that block disabled access along the length of the sidewalks."

For years us Angelenos have been trained that once the clock strikes six, we're free from parking tix. But now that the city standard for enforceable parking times has been pushed back later into the day, our human habit ways are out of whack. Last night in Sherman Oaks, a cursory street poll found that people didn't pay at meters enforced until 8 p.m. with signs above saying "2 Hour Parking, 8 AM to 6 PM."

In suburban Covina, the city has entered into a contract with a private security company to enforce parking restrictions. The city hopes that Inter-Con Security, that begins enforcement on January 5, will provide more frequent and consistent response "to parking complaints in a consistent and timely manner," the Pasadena Star News reported.

Los Angeles County has finally caught up with other big cities where you can buy a card, fill it up with money and use it like a debit card on buses and Metro rail lines. That means no more making sure you have the correct change or worrying if the credit card machine will work (but you can still do that if you want).

One LAist reader has a travel warning for you that could put a frown on your face once you return from the Thanksgiving holiday (or any trip from that matter). Here's what they had to say:

If assigning large numbers of officers to patrol bicycle rides wasn't enough, the Santa Monica Police Department is now making sure people don't exercise in the wrong spot. If you do, you could end up with a $158 citation and possibly be put in the back of a squad car as online music company exec James Birch was.

     

It's probably one of the least heard of tickets, especially given to a bicyclist. But a ticket for signaling and then not turning was apparently handed out to one Critical Mass rider in Santa Monica on Friday night. Fellow rider to the cyclist and a photographer Alex Thompson said it was "biased enforcement."

This morning, the city launched its Tiger Team V to focus on patrolling, citing and towing illegally parked vehicles in the city's top 25 "hotspots" where said vehicles slow down traffic. We asked for the complete list and they provided. These locations were selected by the number of citations issued from June 2008 through August 2008. Check below to see if any of these streets and block numbers are part of your commute.

For their fifth installation of the notorious Tiger Team who patrol, ticket and tow illegally parked vehicles along high traffic corridors during morning and afternoon rush hour, today they released the team across the city. And instead of patrolling one sprawling thoroughfare like they've done in the past (example, 4.2 miles of Sunset Blvd. from Vermont Ave. to Laurel Canyon Blvd.), Tiger Team V will hit 25 of the city's "Hotspots" (most frequently parking violated areas) throughout the City including Pico Boulevard, Westwood Boulevard, Victory Boulevard, De Soto Avenue, Figueroa Boulevard, Hoover Street, La Brea Avenue, Broadway Street and Hill Street. So hopefully those cars in illegally parked or stopped in parking lanes won't be blocking your commute anymore.

So it's not a million dollar lottery ticket, but $174,575 is still good money. A Mega Millions lotto ticket purchased on January 29 at a 7/11 store in Corona still has not been claimed and today is the last day to do so. However, it's not a first. The state says it has donated as much as $50 million a year in unclaimed lotto ticket prizes to California's educational funds.

It's been all the rage and everyone is talking about it -- today is day one of the new cell phone law. No more putting that phone to your ear unless it's an emergency. Otherwise, it's all about ear pieces or in-car systems (for more info on help buying the system for you, check out this post from LAist).

If you plan on breaking the hands-free cellphone law tomorrow and in the future, your chances of being pulled over will be determined by where you are the LA Times finds.

Using your cell phone after July 1st could get you a $20 ticket (up to $100 in LA County after fees and the such). But if you cause an accident that ends in someone's death, a misdemeanor manslaughter charge could come with that, resulting with a year in jail for each death, reports the LA Times. That's because driving while talking on a cell phone (except for when using a hands-free device) can more easily be proved as negligence because of the law. Before, lawyers had to prove that the cell phone use was negligent.

To help balance Los Angeles' massive budget for the next Fiscal Year, parking fines are to be increased $5 across the board. The move begins July and will raise an additional $6.6 million towards filling the $406 million gap in the budget, according to the Daily News. Originally, City Council looked into increasing the fines $10 to $15, raising up to $20 million extra, but had worries it would lead to voter anger and violence against parking enforcement officers.

On July 1st, after a two year warning, driving while talking on your cell phone, unless it is with a hands free device, will be illegal. There's some confusion, however, on how it all plays out and it depends on whether you are a teen or adult.