mlgb: "<i>I've read that most of the "robotickets" for red lights are the California stop ie rolling thru the red light on a right turn. Don't know if that' true or not, but not all red light violations are deadly.</i>"

That is simply not true. The vast majority of cameras don't deal w/ right on red violations. In our city they are just now starting to install that sort. The cameras that do that are 3rd generation and only a very few cities have installed them yet. The vast majority of citations til now have been true red light violations. That may change as more cities invest in the newer models . . . .

Of Course - not EVERY red light violation is deadly. Heck, even a few folks who have jumped off the Golden Gate bridge have survived. But when someone IS hit by an idiot red light runner, their chances are pretty slim . . . .

I got a jaywalking ticket at LAX on the arrivals level crossing the road to the parking garage. I was hauling two rollaboards and walked the crosswalk against the light. A motorcycle cop stopped me on the other side and wrote me a ticket for $100.

So suppose you get a ticket for running a red light and go to traffic school. You get no points. Are you supposed to tell the insurance company? Suppose you change insurance. How do you answer the question of having received a ticket in the past x years?

(btw, the traffic school guy says that the yellow light just means that a red light is coming and the red light means stop if you haven't entered the intersection).

Where I live, bicycles can be a plague. They act as though they have the right-of-way over everyone, even pedestrians. They will run through the middle (not the beginning or end) of red lights, even on busy streets, and I saw one take out a pedestrian who was in a crosswalk with a green light - knocked the walker flat. Still, better odds for that than walking in front of a car. Even more troubling are the frequent pedestrians who cross just anywhere, any time, threading their way through moving cars. By absolute favorite are African Americans in black clothing who cross in the middle of the block on busy four-lane streets at night. It's not a race issue - it's just that there's no light color to draw your eye, and they're where they shouldn't be at a time when it's really tough to see them. I suppose a driver wouldn't be cited if s/he hit such a person, but who wants that on their conscience?

When I lived in Seattle, several years ago, motorcycle cops hung out downtown in the morning and wrote jaywalking tickets to some of the gazillions of office workers walking from the bus stops to work. These were not people taking any risk, other than that the light was red - it would always be in circumstances where there were no cars to be seen for blocks. Possibly the lights were timed so that jaywalking was likely to occur and the cops could write jaywalking tickets, who knows.

<i>Are you supposed to tell the insurance company? Suppose you change insurance.</i>

Until the State passes on the information to the insurance company, your record is clear. You go to traffic school and the information is not passed on. This information is therefore "non-existent" except in the county where the ticket was issued.

It is said that if you get a second moving violation within a prescribed period of time, you can still go to traffic school as long as the violation was in a different county. I have heard that even if the ticket was issued in the same county, signing up for traffic school in a different county will keep you from getting points.

It's been 6 weeks now and no bad news has arrived!

I bet that's a relief. Hope it continues.