The in basket: Sandra Hill was unlucky enough to be among those
cited for running the red light while turning right at the 16th
Street entrance to Olympic College in Bremerton while that still
was a violation.
Her experience serves as a window into what one can expect when
so cited, and raises a question about the rules at that
intersection now.
Sandra, like many others who have been cited, said that as she
looked at the two still photos enclosed with the notice of
violation mailed to her, it didn’t look like she had run the red
.
“(One) picture shows my car with brake lights on and clearly
stopped at the white line while the red light was on,” she said.
“Then another photo shows my car turning the corner to go towards
the college, while the light was still red.
“The sign at that corner said ‘Stop On Red.’ It
didn’t say ‘No Turn On Red.’
“Now, of course, I’m not sure if that photo stop sign is still
working,” she added, “because the city has revamped the entrance to
the college, and made a separate right turn lane with a Yield sign
at the merge with 16th street.”
The out basket: I advised Sandra to go online or to the
municipal court office and watch the video of her infraction. Brake
lights mean only that the brakes have been applied, not that the
car is stopped. The still photos can be misleading.
Sandra and the judge who heard her case decided the video showed
that she had made a rolling stop through the light, and she was
fined. As is normally the case when one goes to court and doesn’t
try for a not guilty verdict, the amount of her fine was lowered
from $124 to $86.
“The court gave me three months to pay it off,” she said. “If I
had needed any longer, they have a collection company which has a
representative right in the court building, and I could have made
arrangements with them to have a longer pay-off time, but they
would charge interest.
“By the time I paid the interest, it would have been like paying
the whole fine. So, I bit the bullet and made three
payments, and did without a few things,” she said.
The red light cameras remain at the 16th and Warren
intersection, but the one that caught Sandra is only watching now
for straight-through violations. The revised intersection has a
Yield sign for right turns, so rolling rights are permitted if the
driver yields to traffic that has the green light.
The camera watching northbound traffic there is working the same
as before the intersection was changed, watching through
traffic.
