Washington Traffic Law Blog : Washington Traffic Lawyer & Attorney : Jon Zimmerman Law Firm : Seattle, Bellevue, Tacoma

Freelance correspondent Karen Aho had a very interesting article last week about a small town in Missouri that collected more than 75 percent of its annual budget from traffic fines.  Unlike in the State of Washington, in Missouri, traffic ticket collections are capped at 35 percent of a town’s revenue.  In Washington, however, police officers from Seattle and Everett and deputy sheriffs and state troopers from King County and other places such as Lewis County and Thurston County patrol state roadways looking to bring in money for their respective municipal, county, and state governments, without any limitation.  

In her article on insurance.com, Aho discovered a 2006 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that found that the number of tickets issued in municipalities increased on average by 0.4 percent for every 1 percent decline in other revenue.  Aho writes:  “Individual officers may concentrate on public safety, but the data show that departments tend to increase the number of tickets issued during hard times.” 

But in Washington it’s not just municipalities, it’s county and state governments that are also seeing a decline in revenue.  That’s not good news if you’re commuting on I-5 to places like Seattle and Tacoma or you are driving over I-90 to Bellevue and Issaquah.  As declining revenue is continuing to be a problem for local and state governments, expect to see more local police officers, deputy sheriffs, and state troopers pulling drivers over for speeding.  The hope is that people will just pay the fines. 

In Washington, drivers who get and don’t fight their tickets will see these tickets stay on insurance records for three years.  As Aho mentions in her article, the government never even see most of the money auto insurance companies are making off the driver with even one traffic ticket.  Speeding tickets account for millions of dollars of increased premiums for drivers in the State of Washington. 

It’s not uncommon for a driver with even one speeding ticket to see an increase in premiums of more than 20 percent.  Why?  Because insurers think that drivers with even one traffic violation are a greater risk to insure than drivers with no speeding tickets.  Insurance also increases for drivers who get tickets for negligent driving, failing to signal, running a stop sign, improperly being in the HOV, and having a brake light that is out, among other traffic offenses.  

Luckily, a driver in the State of Washington has a choice: pay the fine and allow insurance companies to hike premiums, or contest (fight) the ticket and try to keep the ticket from affecting one’s driving record and insurance.  If you have received a speeding ticket or other type of traffic violation and want to keep it off your record, please contact me.  

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Here you are in your vehicle, driving along, and you see blue and red lights flashing behind you.  A police officer is practically on your bumper.  You pull over and an officer asks you for your license, registration, and insurance.  The police officer takes your information, leaves to go to his or her patrol car or motorcycle, and a few minutes later the officer has returned with a ticket.  You drive away, irritated and not knowing what to do.  

A few of the frequent questions I get asked are:

1.  Should I fight my speeding or other type of traffic ticket?  

2.  Why should I hire an experienced attorney to help me fight my traffic ticket?  

3.  My traffic ticket that I got in Everett or Seattle or Tacoma is *only* for $124, why should I pay a lawyer more than the face value of the ticket?  

These are great questions.  Maybe you are reading this blog and you just got a traffic ticket, or you are wondering how to fight your ticket.  Or perhaps you are coming to this blog because you understand some of the costs involved beyond what you see on a speeding ticket or other type of moving violation. 

WHY YOU NEED TO FIGHT

Moving violations affect auto and life insurance premiums as well as your driving record.  For some people it even affects employment.  It's important to differentiate between a moving violation and a nonmoving violation.  The general difference is that moving violations usually affect your driving record and what you pay for insurance and nonmoving violations usually do not.  There are some unusual exceptions, but this is a basic, general difference in most but not all cases.  Want to keep your insurance from going through the roof?  Want to keep your driving record clean so you don't get suspended or revoked?  These are reasons why you need to fight your traffic ticket.  Paying or mitigating a moving violation means you are saying "please raise my insurance rates, please put this violation on my record."  Informed and smart drivers understand that they want to keep their driving records clean and drivers want to keep insurance rates low.  

WHY YOU SHOULD HIRE AN ATTORNEY EXPERIENCED IN DEFENDING PEOPLE WHO GET TRAFFIC TICKETS

In my practice I have fought thousands of tickets for people in most of the State of Washington's 39 counties.  I see people in court all the time trying to defend themselves.  In fact, some people tell me "I'm going to defend myself on this ticket, the cop was absolutely wrong, and when I tell the judge what happened, the judge will believe me."  I also hear others say "the judge just sided with the officer and didn't listen to anything I had to say."  The truth is that most people in court on a traffic ticket have rarely been to court.  They have no idea what to say.  They are nervous.  They often convict themselves by saying something that never or rarely works.  And I see people who represent themselves lose, time and again.  But these drivers aren't just losing $124.  They are losing jobs.  Drivers are losing more money to insurance companies (often thousands of dollars) and drivers then have tarnished driving records, making it financially more difficult to pay other expenses.  

It pains me to see drivers who represent themselves lose, especially when these drivers could often win if they had just said the right thing.  An attorney experienced in fighting traffic tickets and in defending people accused of traffic violations understands the law, an attorney is familiar with the rules the police must follow and what happens when these rules aren't followed, and an attorney understands court procedures.  In my experience, judges often treat people with attorneys better than those who fight traffic tickets without an attorney.  This isn't necessarily fair, but it's a reality I often see.  One reason is that sometimes judges feel that a person who has hired an attorney cares more about the person's driving record.  Another reason is that judges know that an experienced attorney understands where to start and often has some familiarity with the court's policies and sometimes with the prosecutor.  This usually helps the court calendars run more quickly and smoothly.  

Finally, people visit a doctor for medical problems, a plumber for plumbing issues, and a mechanic for car issues.  People do this because these providers can help in very specific areas.  The legal world is complicated.  Missteps are expensive.  They cost people money and create numerous other headaches.  Don't let a traffic ticket cause you a lot of stress.  Contact an attorney who focuses on representing people with traffic tickets and put your best foot forward (not just on the gas!).   An attorney can usually go to court without you having to appear, meaning you can stay at work and let your lawyer deal with your case in court.  

HOW A FEW HUNDRED DOLLARS TO AN ATTORNEY CAN SAVE YOU THOUSANDS OF BUCKS

Except in exceptional and unusual cases, I always charge a flat fee to fight traffic tickets.  This creates certainty in the fee and lowers stress.  

Let's work with the example in the third question above.  A driver receives a $124 speeding ticket.  This is a moving violation that, if you lose the violation, pay, or mitigate the ticket, stays on the insurance record for three years and affects your premiums.  How does it add up?  

Imagine that you pay the ticket and disregard everything I've said on this blog.  For illustration purposes only, imagine your rates go up a modest $125 every six months for three years, just because of this one infraction, let's say a speeding ticket or unsafe lane change or stop sign infraction.  Forget employment or other diving privilege issues.  

Your potential cost in this example only:

$150 x 6 premium periods = $900

+

$124 cost of the ticket = 

------------------------------------------------

$1,024 = Cost to driver of paying the ticket and not hiring an attorney to fight the ticket (for illustration purposes only, as every driver will have different factors that affect insurance premiums and overall costs).  

An attorney's fee for dealing with a speeding ticket and trying to get a traffic ticket dismissed or down to something that won't affect a person's insurance and driving record is often LESS than what you will pay in extra costs over time.  

To recap:  Fight your ticket, hire an experienced attorney who understands procedural (technical) and substantive issues, and do not get fooled into thinking that the amount on the ticket is the bottom line.  Know that you can fight your ticket and that you can hire an experienced attorney who will try to save you time and money.  

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In 2007 I wrote a post about traffic tickets and prehearing conferences and what happens at a prehearing conference in Seattle.  Recently this post has come under criticism for two particular statements I made in the post:  

1.  The magistrate will attempt to get the driver to essentially mitigate the infraction, thereby saving court resources and obtaining revenue for the city, county, and/or state and 

2.  Prehearing conferences are mostly a scam.

As to the first point, one criticism here is that at most magistrate hearings in Seattle Municipal Court, driver-defendants want to mitigate (e.g., admit and pay a reduced penalty) their infraction.  Apparently, even drivers who check the contested hearing box often don't understand the difference between mitigation and contesting the infraction, and many driver-defendants who check the contested hearing box just want to explain what they did wrong or justify wrong action.  So, the criticism to my 2007 point goes, the magistrate has no desire, strategy, or inkling to lean in any direction with the driver-defendant before the commencement of the prehearing, and that the magistrate doesn't care whether a driver wishes to have a contested hearing or a mitigation hearing, magistrates are patient about explaining the options and will even allow someone who signs up for mitigation to go to a (future) contested hearing.  I think this is as a whole a fair point and worth noting on this blog.  I can see how magistrates collectively might feel that it is unfair to say that they themselves try to convince a driver to do anything, especially as magistrates each have individual viewpoints, make decisions separately from their colleagues, and help comprise the judicial branch (which I am reminded is a separate branch of government).  In my experience, however, a number of magistrates will offer an amount of money that a defendant can pay to close a case, and this becomes the take it or leave it offer, and the defendant who leaves it is forced to return to court.  

The second point above receives criticism because it is viewed by some that I am impugning the magistrates and that prehearing conferences are not a scam because defendants are put on notice of the prehearing conference, that defendants can waive the prehearing conference, and because magistrates are not involved in setting a fixed amount of what one pays and that these amounts vary on a case by case basis and by individual magistrate.  Also, as a separate branch of government, the judiciary does not have to answer to the other branches for the fine amounts the judiciary imposes.  

I want to note that I think most Seattle magistrates are good, decent, and hard-working people and I do not believe that any type of fraud is going on involving the magistrates.  I know of no fraudulent scheme by the magistrates and I do not wish to imply that any has gone on.  

I do, however, think that the system of prehearing conferences is designed in such a way as to hurt a lot of defendants and while I don't blame the magistrates for that, they are part of a system that could use great improvement.  For most defendants in Seattle Municipal Court, a visit to a magistrate is what court in Washington means to them--magistrate as both negotiator and neutral, and no prosecutor with whom to negotiate.  

There are a few benefits of prehearing conferences for some people but there are more things I dislike about them, and I think for many people prehearing conferences are a bad idea, especially for those who get moving violations and have a lot of collateral consequences at stake (employment, insurance, driving privilege, to name a few).  Before I talk about some of the problems I have with prehearing conferences as presently conducted, let's examine a few of the good things about them in certain cases.  

BENEFITS OF PREHEARING CONFERENCES

• Judicial economy.  One benefit of a prehearing conference is judicial economy.  It's simply quicker to get a case done in a magistrate's chambers than to have a contested hearing.   Seattle Municipal Court has the largest traffic ticket caseload of any court in the State of Washington, and hence magistrates help facilitate the speedy, just, and inexpensive determination of every infraction case, and prehearing conferences allow magistrates and courts to get through a high volume of cases quickly.  
• Parking and traffic camera violations.  Many of these violations can be dealt with at a prehearing conference and it is much quicker for a magistrate to view someone's residential parking zone permit or disabled parking permit at a prehearing than at a full-blown hearing in a courtroom a floor above.  Same with traffic camera violations.  
• (Some) people like prehearing conferences.  Some people like the privacy magistrates' chambers afford, the fact that magistrates are not in robes, and the somewhat less formal nature of a prehearing conference.  
• Striking a balance.  Some people believe that because traffic tickets are less formal than most civil and criminal cases, prehearing conferences to avoid a contested hearing or even a mitigation hearing in open court are a good idea.  Certainly this viewpoint can be consistent with judicial economy.  

But there are also problems.  

PROBLEMS WITH PREHEARING CONFERENCES IN SEATTLE

• The magistrate is both third-party neutral decision-maker and lead negotiator.  Many magistrates will tell you that even individuals who come to contest their tickets at prehearing conferences want to negotiate either a reduction of fine or request a dismissal.  I don't have a problem with the request for a dismissal, and on occasion a request for a dismissal might even be granted.  What I don't like about this as a whole though is that the magistrate as both negotiator and judge is a departure from how the American judicial system works in most civil cases (negotiations between the parties outside the presence of a judge) and criminal cases (negotiations between a prosecutor and a defendant or defense attorney).  In fact, in most jurisdictions that hear traffic infraction cases, there is no negotiating with a judge, and for good reason--the judge is supposed to be the third-party neutral.  I think the negotiation aspect at the prehearing in Seattle puts magistrates in a bad position because they are the ultimate negotiators and decision-makers at this stage of the proceedings, which is the only stage for most defendants.  Magistrates get blamed by the media, the Legislative branch (City Council), the Defense Bar, and individual defendants because they are negotiating and deciding.  In fact, if you don't like how the negotiation is going at the prehearing, a defendant can reschedule for a contested hearing, but now the magistrate-negotiator gets to sit as a pro-tem judge.  It's not always the same magistrate sitting as a pro-tem judge at the second hearing, but it doesn't appear that fair or protective of a defendant's right to have a person who has the appearance of being completely neutral in  the upstairs courtroom when that person or person's colleague was negotiating in the downstairs offices.  Again, I want to reiterate that I think most Seattle magistrates try to be fair and are decent human beings, and often a magistrate in a prehearing will be different than the pro-tem judge, but I don't think it is completely natural to have a negotiator and judge be the same person or even colleagues.  It merges the roles of the the responsible party for prosecuting civil infraction cases (the executive branch) with those responsible for adjudicating disputes (the judicial branch).  I know in certain civil cases two judicial colleagues will be involved in a case--one as mediator, the other as a judge, but there is a wall if a mediated case goes to trial and the judges typically don't communicate.  In an infraction case in Seattle, there is no prosecutor appearing at prehearing conferences and no other representative of the plaintiff.  The magistrate negotiates.  
• Seattle Municipal Court has called prehearing conferences "prehearing SETTLEMENT conferences."  The word "settlement" for these conferences is not in state law.  The conferences have the appearance of being designed to want something other than contesting the infraction.  I should note that Seattle Municipal Court hosts mitigation hearings in the same location as prehearing conferences, however, the prehearing conferences are given to those who seek a contested hearing.  A person wanting a contested hearing is told that he/she has to have a "settlement" conference first and tickets are rarely dismissed at this stage.  Of note, however, is that people can waive these conferences, but most people don't read the forms they are sent.  So a number of people have to return to court a second time.  This still might be good for the judiciary in filtering people, but it's not great for the person who wants to challenge their ticket at the first instance and who does not understand what happens at this initiate stage of the proceedings.  
• The prehearing conference takes place in a placed called a courtroom, but it does not look like a courtroom and the rules of evidence do not apply.  In Washington, the rules of evidence apply in infraction cases, but at prehearing conferences, individuals can't really contest tickets, so the rules of evidence are on hold.  The courtroom has a large waiting area with some clerks and several seats.  "Courtroom" is posted within.  There is no bench and no counsel table.  Magistrates' offices are equipped with recording equipment, and people are recorded, but the recordings are not kept for contested or prehearing purposes.  It is unclear whether the proceedings are open or closed to the public, but visitors are asked to fill out a form, to have a seat, and wait their turn until their name is called for today's case.  The proceedings are not like normal court with a robed judge on a bench and the rules of evidence.  
• Magistrates are not elected like the court's judges and this taints the public's perception of what goes on behind closed doors or doors that appear to be closed.  The seven judges of the Seattle Municipal Court are elected; however, magistrates, who consider themselves part of the judicial branch of government, typically serve at the pleasure of the Presiding Judge rather than the voters, but, like municipal judges, magistrates get funding from the City Council.  There is some argument that because of state law, which helped to create the Seattle Municipal Court, the City may not be able to get rid of the Municipal Court, but it is a lot easier for the Council to tinker with magistrates and other court employees than elected judges, perhaps with the exception that in recent years, the City Council did get rid of one elected position but increased the number of magistrates by at least one part-time magistrate.  There is some question about how much judicial independence magistrates have.  Clearly, magistrates have complete independence from the voters, but less independence from the City Council.  So while even though magistrates are technically in the judicial branch (as I was reminded), and while they make their own decisions on how much of a fine to assess, there has historically been a lot of pressure on magistrates who cut parking and traffic fines more than the Legislative Branch desires.  Because the majority of fines appear to be assessed at the prehearing stage, the public rarely if ever gets to see these proceedings until the media come out with a report after a public records act request.  Magistrates do not feel comfortable commenting because of judicial rules, and the public doesn't really get to hear anything at election time because magistrates don't stand for election, even though many work in the judicial branch full-time mostly doing mitigation hearings and prehearing conferences.  So even though magistrates are technically free to impose any penalty or no penalty, they have come under a lot of fire for going too low and not collecting enough, and then some magistrates can't talk about it both for judicial rules and I suspect out of some fear that the Council could easily cut their positions in a new budget.  Many prehearing conferences contribute to the appearance of a lack of transparency in the proceedings (one can't walk in on a prehearing like going into any other courtroom in the Seattle Municipal Court).  Are magistrates collecting enough?  Too much?  Are they ruling fairly?  How does anyone know?  

The system for disposing of traffic infractions could be better.  I am not a fan of prehearing conferences in cases involving moving violations and I am not thrilled with some of the procedures with regards to the disposition of these cases.  While I do not blame individual magistrates for procedural problems that have gone on for a long time, there is vast room for improvement in the process.  To that end, the Seattle Municipal Court is working on changing forms to make them more clear and there will be a Bench-Bar meeting in Seattle this month.  These are steps in the right direction.  

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