Effective Jan 1, 2011, motorists will be required to “move over” or “slow down” when their vehicle is approaching an authorized emergency vehicle when its emergency lights are flashing and the emergency vehicle is parked on a highway or roadway in New York State.

This will be a two point violation if a driver in NY is convicted under the new law.

The NY State Senate’s justification for the law included the following points:

• The law is for the protection of emergency personnel from motorists who have crashed their vehicles into police and emergency vehicles that were parked on highways or roadways in the performance of their duties
• The momentum behind the law can be traced back to a March 11, 2003 New York State Senate investigation prompted by the death of New York State Trooper Robert Ambrose. Ambrose was fatally injured during a routine traffic stop on the New York State Thruway in Yonkers, New York.
• Later in 2003, Onondaga County Deputy Sheriff Glenn M. Searles was assisting a motorist whose vehicle had gone off the highway when a second car lost control and struck Deputy Searles, fatally pinning him against his patrol car.
• Motorists must be aware that the presence of a police or other emergency vehicle means not only a potential dangerous situation, but also that professional and volunteer emergency work may be under way.

Drivers should keep the following in mind:

• Use particular caution when approaching an emergency vehicle that displays flashing emergency lighting.
• On all roadways, drivers must reduce their speed when approaching the emergency vehicle.
• On larger roadways (Parkways, Controlled Access Highways, roadways with multiple lanes) drivers must reduce speed and move from the lane immediately adjacent to the emergency vehicle as soon as it’s safe to do so.

We’ll keep an eye on how this is enforced during the upcoming months.

A man in New Hampshire was recently rushing to the hospital with his wife who was on the verge of giving birth.

When he saw a police car behind him trying to pull him over, he didn’t want to stop. He called 911 to let them know why he was continuing.

The officer in pursuit got the call and then pulled in front to give a police escort to the hospital.

Everyone got to the hospital in time. Man and wife had a baby and the officer congratulated him.

Then, the officer gave him a speeding ticket for driving 102 mph in a 55 mph zone.

Why? This man is not trained to drive at that speed. While he was rushing to help two people in distress, he put everyone else on the road in danger by driving an unmarked vehicle, without lights or sirens, at 102 mph.

The man’s actions were completely understandable under the circumstances. If the prosecutor in his case is open to plea bargains, it’s likely the extenuating circumstances will help him get a very good offer.

However, the ticket will not simply get thrown out. There is rarely a good justification defense to speeding and the law will usually require a driver to pull over and call 911 in an emergency.

Many of us would do the same thing, including the man who got the ticket should he ever be in that position again. Nonetheless, it serves as a good example of how difficult it can be to get out of a speeding ticket by arguing that “I was speeding, but I have a good reason…”. In most cases this will simply be looked at as an admission of guilt.

Please–If you pay a traffic ticket or beat a traffic ticket or otherwise close out a matter in the TVB or other NY traffic court, hold on to any and all related paperwork. You should never need it again but it’s worth keeping just in case.

Dekalb County, Georgia currently has a little bit of a mess on their hands. People that paid traffic tickets years ago are receiving notification that they owe money and are late on the same ticket they already paid. No one is sure what went wrong or why, but clearly something did.

One woman explained about getting arrested during a routine car stop on an unrelated matter when her license showed and old unpaid ticket. Fortunately for her, she had the old paperwork to prove the error.

Not everyone will be so fortunate and it will be interesting to see how the county will determine what money is legitimately due on old tickets and what is a result of this error.

Our advice in New York? Just hold on to your paperwork and assume nothing when it comes to matters such as these. You never know.

A New Haven, Connecticut Superior Court program that allowed people to get out of minor traffic tickets by donating a toy to charity won’t be continued next year.

The program was reviewed and the decision to end it made after one resident questioned whether the program was unfairly coercing ticket recipients to make a donation instead of fight, whether some offenders who did donate were getting off too easy and whether the state was losing too much money for every toy that was donated in lieu of paying a fine.

A spokeswoman for the Judicial Branch deemed the program “well-intentioned” but not appropriate considering the concerns that were voiced. Ultimately, it was “justice bought and sold” which means that, despite the low level nature of the infractions, the program must end.

Interesting program, but the decision to end it was probably the right call.

In January, a man named Kevin Richardson won Volkswagen’s The Fun Theory, a contest for ideas to make obeying speed-limits fun. Now, less than a year later, his entry is in use in Stockholm, Sweden.

Kevin’s idea is very simple.  Record vehicles that enter enforcement zones at or under the speed limit and automatically enter the vehicle in a lottery.  Prizes?  These come from the fines paid by speeders.

If speed enforcement were truly about safety and not revenue collection, this would have potential.  Unfortunately, it’s unlikely an idea like this would gain traction in the US because of the potential lost revenue.

As for safety, in Sweden thus far the average speed of cars measured by the program dropped from 32 km/h prior to the program to 25 km/h after.

Watch the video for more info on this interesting contest and idea

Just a heads up Long Island..

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano was in Albany recently to lobby for financial help for the county.

He met with lawmakers twice, as recently as Dec 7, to discuss ways to increase county revenue.

Included in that conversation was the possibility of more red light cameras and additional fees on traffic tickets.

At least it’s not more “we’re making the roads safer” rhetoric…

Dozens of motorists are getting traffic tickets dismissed in the Sacramento, California area just for fighting.

There’s a dispute between the District Attorney’s Office and the Sacramento, Elk Grove and Folsom police departments over who’s going to pay for the prosecutor’s traffic court services.

Officers are just not showing up and motorist are easily beating tickets.

We work hard for our clients in NY–we’d welcome a few easy wins like this one day…

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/

NEWEST UPDATE:  As of 7/12/11, cell phone violation convictions in NY will result in three (3) points on your license and using a portable electronic device is no longer a secondary violation but will be considered a primary violation.

UPDATE:  As of 2/16/11, cell phone violation convictions in New York will result in two (2) points on your license.  Read about the rule change here (2 points for NY cell phone tickets) or continue reading about the violation itself below.

We get a lot of inquiries about tickets written under Section 1225 of the New York State VTL (which covers use of mobile telephones and other portable electronic devices). The following may help with some of the common questions and misconceptions concerning these distracted driving related summonses.

NY Cell Phone Law:

The cell phone laws came first. Section 1225-c became effective on December 1, 2001. The law is simple: “no person shall operate a motor vehicle upon a public highway while using a mobile telephone to engage in a call while such vehicle is in motion.” Some considerations here…

· Mobile telephones with a two way paging function are included

· “Using” means holding the telephone to, or in the “immediate proximity” (close enough to talk/listen) of one’s ear. Using speakerphone while a phone is sitting on the passenger seat or center console may be fine but it you have to hold the phone to bring it closer to your mouth/ear, then it’s no good. “Holding” is the key.

· “Engage” in a call means talking/listening but does not include activating, deactivating or initiating a function of the phone

· There is an assumption that if the phone is in the proximity of your ear that you were indeed engaged in a call. The law welcomes “evidence tending to show that the operator was not engaged in a call” to rebut this assumption.

· Emergencies are the exception to the law. You may communicate with any of the following regarding an emergency situation: an emergency response operator; a hospital, physician’s office or health clinic; an ambulance company or corps; a fire department, district or company; or a police department.

Our take on this is simple. Avoid cell phone tickets by not talking on the phone while driving. If you do get a ticket for cell phone use, you can probably forget arguing the phone wasn’t on (just holding it) or you were using speakerphone or you just pressed the button to activate bluetooth or “ignore” the incoming call or you only used it while stopped at a red light or in traffic. While these may technically be allowed under the law, an issuing officer is simply not going to agree with any of this. If the ticket was issued, the officer will be prepared to testify that he saw you in motion with the phone at or near your ear/mouth. You could always try to show “evidence” that you were not engaged in a call but remember that phone bills with itemized calls on it could easily belong to a different phone and/or an actual phone presented in court to review a phone log may simply be a different phone than the one used that day. It will be difficult to overcome the officer’s observation and the legal presumption that you were using the phone.

As for emergency exceptions, some good documentation in court and a corresponding statement to the officer on the road alerting him to the emergency (whether he believes you or not) may help.

NY Portable Electronic Device Law:

Another simple law: “no person shall operate a motor vehicle while using any portable electronic device while such vehicle is in motion.” Some considerations here:

· Section 1225-d went into effect on November 1, 2009. It defined “Portable electronic device” essentially as everything else that came around after cell phones. PDAs, anything with “mobile data access”, texting, games, ipods…all covered.

· “Operating” basically just means holding it here. With this section, there’s no proximity to the ear involved

· If you are holding the device, the presumption is you are using it. Like the cell phone section, you can offer evidence to rebut this.

· Portable excludes an item like a GPS affixed to your vehicle somehow.

· Emergency are an exception—the language is the same as that in the cell phone section.

The biggest difference with the newer law is that it is considered a secondary offense. Where an officer can observe you talking on the telephone and pull you over/issue a ticket just for that, he technically must have reasonable cause to believe you’ve committed a separate violation before ever issuing a ticket under 1225-d. He doesn’t have to issue the other ticket (“I’m giving you a warning on the red light but will cite you for using that ipod”), but must be able to state what the other violation was if he is called to testify.

Other than the secondary law issue, our take is the same with this section as it is with the cell phone section enacted eight years prior. Avoid these tickets by not using your gadgets while driving. If you do get a ticket, plan on it being very difficult to convince a judge that you weren’t somehow using the device that the officer claims you were using. Again, the best chance you’d have of getting the ticket dismissed would be good evidence of a legitimate emergency.

From what we’ve seen lately, it appears that the DMV may be encouraging judges at the TVB to crack down on drivers who continue to ignore seat belt and cell phone laws.

Both violations carry no points. In the past, we routinely told potential and existing clients not to bother retaining our firm to fight cell phone or seat belt tickets unless it was a situation where the individual had some serious existing license issues or we had some reason to believe a conviction would affect the driver’s insurance. Recently, we’ve changed our policy based on case results we’ve either been involved with or been informed of after the fact.

In multiple cases, we’ve seen judges issue suspensions to drivers convicted of driving while using a cell phone or without a seat belt in NYC where one or more such conviction was already on their driving record. We’ve seen too many examples of this to call it a coincidence and we’re now advising anyone with a seat belt or cell phone ticket answerable to the TVB to at least talk to one of our attorneys before proceeding under a false sense of “no points can’t hurt me” security.

Right now the problem is unique to the Traffic Violation Bureau which handles traffic tickets issued in New York City as well as parts of Buffalo, Rochester and Suffolk County. TVB judges have the discretion to suspend motorists for just about any reason. Compare this to the local county, town and village court judges who generally leave the decision to suspend up to the DMV itself. The DMV generally sticks to the “11 points and you are out” rule of thumb and wouldn’t act on the addition of a zero point violation to a driving record and issue an otherwise discretionary suspension.

Feel free to read more about the differences between the TVB and the local traffic courts throughout New York or to contact us if you have any questions about a seat belt ticket or cell phone ticket in NY.

Submitted by Scott Feifer

Speeding tickets are up along Route 304 in Clarkstown.  Watch your speed…particularly where the speed limit dips to 35 MPH in the New City – Bardonia area.

Why is this noteworthy?

One, it’s a good example of how the speed limit can vary on a single roadway.  Sections of Route 304 are 55 mph limit.  It’s easy to forget to slow down when the speed limit changes and officers are most likely to enforce near the area where the limit drops.

Second, I grew up right around there.  It’s a stretch I’ve personally driven hundreds of times and almost never at 35mph.  An otherwise mundane story of speeding tickets that happened to hit particularly close to home.

If you’ve been issued a Rockland County traffic ticket, feel free to contact us anytime.

Submitted by Scott Feifer