Hi,

So I had stopped at a red light trying to turn left and right next to
me was a police car, as you know when all the lights are red the first
light that turns green is the turn left arrow. I have been traveling
in that intersection for years and always the left green arrow signal
would lit up before anything else, well this time all the light turned
green and I had to (yeild to incomming traffic), as I started making
my left turn I noticed that all lights are green and not the turn left
on green light. Since I already had moved into the box I decided to
stop but I was on the way of the traffic so I had no choice but to
move forward and thats when the officer followed me and gave me a
ticket for "Failed to Yield-right-of-way to incomming traffic". I told
the office that it was an honest mistake and he accepeted but he said
that he couldnt do nothing since the ticket was already issued. Any
chance I can get out of this ticket.. my record is not perfect but
this is the first ticket which I feel I didn NOT deserve.

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Clarification of Question by 1moretime-ga on 15 Nov 2004 05:41 PST

Yes the lane was a distinct "left-turn-lane" and I am sure of being on
the sensor since I had been sitting there (along with the cop) for
about a minute. The green arrow did not lid instead the green light
was lid and the signal was "yeild on green". I have gone to the same
intersection again and again and everytime I get the green arrow but
for some reason I didn't get the arrow that time. To be honest I am
really trying to get out of the points rather than the whole ticket, I
think you guys are right that I am lucky just to get out of this with
a ticket rather than a accident but I really need to get the points
dropped. thanks for your time.

I had a similar incident;however, my incident had to do with the
carpool only onramp while trying to get on the freeway. Our freeway
onramps get so backed up sometimes, i was making a left turn onto the
onramp and there was no room in the regular onramp lane, it was either
hang out in the middle of the intersection and get t-boned because the
oncoming traffic had the right of way, or slide into the carpool lane.
No one would let me merge into the regular onramp lane, so i risked it
and got caught. I dont know if you would be able to get out of the
ticket completely; however, most traffic courts let you go and
"dispute" your ticket. The judge can reduce the fine or points
associated with the ticket or waive it all together. Whatever they
offer is usually always better than whats on that paper that dang cop
gave you. My ticket for using the carpool lane to get on the freeway
was like 140.00 and 2 points on my license. When i when to traffic
court, they dropped the ticket to 75.00 and zero points. I have had
friends go to traffic court and get stuff dropped compleletly because
the cop screwed something up on the ticket, make.model of car, tag
numbers, etc too....

You fail to mention if there was a distinct "left-turn-lane" or not. 
If so, if you don't hit the sensor soon enough, the light sequence
will turn for straight through, and not the turn lane first.
Also, was it a green turn arrow, or a green light?
w

Getting out of it completely, based on the information you provided
seems pretty unlikely. You said that you expected the light to turn
green (with arrow) so, when the light changed, you assumed it would be
green, but you did not check to ensure it did in fact change.

The fact that you travel this stretch of road often, and expect the
traffic light to behave the way you have seen it in the past, is no
defense. The argument I give to you based loosely on your scenario is;
suppose someone is coming from the opposite direction (assuming they
have a clear lane), and is traveling at the legal maximum rate of
speed towards the intersection, as the light turns green (they get
green in their direction, vehicles traveling in your straight ahead
path also get a green, but NO green turn lights). They (opposite
direction traffic) then see that they have a green light and continue
through the intersection. Meanwhile, you "assumed" you had a green
turn light, and you are now directly in their path. With any luck both
of you would miss each other or only suffer vehicle damage, but, more
than likely injury and/or death would be the result.

Sorry to seem like I have no sympathy here, but I've been on scene to
too many serious accidents, that were caused by driver
inattentiveness. In this case you let "habit" control what you did,
and should feel lucky that all you got was a ticket.

As mentioned by previous posters, if you feel you don't deserve it,
take it to court. The worst that can happen is the charge will be the
same as it currently is, best case is it will be thrown out.