When his wife received a ticket in the mail recently, the first thing she said was the yellow light was too short.
So Mike, who works with numbers all the time as a math tutor, put it to the test.
"I said, ‘If it's really short, then you got short-changed and you got a ticket illegally,'" said Mogil.
The speed limit on Collier Boulevard, where she was cited, is 45 mph. According to county guidelines, the yellow light should be 4.5 seconds.
Mogil said he tested it 15 times with an average of only 3.8 seconds.
"And I said, ‘We've got a problem,'" he said.
He challenged the ticket Monday and a special magistrate dropped it when the county conceded the yellow wasn't long enough.
"I think it was an oversight more than anything," said Gene Calvert of the Collier County Transportation Department. link
An oversight. Of course it was.
4 comments:
Can you imagine if someone were speeding *just* five miles over the speed limit, and you stopped in front of him on that short yellow? The county would rather have a few hundred bucks on that ticket and risk your safety.
Yet another reason to have the *minimal* necessary government--fewer petty bureaucrats after your money.
Many cities are looking to police to be more self funding by writing more tickets.
I'm glad Mike was able to successively fight this.
I'm sending this to the in-laws that live in Collier county.
Also, Boulder yellow lights are almost all around 3.5 seconds but the speed limit isn't 45 either.
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