You just have to contest that one in court. Call a newspaper to be there with you.
"The driver of a vehicle must stop and stay stopped for a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except at crosswalks when the movement of traffic is being regulated by police officers or traffic control signals, or where otherwise prohibited by municipal, county, or State regulation, and except where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead pedestrian crossing has been provided, but no pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is impossible for the driver to yield. Nothing contained herein shall relieve a pedestrian from using due care for his safety."
After this happened to me I was outraged. I wanted to check with the nearby businesses and see if a security camera had recorded what happened so I could use it as evidence to show that the undercover police officer that darted out in front of me had violated the very law I was issued a summons for by not exercising reasonable care before she attempted to cross the street. But after I calmed down and called my insurance company and was assured that because of my lengthy relationship with them and my spotless driving record that I would not incur an insurance surcharge for the two points, I decided to cut my losses and pay the $130 fine.
Fighting that ticket in court would have meant missing some work during a crucial time to make a 150 mile round trip ride to Salem, and my only defense in court would have been my version of the events that took place versus the police version. I would have almost certainly lost that battle. Then, in addition to the $130 fine, I would have also been assessed court costs of probably $100 and spent God knows how many torturous hours sitting on a wooden bench waiting for my case to be heard.
I have no ax to grind with the police. I've never been arrested in my life and prior to this incident I hadn't received a traffic ticket in almost 20 years. I have friends and clients who are in law enforcement and, like most people in law enforcement, they're decent, honest, hard working people who risk their lives to do a job most of us wouldn't want to do. But I have to tell you, it's a really lousy feeling when the police do something unethical for an ulterior motive to give out lots of traffic citations and you end up as one of their victims.
I suspect the ulterior motive of the husband and wife duo on the Salem police department who cooked up this crosswalk sting to expose the supposed danger they claimed drivers were subjecting pedestrians to at crosswalk's, was the front page article that was scheduled to appear in the local newspaper the following day and report on the results of their undercover operation. I guess they realized it was in their best interest to give out many tickets instead of just a few. Does anybody honestly believe that in just two hours on a 25mph street there could be 34 incidents of a driver nearly running down a pedestrian in a crosswalk?
