California red light cam ticket? Free info!
Over 20 cities in CA send out fake tickets, which you can ignore. Here's how to recognize one.
It won't have the name and address of the court on it - because it has not been filed with the court. On the backside, in small print, it will say "Do not contact the court." Other than that it will look just like a real red light camera ticket.
The purpose of the fakes (aka Snitch Tickets) is to get the registered owner to turn in whoever was driving the RO's car. (If you are not in CA you will not understand why the prosecution needs to know who was driving. It's because unlike most other states, CA is a "driver responsibility" state.)
Read more about Snitch Tickets in Section 2 of the Your Ticket page at the free (!!!) website http://www.highwayrobbery.net.
One more bit of advice. If you get a real ticket, but it wasn't you driving, the police and many court clerks will lie to you and say that you must ID the person who was driving. The truth is that you don't have to turn the driver in. But you still must respond to the ticket - don't ignore a real ticket.
RL
Return to sender does not work!
Regarding the advice, above, to send your ticket back with "refused" scrawled on the envelope in red ink:
That's really bad advice!
Doing so will not "kill" the ticket. The court will simply wait a while and once they see that you have not responded, they will add an additional $300 to the (already large) fine and then they will turn it over to a collection agency.
I am guessing that "ezrhythm" knew his advice -
("And on top of that, you may return ANY ticket to the officer/station that issued the ticket within 72 hours by certified/registered mail.
Right "Refusal For Cause" in red ink across the face.
When you receive a notice in the mail from the court, do the same.")
- was wrong but posted it as a sly commentary on the advice I gave about Snitch Tickets (fake tickets that you can ignore). Unfortunately, he did not realize that some people would not get his joke, and would take his advice at face value.
By the way, my post was no joke. I stand by the validity of my advice about Snitch Tickets.
RL