Calculating the High Price of Traffic Tickets

I sympathize with “Paying for Parking,” the Aug. 10 letter about the high costs of tickets. I serve as an occasional temporary judge (pro tem) in about 20 L.A.-area traffic courts, and I hear that complaint often. The fines are calculated from a base amount, to which a mandatory penalty amount of 170% is added. Each $10 of the fine gets an extra $17 mandatory penalty. For example, a person driving solo in the carpool lane (a $100 ticket) ends up paying $271 ($1 added to fund Night Court, I’m told). I tell defendants to multiply their ticket by 2.7 to get an estimate of what the total cost is. Working backward, the letter writer’s original ticket would have been about $98; still high, but not as bad as the $265 he paid.

It does seem unfair that any ticket gets virtually tripled as a matter of course, so I encourage people who complain to take it up with their legislator, either for revocation of the law or at least fair notice. I feel that the city is using tickets as revenue generators. And while this is in my financial advantage (to keep my taxes from being raised--if I don’t get a ticket myself, of course), it is more important and fair that people should have fair notice of the total fine they may pay as well as not be triple-charged for a ticket.

Sanford Rogers

Beverly Hills