Are You Looking for a Traffic Lawyer Near You?

Do you feel like your legal problem requires a traffic lawyer? Many people feel that way when they start their internet search for the best attorney near them that they can find.

Be aware that what the legal profession may consider a traffic legal issue may not be what your case calls for. Semantics and what that area of study encompasses means that we all have different meanings for our words. The term traffic in our office means anything that has to do with a roadway OR a motor vehicle. If you are arrested for riding a horse on a public roadway while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, that is a traffic matter for our purposes. Let’s look at a few other examples that may not be as obvious as you think.

California Vehicle Code Section 22511.5 is the law concerning who may park a motor vehicle in a parking space designated for disabled persons or disabled veterans. This is a traffic matter to us because it involves the use of a motor vehicle. Whether you are actually operating the motor vehicle at the time you are cited or not is not the important part to the law. The relevant part of the law that you may have to be concerned about if you are misusing a handicap placard is California Vehicle Code 4461 which says in part, “(c) Except for the purpose of transporting a disabled person as specified in subdivision (b), a person shall not display a disabled person placard that was not issued to him or her or that has been canceled or revoked.” As you can see, just the displaying the placard is a problem if it is not being used for a purpose designated by the law.

We have seen many people recently attending the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals who thought they would be clever and grab themselves a convenient parking space by grabbing mom’s or grandpa’s handicap placard and using it at the musical festival special parking area for handicap attendees. This is a bad idea because DMV sets up special license plate readers at entrances to these parking lots that will scan the license plate of each entering vehicle to see if those four 20-something dudes in the jeep could be mom or grandpa. The cops know they aren’t them and they will be issued a traffic citation which is a potential misdemeanor in the court system. We are experienced and skilled at getting our clients out of these types of traffic problems so that they may avoid a misdemeanor conviction on their otherwise clean record and avoid probation and a possible jail sentence.

Another increasingly popular traffic law violation for cops in California is NOISE! California Vehicle Code Section 27150(a) states that “Every motor vehicle subject to registration shall at all times be equipped with an adequate muffler in constant operation and properly maintained to prevent any excessive or unusual noise, and no muffler or exhaust system shall be equipped with a cutout, bypass, or similar device.” The sections that follow 27150 tell you that you can’t modify your exhaust system to make it louder, how loud too loud is and how far a cop should be to tell you that you are too loud. We are seeing more of these noise enforcement efforts going into effect here in the Coachella Valley by the local police agencies, the sheriff’s department and by CHP. What we call a pretext traffic stop in the law is when the cops use one fairly simple stop of you and your vehicle on the road to actually intend on checking your sobriety (lack thereof) or to see what you may be transporting. The courts allow a cop to use one reason for a stop to justify their actual more devious purpose. So your simple traffic stop may become your serious legal problem if you are hiding some behavior or activity that you don’t want the cops to discover.

If any of these above traffic problems, or any others not specifically mentioned here, could be a concern for you and your activity on a roadway or in or on a vehicle of any type, give our office a call at 760-345-4777 or 760-898-0205 (text also) anytime, day or night, 7 days a week. We will handle your traffic case for you!