With tomorrow being the deadline to appear regarding the citation I received Dec. 09 during the annual Midnight Ridazz All-City Toy Ride (my multiple attempts to process it online denied due to the citation being “not found”), I pedaled down to the Metro Traffic Courthouse on South Hill Street, only to find out via the clerk there that the ticket doesn’t yet exist in the system most likely due to the officer not yet entering it.
Turns out — according to the clerk (and in contradiction to my January 27 appearance date as indicated on the citation) — the officer has up to a year to register the ticket… an entire freakin’ year. So basically, the trip was not only a wasted one, but on top of that since a mailed courtesy notice isn’t guaranteed, the responsibility is entirely on me to keep checking the LA Superior Court website to see when it ends up in the system, and only at that point can I pay bail and request a trial by declaration. If it isn’t in there by December 10, 2012, it’s void.
In the meantime since tomorrow will come and go without any record of me taking any action I asked for and received a “tracer” from the clerk that at least shows I presented myself before the deadline. Trouble is it expires in 90 days, so if the end of April arrives and there’s still no citation, I’ll have to go back and get another tracer. And then maybe another one after that in July. And another one in October.
The one glimmer of hope in all this additional frustration is that if the ticket hasn’t been entered by now there might stand a chance that it might not be entered at all. Fingers crossed, from now until December 10.
UPDATE (01.28): Guess I can uncross my fingers. A second “Notice of Correction/Proof of Service” form dated January 26 arrived in the mail today advising me that my court appearance date has been changed to March 15.
Follow