Transportation and Vehicle Safety: traffic tickets, elk grove ca, radar officer

Question
Terry, after 20 years of safe driving, got three tickets this year:
1. carpool violation(had to avoid hitting a semi, drove in the carpool lane for 2 minutes, a bike cop was standing by central divider, saw me changing lanes, which I did as soon as I saw a safe opportunity, the rest is history)
2. Red light violation caught on video in Elk Grove, CA, and
3. CAVC 22349, radar, officer claims I was going 84 mph in a 65 mph zone.  
Any ideas on how I should deal with this mess?
Thanks,
Yuri L

Answer
Hello Yuri and welcome to AllExperts!

Sorry for having taken so long to get back to you, but have had my hands full.

As you can only take driving school to remove one of the three citations, you must prioritize what you are going to do based on viability and damage control.

The first thing is to see what you can fight in court with a fair to good likelihood of winning. This would be your carpool lane violation. Your excuse is a common one and is absolutely legal to enter any safe lane of travel (even unlawful ones) to move away from danger to avoid an accident. Safety is a drivers #1 responsibility, and takes precedence over existing traffic laws. This violation is also the most expensive!

Your second choice is to use your traffic school on the most expensive violation that you could not likely win in court. This will probably be your speed violation.

What's left to deal with to is your red light violation.

So, contest (fight) the carpool lane violation by written declaration , then plead no contest on the speed violation with a request to take traffic school.

Make sure you do not plead to your red light violation until the court grants your traffic school on the speed violation. Once this is done, then plead no contest to the red light violation.

I hope this works for you, and best of luck Yuri. By the time you receive this, I will have resigned from AllExperts due to time conflicts, so I will not be able to answer followup questions. There are many wonderful experts who can help you.

Have a great day Yuri!

Terry