Seattle Traffic Violation of the Day - Limitations on Backing

I am a Seattle traffic attorney, which means I spend a lot of my time fighting Seattle traffic tickets, Seattle speeding tickets, Seattle red light tickets, and many other types of traffic infractions. And one thing I see from time to time is a traffic citation issued to someone by a police officer even though they weren't present and have no physical evidence to go on but the statements of the two drivers. What often happens is someone is cited with a traffic infraction with no foundational basis whatsoever that anything occurred.

For example, I just had someone hire me who was involved in a traffic accident and received a citation for it. Although the officer wasn't there at the time, had no evidence whatsoever that my client did anything wrong, and had some evidence from independent third parties that the other driver was at fault, the officer wrote my client a Seattle traffic citation. We haven't had the hearing yet, but I'm hoping the judge will see the impropriety of issuing a traffic citation when no evidence exists that any wrong doing occurred by my client.

Here's what happened, in a nutshell. My client, we'll call him HC (hypothetical client) was pulling out of his driveway in Seattle on day this summer. The driveway sits on a sharp curve, and there was a car parked in the street in the area that is needed to view oncoming traffic and to see approaching vehicles (though I think HC's view was unobstructed because of the vehicle type, while the other vehicle may have been shielded from seeing HC). Additionally, this curve is notorious for people driving around it above the speed limit, despite the fact that it is a blind turn. Well, HC begins to pull out of the drive way, looking for oncoming traffic, when all of a sudden he hears a horn and a crash. A driver coming around the curve at a high rate of speed ran into HC's car.

When the cop got there he surveyed the situation, talked to a couple of people, and despite information that the car had been speeding, that HC had been careful to look both ways, and the fact that the officer was not there to witness what happened, the cop issued HC a traffic infraction for "Limitations on Backing," or RCW 46.61.605. This is the statute, in a nutshell; "(1) The driver of a vehicle shall not back the same unless such movement can be made with safety and without interfering with other traffic."

Now, I don't know about you, but this Seattle traffic statute seems pretty vague, and anyone at any time backing out of a driveway may be violating this statute if any traffic is coming or going on the street at the time the car is backing out. Also, under this scenario, HC may never be able to get out of his house since it may never be safe enough to back out without interfering at least a little bit with oncoming traffic.

That is probably where RCW 46.61.445 comes into play as well, which states: "Compliance with speed requirements of this chapter under the circumstances hereinabove set forth shall not relieve the operator of any vehicle from the further exercise of due care and caution as further circumstances shall require."

All in all, HC should not have been cited with a traffic infraction for the events surrounding this accident. Not only was she acting appropriately and with a high duty of care, the other driver was not following the rules of the road with respect to due care.

Because HC felt he was wronged, he did the right thing in hiring a Seattle speeding ticket attorney. At least this way he can be assured that he is presenting the best case possible and getting the best chance to keep this ticket off of his record. If you get a speeding ticket or limitations on backing ticket, you can fight it yourself, or you can hire a Seattle traffic lawyer to provide a top notch defense. Sometimes it can mean the difference between winning and losing.