Traffic Tickets

Ventura County residents with delinquent traffic tickets have until Thursday to pay reduced fines and clear their driving records under a statewide amnesty program. All traffic citations issued before April 1, 1991, except those for parking, drunk driving and reckless driving, are eligible. Under the program, drivers who failed to pay traffic tickets by April 1 can reduce misdemeanor fines from a maximum of $1,000 to $500, and infraction fines from a maximum of $500 to $100.

Nearly five months after the San Diego County district attorney's office began evaluating evidence of ticket fixing and other improprieties by Police Chief Bill Kolender, prosecutors have decided not to seek charges or conduct a formal investigation, according to sources close to the inquiry. Kolender and Asst.

A top California law enforcement official said Monday that he is "astounded" by allegations of ticket-fixing by the San Diego Police Department and added that the practice isn't widespread in other law enforcement agencies around the state. Steve White, chief assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, said "it just doesn't happen" that other police departments dismiss parking and traffic tickets for the media, friends and relatives. "I know chiefs of police," said White.

Surrendering to the technological revolution, Oxnard police officers soon will start ticketing speeders using battery-operated, hand-held computers designed to cut down on paperwork and staff time. Officers are set next month to begin learning how to use 15 of the calculator-sized devices, which are being loaned free to the city by the Ventura County Municipal Court. Oxnard is only the second police agency in the state to turn to the burgeoning ticket-writing technology.

The road through Hopewell, Va., isn't exactly paved with gold, but a mile-and-a-half stretch of interstate generated $2-million worth of speeding tickets for the town last year - and a fight between the AAA and the local sheriff.  AAA Mid-Atlantic, decrying "heavy-handed traffic enforcement tactics," said the 14,000 tickets written last year for a stretch of Interstate 295 through the town "appears to be about more than safety. " The speed limit is 70 mph. Sheriff Greg Anderson said officers won't write up tickets until a driver is going a minimum of 81 miles an hour.

The Manhattan Beach Police Officers Assn. said Wednesday that its members will stop issuing traffic tickets to protest a new, one-year contract forced on them by council members this week after negotiations stalled. The union represents 49 of the department's 58 officers. Four rookie officers who belong to the union but are still on probation will continue to write tickets, according to the group.

A hand-held computer that eventually will allow police to print out traffic tickets instantly and allow speeding motorists to pay fines with credit cards was unveiled by the California Highway Patrol Monday in a ceremony atop the Conejo Grade. Under a $60,000 project in Ventura County that is hailed as the nation's first, the CHP has equipped officers with 12 computers and portable printers to cut down on the time and paperwork required to process handwritten tickets.

The former administrator of the Santa Anita Municipal Court was charged Monday with misdemeanor conspiracy to obstruct justice for allegedly dismissing 73 traffic tickets over a one-year period without consulting a judge. Ralph Weldon, 34, resigned his $42,000-a-year administrative post last November, two months after investigators began looking into allegations of ticket fixing at the tiny Monrovia-based courthouse, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Healey said.

" I'm 16. I just got a ticket for going 65 on the freeway. Do I have to go to court or can I pay by mail? My dad will be so mad; do I have to tell him? " No way out. Unlike adults who get tickets and can just mail in the bail amount, most kids in L.A. County have to show up for a hearing with parents in tow. If you don't show up with your folks at the special traffic school for minors, there's no way to avoid serious trouble.