Is there ANY legal speed on the freeway? Suppose there is a stretch of freeway where the speed limit is 55 mph but traffic is traveling at about 65 mph (which sometimes happens in the area I’m thinking of). If you drive any speed over 55, you can be cited for speeding, but if you drive under about 62, you could get dinged for impeding the flow of traffic (ORS 811.130). Not only is there no legal speed, but if you drive 61 mph, you could seemingly be cited for BOTH speeding AND driving too slowly. In response to the comments: The 62 mph number is just a rough estimate of the differential that it would take to irritate other drivers. You can replace it with any number from 56 to 64 and the question is still valid. What is the correct way to handle this situation?
What is the correct way to handle this situation? Strictly speaking, each driver exceeding the speed limit is in violation of the traffic sign even if everybody else also infringes it. Thus it is completely valid for the police to pull &amp; fine anyone from among those drivers. Statutes like the one you mention are intended for scenarios where a driver departs significantly --and for no apparent [lawful] reason-- from the speed limit, such as driving at 20 mph in a 55 mph zone. Typically a driver would not get pulled over in the scenario you mention (driving at 62 mph where everybody else drives at 65 mph). The exception would be some police department(s) requiring its cops to meet a quota of fines per week, but that would be quite a questionable practice having nothing to do with the legislative intent. Speed limits are supposed to represent normal and reasonable movement of traffic. If informed consensus is that a particular speed limit is inconsistent with that principle (for instance, where limit is artificially low and raising it would not compromise safety), then a request could be submitted to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
The national standard, found in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), indicates, in Section 2B.13 Speed Limit Sign: 03 Speed Limit signs, indicating speed limits for which posting is required by law, shall be located at the points of change from one speed limit to another. It would not be legal to accelerate to the new speed before reaching the sign. All states were required to adopt the MUTCD no later than 2012. This standard is followed by all states.
You are right, the entry and exit photos are only evidence that you were there. This is something they need to prove so the photos may only be for that. Their statement that you didn’t display a valid ticket/permit is, at present an unevidenced assertion. If you contest this, they will provide evidence that you didn’t (e.g. the actual records they refer to) and you would provide evidence that you did and, if it goes to court, the judge will decide what evidence they prefer. As this is not a criminal matter, they need to prove the offence on the balance of probabilities. However, there are almost certainly administrative remedies which will allow you to contest the fine without going to court. This would involve you sending them a copy of the permit and them assessing whether their belief that you didn’t display it is justified or not.
The ordinance is not very specific about how notice is to be given: therefore, it need not be in writing, and it need not be sent by mail. It would not be surprising if the "notification" came in the form of a city person inspecting the reported obstruction, walking up to the house and knocking and finding nobody home (thus triggering the "In case the owner cannot be found" condition), whereupon the city removes the rocks. That clause does not mean "In case we do not know who the owner is", it almost certainly means "in case the owner cannot be contacted immediately". Article III is in general about obstructions on streets, which are not allowed, except by permit in section 78 under "Permit to Obstruct Traffic Lane". Assuming that no obstruction permit was obtained, what usually happens is that an officer is sent to tell the owner to remove the obstruction (more or less immediately), and if nobody is at the site whom they can tell, they probably won't go any further (e.g. asking neighbors where the owner is). There is no legal definition of "reasonable time", instead the law simply takes that to mean "the amount of time a reasonable person would require". It would thus depend particularly on the size of the obstruction and the volume of traffic. One measure would be how quickly the rocks were moved -- if it was a matter of days and there was no notice, written or otherwise, then there would not be the kind of urgency that might justify the "We knocked and nobody was home" version of notification.
In California, the law for public bridges and highways appears to be as follows (emphasis mine): CA St &amp; Hwy Code § 30843 (2017) Any person who operates a motor vehicle over a toll bridge or toll highway crossing and the approaches thereto constructed or acquired by any bridge and highway district, at the entrance to which appropriate signs have been erected to notify traffic that it is entering upon a toll bridge crossing or its approaches and is subject to the payment of tolls beyond the sign, is guilty of a misdemeanor in each of the following cases: (a) If the person refuses to pay the tolls. (b) If the person turns, or attempts to turn, the vehicle around in the bridge, approach, or toll plaza where signs have been erected forbidding the turning. (c) If the person refuses to pass through the toll gates after having come within the area where signs have been erected notifying traffic that it is entering the area where toll is collectible or where vehicles may not turn around and where vehicles are required to pass through the toll gates for the purpose of collecting tolls. So it appears the &quot;last exit before toll&quot; signs are sufficient. It doesn't say anything about posting the actual cost of the tolls.
The exact situation depends on where you are. If you are in Washington state, what you get (but did not realize) is a notice to appear in court. By not paying the fine or showing up to court, you could be subject to RCW 46.64.025, so that the department of licensing is notified. You have 15 days to respond to the notice. We assume that you are a resident, because if you are a non-resident (and not resident of another state with a reciprocal agreement), they would have required you to pay a bond at the time of the ticket (though that isn't possible with automated infraction-detection). When the Dept. of Licensing gets the notice of the unpaid ticket, they may suspend or revoke your license. At this point, you will have received notice that your license was suspended (unless you changed your address and mail isn't forwarded, in which case you have a different problem, that you're supposed to apprise DOL of your current address, and didn't do so). At that point (after they send the letter), you have 15 days to respond. One response is to pay the ticket plus the added fines, or, you can request an administrative review (to appeal the suspension). The point of going to court to plead your case would presumably be to modify the judgment against you, for instance to reduce or eliminate the added fine. You would then need to give a good reason for not being punished: RCW 46.64.025 already has you covered, because the suspension process starts with willfully failing to appear. You would then need to show that your failure to appear was not willful. It does not legally matter whether you are a foreigner or have problems understanding the language. Speeding tickets usually say pretty clearly that you must pay the ticket within a specified time frame, or appear in court, but people don't always read tickets. It is entirely plausible that one's grasp of the language is low enough that there really was a misunderstanding. If you can provide credible evidence that your failure was not willful, by law you would only be liable for the ticket. In other states and countries, the situation could be somewhat or quite different (e.g. Norwegian traffic laws are stricter). In New Mexico, it is more serious to fail to appear. NM Statute 66-8-126 states that "It is a misdemeanor for any person to violate his written promise to appear in court, given to an officer upon issuance of a uniform traffic citation, regardless of the disposition of the charge for which the citation was issued". Your license can/will be suspended (it is not clear whether suspension is automatic), but additionally since failure to appear is a misdemeanor, you can be arrested. Unlike Washington law, there is no willfullness requirement for such a penalty. Given the criminal nature of failure to appear, a traffic attorney would need to suggest an appropriate belated response.
Obviously the police isn't checking all the time that all the speed limit signs are still where they should be, so in practice you would get a speeding ticket, which the police officer would give you with a good conscience. And you might very well think that you missed the sign, and pay the fine without complaining. If you are sure there was no sign, you could say to that officer "I didn't see any speed limit sign, where was it? " and hopefully he or she would tell you where that sign was supposed to be. Then you might go back, find the sign on the ground, take a photo, take it to the police officer who would then take action to get the sign back up, and would most likely make that speeding ticket invalid. There are exceptions: A speed limit sign can actually allow you to go faster than you would be allowed without the sign. For example in a town the normal speed limit without any signs might be 30mph, and the sign said 40mph. If the police officer stops you going 45, you have no excuse because without the sign the limit would have been 30. Or you have one sign 30, followed by a sign 40. Same situation if the "40" is taken down. Or the police should have put up repeating signs every two miles, but put them every mile. If one sign is down, they could still be within the legal limits. And last, assuming the police didn't put the sign up just for fun, there is probably something making it unsafe to go 60mph if there was a sign 40mph. If that is something you should have seen, and doing 60mph was dangerous for reasons you should have seen, then you might get a ticket for driving at an unreasonable speed. Even if there never was a speed sign. You are never allowed to drive at a dangerous speed.
New York has a "stop and identify" law which says that a police officer may stop a person in a public place located within the geographical area of such officer's employment when he reasonably suspects that such person is committing, has committed or is about to commit either (a) a felony or (b) a misdemeanor defined in the penal law, and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his conduct. However, there is no requirement to carry an identifying document or to prove your verbal statements of identity. For that matter, there is no requirement that you have your license in your possession when driving, you simply have to be duly licensed. In this case, the officer has reasonable suspicion of a crime, so you do have to tell him your name, address, and what you were doing. In Washington, there is no stop-and-identify law, so you don't even have to tell the police who you are. There does exist a requirement to identify yourself if you are stopped for an traffic infraction: (1) Any person requested or signaled to stop by a law enforcement officer for a traffic infraction has a duty to stop. (2) Whenever any person is stopped for a traffic infraction, the officer may detain that person for a reasonable period of time necessary to identify the person, check for outstanding warrants, check the status of the person's license, insurance identification card, and the vehicle's registration, and complete and issue a notice of traffic infraction. (3) Any person requested to identify himself or herself to a law enforcement officer pursuant to an investigation of a traffic infraction has a duty to identify himself or herself and give his or her current address. However, the proposed scenario does not fall under this requirement because you weren't stopped. Also note that the limited ID law of Washington does not compel you to provide a document, it compels you to provide information. It is a misdemeanor to drive without a valid Washington license, but it is only an infraction to drive having been issued a license but not having it in your possession, as long as you provide an alternative ID document. So if you drive without a license in WA and are stopped, you have to show an ID document or suffer the misdemeanor alternative. But again, in this scenario you were not driving and were not stopped, you will not be forced to provide a document. Because driving without a license is a misdemeanor and the officer did not observe you driving, under Washington's arrest without warrant law, he cannot arrest you for suspicion of having committed the misdemeanor of driving without a license. (The arrest without warrant law is a bit more complicated, see the 11 exception subsections, none of which apply here). If your goal is to try to be forced to show your driver's license, you might try Indiana, where the law says A person who knowingly or intentionally refuses to provide either the person's: (1) name, address, and date of birth; or (2) driver's license, if in the person's possession; to a law enforcement officer who has stopped the person for an infraction or ordinance violation commits a Class C misdemeanor. But again, you were not stopped for an infraction or ordinance violation, so you may keep your license in your wallet.