I just received a red light camera violation for left turn on red but did not actually turn.?

Question

I pulled up to the intersection in question (was from out of town and trying to locate a street) and found that I was incorrectly in a left turn lane (2 of them, which had a red arrow light on) but I needed to go straight instead, so I switched lanes and went through the intersection (the intersection light was green). The video from the camera clearly shows this and the green light is also clearly visible. This ocurred in Vista, California and I live in Arizona. I have been issued a VC 21453(c) citation (failue to stop at a red light) but I never turned at the red arrow stop light. Do I have any chance contesting and winning this citation without having to drive back to Vista?

Answer 1

No cuz you are at fault here. Once you are in that lane you can't simply do what you did to go straight. So you did do a wrong move there. Now maybe you could be charged with a lessor crime like unsafe lane change but chances are you still broke one law or another. Good luck with whatever you try to do.

Answer 2

It seems to me like you have a case, as long as you signaled and had plenty of room to make the lane change.  The camera probably just has a trigger of some kind that you tripped when you made the lane change.