After a traffic camera takes your picture in Tucson a police officer reviews a video to determine if a violation occurred.

“We take that extra step because we want to make sure that we are really sure when we are issuing a citation,” said Lt. Elise Souter from the Tucson Police Department

Almost 27,400 traffic camera citations were reviewed and mailed out from July 2009 through June 2010.

The ticket provide four options: Pay the fine, declare that you were not driving, request a hearing or if eligible attend defensive driving school.

“The notice does not state that you can ignore the ticket in fact what it state is that if you don’t take any action on the ticket you may be served by a process server,” said Attorney Patrick Moran.

But if the ticket is not physically given to you or a person at your house Arizona law allows you to ignore the ticket.

“You have 30 days in which to respond to the citation that we send to your residence, if you ought not to respond to that we then have a 90 day period where a process server can serve you with a citation at your residence or work.” Lt. Souter said.

If you manage to stay away from the process server for 90 days the citation…

“It disappears, it goes away from the system,” Lt. Souter said.

Meaning, you don’t have to pay the fine and you won’t get a point in your driving record. But are these rules clear to the public?

“It is an option that someone can avail themselves of. I do think it is common knowledge,” said City Court Administrator Christopher Hale.

Attorney Christopher Wencker said that the rules are unclear since they are not stated on the ticket. And he thinks that’s a problem.

“Most people when they get something official from the government, from the police department or the court in the mail they take it very seriously,” Wencker said.

Richard Fontaine attended a traffic hearing after receiving a ticket. He wasn’t sure about the process service rules.

“Friends of mine told me that you had to be served in person and I didn’t believe it,” Fontaine said.

Shelly Wheeler also got a ticket. She said the citation didn’t clarify that she had the right to be served. Thus, she called her legal adviser.

“If I had not been with pre-paid legal and had heard somebody else talking about tickets and heard that then I would not even have known to call. I would just have tried to make a decision on my own looking at these options,” Wheeler said.

Should the citations clarify these rules?

“If they said that in these papers than it would be obvious of how many people who would just ignore it,” Wheeler said.

“They can do better job I think in clarifying the law,” said Fontaine.

Tucson Budget Director Marie Nemerguth said. “Well, I don’t think writing the option on the ticket is a good idea either though, it just gives people free reign to repeatedly do it and there is no repercussion to running or speeding red lights”

Wencker said the tickets are misleading.

“When you are taking advantage of people and their willingness to comply with a official orders from the court or a notice from the police department you have the responsibility to make sure that they understand that they don't have to do that," Wencker said.

But Hale says that it may not be the court’s responsibility to educate the public of this issue.

“Is that one of your legal options? I have to do some research and find out,” Hale said.

The Traffic Safety Camera Program in Tucson uses a vendor called American Traffic Solutions (ATS), which in turn has a third party vendor that handles the serving process in Tucson. ATS said that in 2010 attempts were made to serve almost 9300 people with traffic citations in Tucson. The process servers were unable to reach more than half of those people, which mean that close to 4700 citations most likely were dismissed.

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