PA School Bus Violation: Why Paying the Ticket Could Cost You Your License

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Welcome back everybody to now we defend this week. We’re going to pick up kind of where we left off. We have a lot of other traffic matters that we’d like to go over with you. Some of the ones that affect I think everyday people pretty frequently. And where we’re going to start is the one that is kind of happening now because we have school busses out there.

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You know, obviously the school season, as we sit here and, you know, late October started about two months ago, and we’re seeing school busses, I’m sure you are out there every single day. And it’s obviously something we need to be aware of when the summer months end and, you know, the school year starts. We need to be very careful there because school bus citations can be pretty significant.

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You can lose your driver’s license if you are cited with a school bus violation. So there’s really two ways that school bus violations can be cited. The first is you can be cited under section 3345, which is essentially running the red lights, the amber lights, and or the stop sign or arm that comes out on the school bus.

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This is the big one. This is the one that’s automatically going to trigger a 60 day driver’s license suspension. It puts five points on your driver’s license, and there’s a $250 fine for it. That one’s a big deal because these are normal people out there that are getting to work, getting their kids around and losing their driver’s license every day across the Commonwealth because.

00:01:45:05 – 00:02:03:13

Either they don’t realize it carries that indirect license suspension because nobody warns you of that when you plead guilty to this ticket. It comes later from PennDOT. It’s not on the ticket where it tells you you’re getting the license suspension. So you need to be cognizant of this and not just plead guilty to it and then get stuck with the suspension.

00:02:03:18 – 00:02:28:06

Is getting that letter in your mail later from PennDOT saying, hey, you’re getting suspended here for, you know, 60 days. It’s pretty tough. But, secondly is the five points. The five points is a pretty big deal. I mean, you think about your insurance premiums, you think about if you have any other points on your license, one, two, three, and you get five points, you’re going to lose your driver’s license for that reason as well, separately from the automatic suspension.

00:02:28:08 – 00:02:45:24

So, furthermore, the insurance premiums are going to go through the roof. There’s a very good chance that your insurance might drop you or, you know, your premiums will be unattainable to even pay. So you become a major, at risk driver. And frankly, guys, this is really just because of the safety risk at issue with kids, right?

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I mean, we all obviously nobody wants to hit a child. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. And that’s why the penalties are so, so severe here. So it’s important to understand this. We frequently defend people here for school bus violations. A lot of times it’s innocent mistakes. A lot of times these are actually quite confusing. It’s not always, you know, the, you know, the school bus stops and you just blow through it.

00:03:07:12 – 00:03:23:19

A lot of times it’s, you know, the school bus is at an intersection. It’s stopped and you’re somewhere else in the intersection, and maybe you’re even turning away from the school bus. And you might think, this wouldn’t make sense. I’d have to stop here because I’m not even going near the bus or where I could even hit a child.

00:03:23:23 – 00:03:42:14

But the law is that you. Do you have to stop there. And if you don’t, you’re going to get cited with this. The other thing that I want to kind of hit on, I’m going to move to Justin and Tim here to go over this is a school bus. Violations are far more prevalent than they were even last year.

00:03:42:20 – 00:04:08:19

One of the reasons is cameras on school busses are now being installed. They’re now being implemented, they’re now being prosecuted. And it’s very easy with these cameras because they’re high definition for them to send you a ticket in the mail when they get a ticket or a video that says, yeah, I mean, there’s a high def image of your license plate running the stop sign or turning in front of the bus when you shouldn’t have while it was at a school bus stop.

00:04:08:23 – 00:04:23:29

So be very careful here. Be cognizant. I always tell folks when I see a school bus stopping amber lights coming on, or even red lights. I don’t care where I’m at near that bus, I just stop. And if the idiot behind me wants to get upset because I stopped, let him beep at me. Let him throw me the finger.

00:04:24:02 – 00:04:41:24

It doesn’t matter. I’d much rather deal with that than deal with losing my driver’s license. So, Justin, I’m going to pop over to you first. Again, as I was mentioning, there’s two different ways this can be charged. And I kind of went over the one that’s the heavy one where you’re going to lose your license, you’re going to get five points.

00:04:41:24 – 00:05:02:13

You’re going to get a big fine. The one that really crushes people. But there’s another one, too. And the cops do sometimes cited. I’d like you to kind of tell us a little bit more about that. Yep. So that’s going to be essentially under the vehicle Code section 3345.1, which is for automated camera enforcement for passing a stop school bus.

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And unlike the criminal traffic citation, we’ll put in quotations there. It’s a civil violation. So the fine is actually a little bit higher. It’s a $300 fine. However, it carries no points and no insurance rating, so there’s generally no impact on your insurance. Premiums. Yeah. And there’s no license suspension to the suspension. So this is guys this is night and day, right?

00:05:30:24 – 00:05:47:12

I mean, when you think about this, you know, you pay a $300 fine and we go to court just I mean, we do this frequently and people have certain citations. We’re usually trying to find one that doesn’t carry points, that doesn’t carry a suspension, but might have a little bit of a higher find to avoid all that mess and all that money that goes into those things.

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So, this is one where if you get it, you probably just want to pay it because it’s the one you want. Yeah. But you also want to be careful because a lot of times you might think it’s that one, but it’s the other one. So, you know, be careful here and guide yourself accordingly. Really the bottom line is talk to a lawyer.

00:06:02:25 – 00:06:31:28

Right? Absolutely. As we always say. And I think there’s also, you know, if you get sided with the 33, 45 A, which is that’s the, the red light, I’m pretty sure. So there’s also another subsection, I believe, for the amber lights, which I know that we’ve worked out stuff to before, but with that 3345.1, you know, that I think would be the gold standard here and what you’d look to, get it resolved to if, you know, you couldn’t get like a 3111, which is the failure to obey traffic control devices or something like that.

00:06:32:00 – 00:06:52:18

Again, that comes with no points, no suspension, no insurance hit. Will say, I think kind of what you’re saying there is, if you did get cited with 33, 45 and you were looking at that license suspension and the five points and the fine contact, a lawyer will go to court with you, and we might be able to plead it down to 33, 45.1, which carries none of that.

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Yeah, except for the fine. Of course. Yeah. And that that would save you. So yeah, I mean that’s definitely one we want to, we want to be focused on. So guys if you find yourself in that situation contact us. Do not just go pay the fine and think okay all I had on the citation was a fine. So I’m good.

00:07:07:25 – 00:07:32:18

All this other stuff is indirect. The license suspension, the the points that’s happening after the fact. You will not know that up front unless someone talks to you about it. So don’t be the person that sticks your head in the sand and just pleads guilty and pays a fine and think it’s all good. You might find out a week or two later on a letter from PennDOT that, hey, you now just lost your license for two months and you now got all these points, and now your insurance is going to drop you.

00:07:32:18 – 00:07:56:10

And please just don’t do that. Call us or call somebody and talk it through before you just pay a fine. All right. So I did want to talk. I’m going to bump over to you here, Tim. Here in York County. I know I’ve had some discussions with police officers. Recently, actually, this started happening actually last school year, and I’ve seen it even more this school year.

00:07:56:12 – 00:08:22:17

Where police departments and school busses are contracting with high definition cameras and companies that run these high definition cameras, and they’re actually installing them on the busses. And these are multi-camera systems that can zoom in, and they’re very high definition on on license plates and even drivers of vehicles, so they can see who’s even driving the vehicle on these cameras.

00:08:22:22 – 00:08:50:14

And, they’re actually getting the video from this company on a regular basis, and the police officers reviewing it, and they’re literally kicking these out very more, much more frequently as a result of this. And I think a lot of more people are getting these types of citations. So again, just kind of being aware of that. You know, when you get that citation that it might be one of those, but you should probably talk to an attorney before you just plead to it.

00:08:50:17 – 00:09:09:19

Tim, what’s what’s been your experience with with these school bus tickets, at least. At least lately. Like, what have you been seeing? But to be honest, I haven’t seen too many. I know we talked a little bit about, like, local departments that they’re, they’re having. There is a pipeline now between the company that is running the video and then they feed that to police.

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And then police kind of make their decision based off of that. And that is generally how any kind of automated enforcement works. I mean, there are requirements for certifying an automated device like this. And I believe the figure is they have to certify the device every six months. PennDOT does. So if they that’s that gives us several avenues of attack, potentially to defend the citation.

00:09:32:22 – 00:09:55:29

If the device itself is not certified properly, then the automated enforcement is going to fail because the they’re lacking the proper certification. There also has to be officer oversight. I mean, I think what we’re seeing in a lot of cases where there is automated enforcement is there’s a there’s a pretty high risk that the automated camera or whatever it is picks up a car.

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And then it it kind of assumes the identity of an individual based on the footage that it picked up. And it’s up to police really to verify that information. I was I actually had this happen to me, I got cited with a traffic ticket like a, like a bike lane violation or something in New York City. And, and they sent me a screenshot of the plate reader.

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It was a New York plate, but it had the exact same digits as my Pennsylvania plate did. So I sent them photos of my vehicle. It’s totally different vehicle, and it’s the same license plate in terms of digits, but the plate itself is not the same. And I also had someone write a letter that they were like, I was with Tim on this date and he was not in New York City.

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Like, I haven’t been to the city in a while. So there’s avenues of defense there, like mistaken identity or like you weren’t the one driving or it’s not your car. But we have to always be vigilant because the automated system is not a perfect system. It does make mistakes in identifying vehicles and the registered owners, and especially we haven’t talked about this up to this point, but a known issue with Pennsylvania’s new license plates, because we got new plates recently was that they were having some issues with plate readers, confusing the zero and the eight, because the zero on the new plates is a slashed zero.

00:11:20:06 – 00:11:38:07

And so some of the plate readers were mis identifying that digit as an eight instead of a zero. Those are the kinds of things you have to be aware of when we’re talking about automated enforcement, because it is it’s a it’s it’s a digital system that could make mistakes. Yeah. Side note on the new plates, what do you think about the new plates?

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Do you like them? I don’t like them. Justin, what do you think? I think they’re okay. Yeah, I think you have one, don’t you? I do too. Yeah, I still have the old place they made me when I got my new car. They made me trade in my old plate. So, like, I memorized my plate before, and it was an easy one to remember.

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I was, and I had it for probably like ten years. And I was kind of upset that they made me traded in, but they got rid of all like they’re they’re rescinding all plates of certain start with certain digits like Ells. Now they’re taking those plates back. They were reissuing they contacting plate owners of old plates and asking you to send your plate in, what they’re doing there, actually.

00:12:14:06 – 00:12:33:16

So it’s been kind of hit or miss because I know some people that have like super old plates that never got any notice from PennDOT, you know, they just renew their registration online every year. So nothing’s happened. And then I’ve had people essentially PennDOT sending them a new plate in the mail and saying, you need to return your old plate, put this new one on.

00:12:33:18 – 00:12:53:12

And how I got my new plate is it was last July. The car that I had, I had gotten a newer car, and my dad actually was a mechanic. So he fixes up the cars and he got this new car for me. It was in his name, so he had to go transfer the title from the car that I had from my name to his name, and vice versa.

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So when I did that, and we transferred the title over to the new car. The title transfer company provided me a new plate and basically, like PennDOT, you know, rescinding or revoking these old plates. So I’ve seen it kind of, I guess three different ways. I haven’t gotten that letter yet, but I guess I think generally it’s when you’re actually in a position where you’re interacting with like a dealer or a title transfer place, they can’t transfer the plate anymore.

00:13:18:14 – 00:13:37:26

They PennDOT made it so that the plate can no longer have to kill the plate. Exactly. It’s interesting because we bought a new car last year. I think it was at the no. It was in like August of last year. So 2025. And we must have got like one of the last old plates at that point, because I actually thought we were going to get a new plate because they were already I was seeing them already.

00:13:37:26 – 00:13:59:07

But we gotta, we gotta old plate. Same. So yeah, it was weird. New plates are kind of like, I don’t like them because they are kind of hard to read because, like, the the font contrasts well with the background, the, the blue lettering on the white background. But but the Pennsylvania lettering, the state showing the, the plate that’s red.

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That’s red. But it does kind of look pretty faint. And the Pennsylvania plate looks similar to the plate from other states like Mississippi, I think has a plate that’s kind of similar because they’ve got like a magnolia flower or something in the center, kind of like what we have the Liberty Bell, and from a distance, those plates. I think it’s Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

00:14:20:02 – 00:14:47:10

From a distance, those plates look kind of similar. So like it’s not the most distinctive plate. It’s kind of a and I like that it’s a simple plate that it’s very like just not fancy. But it is kind of hard to read and like we like I said earlier, the plate readers were even having some issues reading some of the digits on the plates, which was leading to people getting tolls that they didn’t they didn’t, they didn’t cause.

00:14:47:12 – 00:15:05:01

Yeah. Cause like, it’s all easy passes toll by plate. Okay. So my opinion on the plate, first of all is I like it. I think it’s nicer, prettier than the old plate. I just think the old plate was just kind of garbage. Yeah. The, you know, but I talked to my wife about it. She’s the opposite. She thinks the new plate kind of sucks.

00:15:05:02 – 00:15:22:04

Like, she’s like, I don’t really think it’s very pretty. Doesn’t look nice. It’s kind of black. You know, who cares? But, yeah, it’s, It’s my son. My oldest son, Lincoln. He collects license plates, and we have. We’ve been doing this for years. He’s he’s he’s a guy. He’s got this savant mind with license plates, and I remember.

00:15:22:06 – 00:15:37:25

I’ll tell you a quick story. I remember he was probably like five or maybe even four years old, and he would whenever we’d go on any trip, he would look at license plates, and he’d always, he had this board where he’d flip over like plates of every state that he would see, and he tried to collect all 50 on a trip.

00:15:37:25 – 00:15:56:08

Like if we would go up to Massachusetts or down to Florida or whatever. And we drive. He tried to, like, nail every plate the whole way there, and he’d stay up. He wouldn’t go to sleep. It was pretty funny. But here’s the interesting story is I remember one day we were driving. Here in York County over to Lancaster County, and we were going across the Susquehanna River.

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You guys know the route 30 bridge there? And have you ever seen those big orange, like, lit up signs that say, like, Amber alert? Look for this car, look for this plate. So, like, we passed one of those and we’re driving across the, the, the Susquehanna River, and he goes, dad, the plates over there on the unlike the other side of the vehicle or, I’m sorry, the other side of the highway.

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And I like, looked over and I was like, hot damn, that is the plate. You know, he, like, pinned it for the numbers and everything. And, I think it was the same car too, but it was just really interesting. I was like, we should call that in. And we did. We called it and I was like, and I didn’t know how much they believed this.

00:16:34:25 – 00:17:01:12

I was like my four year old son said that he saw and I did check and it was the same, but he used to look, he knows numbers and everything. That’s why I say like, he has this savant mine with license plates, but we collect them. So in his room, we actually have an entire wall covered in all sorts of different states plates, and we try to get the rare ones and the pretty ones when we talk about, you know, them being pretty, we’re always looking for like the rare ones with colors and scenes on them.

00:17:01:13 – 00:17:16:29

I’ll tell you who’s got the prettiest license plates in the whole state or a country. I know this because of Lincoln. Montana. Montana’s got the prettiest types of plates. They got one that has this trout on it. And you guys both know, like, Lincoln loves fishing. We go fishing a lot. It’s got this beautiful colored trout on it.

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It’s a really rare plate. They have this other one. There was like all these types of, like outdoorsy scenes with color and things like that that you can get. Montana’s got really, really well. So Pennsylvania has I mean, I forget what the figure is, but I mean, we’ve got like I mean, I think we probably have like 100 different kinds of license plates that you can get.

00:17:34:04 – 00:17:51:07

And what I was told is that some of the rarer ones they’re not issuing anymore, but they’ve grandfathered them in. Like if you have like a dare license plate. Yeah, yeah. One of the. That’s the black one. Yeah. The wildlife, the wildlife. I don’t think they’re issuing those anymore. But if you have one you can keep it. Okay.

00:17:51:10 – 00:18:09:05

Yeah. But one of my favorite I think my favorite Pennsylvania license plate is the one from like the 90s and early 2000. It’s like the dark back, the dark blue background with the yellow lettering. I always thought that was like the best plate. It was just a super simple plate and it was easy to read. That was on a bunch of like the like, it’s kind of like the municipal ones, right?

00:18:09:06 – 00:18:33:08

Yeah, except it was a darker blue and they have white lettering on them. The yellow lettering was on the like the normal one. Yeah, yeah, I know also in certain states like Delaware I know is one where like you can actually pay money to get like a lower number. And I know, like in I think what is it the UAE like the number one license plate is like millions, millions of dollars.

00:18:33:14 – 00:18:49:04

But Delaware is kind of like that to or if you have like a single digit license plate, like you have to pay for it. Well, Delaware’s license plates do kind of look like the old Pennsylvania license with the black ones. They’re just like a solid one, dark blue. The ones you’re talking about, though, are the black ones that are the vanity plates that you actually can buy.

00:18:49:07 – 00:19:06:29

I think the and I went to law school in Delaware, so I, I remember seeing this and it was like a big it still is a big thing over there. I think the governor has the plate. That’s like number one really. And I think the lieutenant governor gets to. But everything else after that, if I’m correct, I don’t know if that’s for sure, but I think is like owned privately by families.

00:19:06:29 – 00:19:25:22

And they sell for like hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars for a license plate to then put on your vehicle and drive around with it to have like a lower number. To me, I’m kind of like you in the sense that like, it always kind of blows my mind that people pay the extra money for the vanity plate because it is just something that goes on your car and then like, you forget it’s there and who cares?

00:19:25:23 – 00:19:44:26

And I mean, come on, some of them are funny. Like, I agree with you. I mean, come on, man from Seinfeld. Like that’s the best one I don’t think they’ll issue is. Yeah, you know, I don’t think they will. There’s certain ones that they just will not issue. Yeah. They won’t, they won’t let. Yeah. If any of you guys have any vanity plates that are like interesting and you actually got issued or are funny, put them in the comments.

00:19:44:26 – 00:20:03:10

I’d love to hear some some good ones, even if you’re out at Pennsylvania, like like what you got and what you were able to trick the state into giving you on your license plate. I actually was just looking it up. The, state with the most, types of license plates is Maryland. They have 989 different types of plates.

00:20:03:10 – 00:20:27:05

I actually thought it was Florida because we’ve seen so many different Florida ones, but they’re not even in the top three. So it’s Maryland at 989, Texas has 476, and Pennsylvania is actually number three at 400 plus. Yeah, yeah that’s crazy. So that’s kind of interesting stuff. And that’s kind of like, you know, it’s kind of funny because this campaign to roll out the new license plates, you kind of look at it and you’re like, we have over 400 license plates.

00:20:27:05 – 00:20:44:29

Why do we need another one? Right. And it’s funny because then they had issues with the license plate, the new license plate coming out. And it’s kind of like another government debacle kind of thing where it’s like, we spent all this money on new plates and they have problems. Yeah. Like, why do you do you think any state has prisoners make license plates in jail anymore?

00:20:45:00 – 00:20:59:26

I think they do. Yeah, I think we still do pay. Does I think Pennsylvania still does. Really? Okay. I just thought that was a thing of the past. I thought they just did it. And like, I think that is a thing that’s that still is done. Yeah. Interesting because I looked that up not that long ago, and I’m pretty sure that most of them are still generated by inmates.

00:21:00:04 – 00:21:15:06

That’s interesting. Yeah, that’s really interesting. Pressing away. Yeah. Preston away. Make them hate to do it. Making a couple of bucks in jail? Yeah. For sure. I mean, keeping them busy, too, you know? That’s a good thing. All right. Little piece of trivia here for you guys. I want to know if you know this. Do you know the.

00:21:15:10 – 00:21:32:16

And I might have told you this already. So if I did, don’t yell it out. But I might not have. Do you know the only vehicle that is allowed by law to pass a school bus? When the red lights are on and the stop sign and the arms out, there is one vehicle allowed? Yes, that. It’s like a ambulance or a fire truck.

00:21:32:23 – 00:21:59:20

You would, wouldn’t you? Yeah. That’s wrong a hearse? Nope. Mail truck. Yes. That’s crazy right? I don’t know why that that was your fault that I came. Why would that be the one? You know, that is strange. Well, I so I have a good friend of mine who several actually, who worked in post office. One is retired from it, and I was quizzing him a little bit because I’ve heard some things from like my mail carriers about like their how their job is and stuff.

00:21:59:23 – 00:22:18:01

And it is true that they especially in those like those old Grumman, vehicles, the big boxy looking ones, the old school mail trucks, they they are not allowed to reverse in those. So like, they, they are not allowed to go and worse, because the visibility is so bad, they’ve had liability issues where like they’ve hurt people reversing.

00:22:18:05 – 00:22:36:20

So they are it’s actually and what he told me is that it is actually enforced remotely. So if you back the vehicle up, the post office can see that you back the vehicle up and they will basically come and do an investigation, be like, why did you do that? Because the visibility on those things is so bad and they’ve had issues in the past.

00:22:36:20 – 00:22:55:24

So that is kind of interesting that in those old vehicles, they they’re they’re very strictly bound on how they can drive them. And they do also because they have so many houses to get to, they have pretty strict parameters on, like how long they’re allowed to spend at each place because they have kind of, I don’t think, to the point where they should be running school bus or something.

00:22:55:28 – 00:23:12:29

That is kind of crazy. I only learned of this because I a couple of weeks ago, I had a school bus violation that I represented this lady on. I was down there talking to the school bus driver, and he’d been school bus driver for like 20 years, and some old guy, really nice guy. But, he was telling me that and I’m like, that is so crazy because he kind of asked me the way I asked you guys.

00:23:12:29 – 00:23:29:26

He’s like, do you know the only vehicle? And I, I figured it was like, is it true? Is that that is pine? Yeah, it is, it is true. And because I did look it up, but I thought it was going to be like a police vehicle with lights and sirens on. Like if you’re in a police pursuit or you need to go to an emergency like that would get you around.

00:23:29:28 – 00:23:46:29

Right. But it’s crazy that you can’t. Now, I did ask him also. I followed up with him and I said, do you still see mail trucks? Like just blowing through or are they actually still stopping? And he said for the most part they still stopped. Yeah, I can’t, I imagine that that even if they blew through, like if they did it in a reckless manner, that would be a problem.

00:23:46:29 – 00:24:04:26

What I’m picturing for them going around school busses is like the school bus is stopped for like a prolonged period of time, and the mail truck is just creeping up delivering mail to a place that’s like right beside the school bus and then just continues on. And like that makes sense because they’re not full on driving through the school bus zone, right?

00:24:04:28 – 00:24:33:01

They’re going in slow, they’re stopping, and then they’re proceeding. That’s probably how it happens. That’s probably how it happened. Imagine the mail is that emergent. I mean, especially in today’s post office. No offense to the United States Post Office, but God, it sucks. You think about how they drive because like, they they’re driving from mailbox to mailbox and so like, they are, they’re on the road, but they aren’t really on the like they’re kind of just among traffic, you know, because they’re off and then they’re hopping back.

00:24:33:02 – 00:24:46:23

Right, exactly. And you go around them all the time, kind of, you know what I mean? Exactly. So like that’s what I’m picturing as to why they can do. So here’s another thing I’m going to ask if you are a mail truck driver, I’d like to get your take on this. How do you do this when you deal with school busses?

00:24:46:23 – 00:25:08:01

Because I’m sure you know a lot of mail into residential areas. You probably do with this pretty regularly. Do you stop? Do you go around? What situations do you go around with? Do you again and do you just stop sometimes because it’s safer? What’s the point of having the privilege if you never use it? I mean, just to use it, just to be like, hey, I can, I can, allowed to do this that count for any US mail carrier.

00:25:08:02 – 00:25:27:06

Like, obviously in some of the more rural areas, you know, they don’t even have the mail trucks. It’s just somebody in their personal vehicle. Yeah, like a Jeep. Like you see these somebody on a. Yeah. It’s any, it’s any, any mail carrier. Because even the jeeps that you see or the trucks in the rural areas, they do have like a light or something on and they’re, they’re driving on the opposite side to in their vehicle.

00:25:27:07 – 00:26:02:29

Right. Because yeah, that always throws me off. I never I see someone on the opposite side. I’m like, oh, they must be a mail carrier. It’s always weird to see like they have like the double steering wheel set up to you sometimes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay, guys, so to sum up this, school bus situation, the only time, technically that you are allowed to go to continue when you see another school bus on the other side of the road with their lights flashing and their arm out, and the stop sign out is if there is a physical divider on the roadway or the highway that you’re on,

00:26:03:01 – 00:26:20:23

that is the only time you’re technically able to pass or continue driving. If you see that. If you’re on a double yellow, if you’re on a very wide road, multi-lane, but there’s no physical barrier dividing, you have to stop if you’re on the other side of the road. Like I said earlier, the one that gets a lot of people.

00:26:20:25 – 00:26:37:24

If you were at a four way intersection and the school bus pulls up and they stop and they put their lights on and they have their arm out and the school busses out, and the kids are getting on and off, or even if they’re just waiting to do so and you come say this direction and you’re turning away from the school bus, you have to stop.

00:26:37:29 – 00:27:01:11

You cannot do that. That is a violation of the school bus law. Yeah, that’s not the way that I read the statute. It is technically a separate roadway. No, because you’re turning on to the same roadway that the school bus is on. You’re turning in front of it. So that is an actual violation of law. And that’s where actually a lot of people get prosecuted for this because they think they’re okay to I’m pretty sure I’ve done that thinking that that’s okay.

00:27:01:12 – 00:27:21:16

Yeah. If you pull up at a four way or a three way or whatever, and there’s a bus at that intersection or right near it. You have to stop, okay? You cannot turn away from the bus. Interesting. Obviously, you can’t turn around and you can’t go through the bus. No, but you can’t even turn away. It’s interesting because I even in preparation for this, I’m going to pull up the exception here because.

00:27:21:17 – 00:27:42:11

Well, yeah. And Tim, I’ve seen a lot of people get this type of citation specifically for that action. And I will tell you guys, when you defend these and you go to court with your client on these, and the police are there and the school bus drivers there, and you explain it, if you have that type of scenario, they’re much more willing to work with you than if you blatantly blow through a school bus.

00:27:42:11 – 00:28:04:19

One. Right. So the way the exception is worded, it says the driver of a vehicle upon a highway or traffic way with separate roadways need not stop upon meeting or passing a school bus with actuated red signal lights, which is on a different roadway. So the way that I was interpreting that was like, let’s say you’re in a four way intersection and you’re head to head with the bus, with the school, with the school sign on.

00:28:04:20 – 00:28:29:00

Right. Are you able to turn on that road now because you are on a separate roadway? If you turn perpendicular to that boss. Yeah, but the answer is no because you’re initially on the same roadway. Okay. That’s interesting off of that way. So you’re still taking the vehicular action while on that same roadway. Interesting. So yeah, you’ll probably see those because that’s usually surprised I haven’t been sighted with that, to be honest with you, because I am pretty sure I’ve done that.

00:28:29:01 – 00:28:42:08

Yeah. Well, name of the game is if you see those lights, man, you just stop. Yeah, just don’t mess with it. Because if you if you either get nabbed on the camera or the school bus driver grabs your plate, you’re going to get. Sure. Yeah. For that. So, you know, and I’ll go to court with you. We’ll help you.

00:28:42:08 – 00:29:02:24

But now I know. I mean, I’m not I’m not only a fool defends himself. Right, right. So all right, guys, we’re going to jump over to a new topic here. We’re going to talk about automated speed cameras. We’re seeing those more frequently here in Pennsylvania. I actually hadn’t seen them for a while. I was seeing them frequently in Maryland.

00:29:02:26 – 00:29:19:18

We drive down, you know, I-83, and you get on. I think it’s 695, and you’re starting into Maryland there. Like, for instance, when you go to BWI Airport in Baltimore, there’s a ton of these automatic speed cameras, and they give a ton of warnings. Right? They do. It’s coming, it’s coming. They definitely do them around construction sites.

00:29:19:19 – 00:29:44:19

I see them constantly there. I’ve actually gotten nabbed with them before I got a warning. You got a warning of an automated. So when they were doing the, construction on the bridge on 83 where we were just talking last week. Oh, this is in Pennsylvania. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. They come more common because, like, what Justin is about to say is when they’re doing the work on 83 or 30 and they have it down to like one lane, they have automated speed enforcement there.

00:29:44:22 – 00:30:02:13

Yeah. So this would have been are you guys seeing them mainly on, construction sites? Yeah. I haven’t really seen too many, just at least in this area. Yeah. They’re definitely like I’ve, I drove out to Pittsburgh recently and there was a few different points on, you know, it wasn’t the Turnpike. It was up in Pittsburgh on one of the highways.

00:30:02:13 – 00:30:22:11

But, I use ways for navigation a lot because they tell you where, you know, cops are and speed enforcement activity ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, confirm it too. Yeah. And I’ve seen those. But, yeah, when they were doing construction on 83, this is already a couple years ago. On that section we were talking about last week.

00:30:22:13 – 00:30:44:08

I ended up getting one in the mail, and it was like, right when they were first rolling this out. So what was that, 2024? Maybe 2025? I think it did just change in 2023. Yeah. So I ended up getting the warning in the mail or whatever. And from my understanding, usually for those automated ones, you have to be at least 11 miles over whatever the posted speed limit is.

00:30:44:11 – 00:31:07:04

First offense is a written warning. They just send you a letter and basically say, don’t do that. Second offense is a $75 fine. Third and subsequent are $150 each. Okay. And again, there’s civil violations too. Yeah. They are they don’t they don’t have no suspension. Yeah for sure. But you guys have seen this. I mean, the way they do this, first of all there is always signage that says it’s there.

00:31:07:11 – 00:31:24:28

Be aware you know, video, automated speed enforcement whatever. And then the way I’ve seen it is there’s an actual vehicle that has all the equipment. Usually it’s like a white truck with a, like a truck cab on it. And a lot of times they’ll park it right behind like a porta potty. Have you noticed that? Or, like, it’s kind of hidden, but then it’s like, right behind there.

00:31:24:29 – 00:31:43:04

And it’s hard to hire like that, though. It’s like a giant tank. You can usually see it, but it’s like usually there’s a little barrier of some sort. Yeah, sometimes there’s not. But I didn’t realize that it only really triggered if you’re going 11 miles over the speed limit. So I mean, you think about that. You mean you are especially in a work zone the way we’ve been seeing it on like route 30, for example.

00:31:43:05 – 00:32:02:07

Right. And finds our doubled in our work zone. Yeah. So it’s interesting because they’ll bring you down to 55 miles an hour and you’ll come down from a two lane road to a one lane road with barriers kind of on both sides. So people generally are going pretty slow. I always get frustrated because it’s like the speed limits 55 and we’re going like 25 dude through this single lane.

00:32:02:07 – 00:32:18:19

So I’m wondering like, are they even getting anyone on these violations because nobody’s going to speed limit. You have to really be hauling 11 miles over. Yeah. To to do that. A lot of them probably come, you know, earlier in the morning or late at night when there’s not as much traffic. I drove down to Myrtle Beach earlier.

00:32:18:22 – 00:32:37:06

Or late in the summer. And on 95, there’s just construction everywhere. So there’d be, you know, 20, 30 mile stretches where it’s like every mile. They have one of those one of those signs, whether or not I was trying to pay attention to see if they actually had, like, trucks set up. Some places had like the truck set up.

00:32:37:06 – 00:32:51:29

There were other ones that I really couldn’t tell if they were on, like poles or something. So I think some of them are a little bit better hidden, if you will, or just not as obvious. But every time I saw one of the signs that said, you know, speed enforcement coming up or whatever. Just slow down a little bit.

00:32:51:29 – 00:33:19:17

But generally in those I try to do like 55, 60, but, you know, the people that are like speeding through them, like probably going to get a ticket in all your, your experience to yell. Have you ever seen somebody who got sighted from an aircraft? No. Because like, we still have those signs. No, I haven’t enforced speed enforced by aircraft, but I actually represented a guy’s son who worked for the state police and drove those aircraft, like, like, piloted those aircraft for speed enforcement.

00:33:19:17 – 00:33:35:02

So there was a real thing. Are we even still doing that? I have never even I don’t think of the airplane. I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but when I see that sign, I, like, look for the airplane. Yeah. Well, I always wonder, is it like an AC 130 gunship that’s just so high? Like you’d never see it in there using, like, red?

00:33:35:05 – 00:33:53:12

They got well, and that’s the thing to like with those. I’ve always wondered, like, how do they know how they identify the vehicle from that high? Like obviously they can’t see the the license plate. Right. Right. You would think it would have to be like a low flying aircraft that was like had been and was able to like, get.

00:33:53:13 – 00:34:06:29

I have no idea. Like if it’s a fixed wing or if it’s a helicopter. Like, I don’t I don’t know how it works. I don’t know the, the guys who son I represented. He was a pilot for the state police. He told me he’s run those before. So I mean, it does happen, but yeah, he was retired. By the way.

00:34:07:00 – 00:34:24:29

They initiated traffic stop in a helicopter. They just land, like, right, right in front of you. Pull your vehicle. Sir, I always kind of pictured it. Almost like the high speed chases, like you see out in LA where they have, like, the helicopters with, like, the cameras that truly can, like, zoom in all the way. But then I was like, well, if it’s an airplane, like, are they just saying like, hey, there’s a black truck that’s speeding.

00:34:24:29 – 00:34:39:02

And then up ahead, you know, like there’s a cop. Oh, you know what? That is probably how they do. So they’re just spotting. They’re spotting the type of vehicle and then the actual cruiser pulls them over. Yeah, yeah. Why don’t we? I can’t think of that. You’re right. I absolutely just I just, like I said, I was probably how they do.

00:34:39:04 – 00:34:56:19

I’ve never seen it. I don’t think they do it by mail. I got pulled over once in South Carolina for speeding, and and, I knew as soon as I saw the officer that they had gotten me because he. The guy was really, really clever. It was like right near a rest area. So they had one cop facing the oncoming traffic coming into the rest area.

00:34:56:20 – 00:35:13:11

Yeah. And he was just calling out speeders because they had a, like a pursuit vehicle on the other side of the rest stop. So as soon as I passed the spot vehicle, I was like, I’m, I’m cooked. And then I sure enough, the other vehicle came out of the rest stop and pulled me over. Last time I got pulled over for speeding, it was kind of a similar thing.

00:35:13:16 – 00:35:29:23

There was a guy sitting up, kind of like on a hill. It’s on 15. I forget what exit it’s by, but there’s clearly like a spot. And as you’re approaching, you can’t see, especially like when there’s leaves. But as soon as I went by in my rearview, I saw him parked up there. He didn’t leave, but there was a cop essentially, on the other side.

00:35:29:24 – 00:35:49:07

Yeah. On the entrance ramp. Pulled me right over. Yep. So I have seen a cop literally standing at the wood line of the road with a gun. Like, not a guy. Like a speed gun. Yeah, no vehicle around. He’s just like, in the woods. Like he was like, right on the wood line. He’s wearing like a ghillie suit.

00:35:49:09 – 00:36:06:24

It was so weird. I remember seeing him, like, is that a cop? And, like, he’s there, he’s got his uniform on. He’s my favorite. And then there’s a guy down the road that pulls you over, you know? So they’re just calling it out. Call it out. My favorite things recently, in light of the Tesla Roadster reveal, is all the memes that are talking about, like what happens when police get the technology.

00:36:06:28 – 00:36:25:20

So there’s like funny screenshots of like a state trooper vehicle and it’s like underneath an overpass upside down. So just hanging all that one. Yeah, yeah. What it’s like to drive in Georgia, it shows like a Georgia State Patrol vehicle, like in the tree tops. He’s just hanging out up there. So that’s pretty funny. Yeah, yeah, I actually I’ll tell you one other story.

00:36:25:20 – 00:36:46:04

I had, I, I was, I was, I think I was like 17 at the time and I was going to the beach with some of my friends and we were like, I don’t know, staying over for the weekend or whatever. I had, like my girlfriend in the car with me. I had a bunch of my buddies, and I was being a hotshot, and I was driving too fast in my little Honda Civic all the way to the beach, because we just wanted to get there and hang out.

00:36:46:04 – 00:37:00:06

Right. And I remember I got I got pulled over. I think it was in like the state of Delaware. Cop wrote me a ticket and I like, you know, tried to be nice and talk him and didn’t work. Wrote me a ticket, took the ticket, and then I was like, screw this guy. I got right back on the road.

00:37:00:06 – 00:37:15:19

And I was like, flying again, right? Literally like a mile down the road, I get pulled over by another cop, right? He was also running speed and I, I said to this cup was like, dude, I literally just got to take it like, right there he goes, dude, it’s not buy one, get one free. It’s not like you one you didn’t learn.

00:37:15:20 – 00:37:32:07

Yeah, like, are you serious? And he just wrote me that other ticket and I was like, dude, this was such an expensive trip. Well, just the other day, I was 17. I had, like, no money. Yeah, just the other day out. I’m not gonna say exactly where it is, but there’s a place in Cumberland County that I was driving through on the road.

00:37:32:08 – 00:37:58:08

Yeah. And every once in a while, you see an officer in a spot where it’s like you don’t see them until you pass them and it’s too late. And for me, the reaction is always like, oh, man, that is really clever. I saw this, this officer, he was running speed and he was parked. So the from my perspective coming through, he was parked behind a hedge line that was almost in the exact shape of his car.

00:37:58:11 – 00:38:19:00

So like, the hedge line looked almost like the silhouette of, of like a crossover SUV. So you did not see him until you were right on top of him? Because he was he was like perfectly silhouetted by the hedge line. And I was like, that is very clever. That like, that dude knows exactly where he’s parking, right? Right.

00:38:19:06 – 00:38:42:06

I do want to touch on one thing that I think a lot of people don’t realize in Pennsylvania. I didn’t realize until I became a lawyer. When you’re dealing with speed, the state police are the only ones that have the legal authority to run radar, on speed. So I remember being a teenager and getting a, you know, there’s a little radar detectors, which were all garbage, and then none of them work, but they would.

00:38:42:10 – 00:38:57:22

You think you were cool if you had one that would, like, beep and be like, oh, there might be a cop around me, you know, like, I had one of those. And I remember we used to pass them around with like, friends when we would go on trips and stuff. But I didn’t realize at the time that the state police are the only ones that get to use radar.

00:38:57:23 – 00:39:21:28

Yeah, I knew that in high school. I had a buddy of mine who got pinched for speeding one time, and he asked. He would always ask the cop when he was pulled over, like, how did you get me? And if they said radar, he knew, like, well, you can’t do that. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I mean, when you’re dealing with other, you know, local departments, regional departments, township departments, they all run speed and they all a lot of times have, highways in their jurisdictions that they frequently run on.

00:39:21:28 – 00:39:38:29

I mean, I know here in in York County, we have the spring spray township police frequently run speed on route 30. How long does to Helen does two. Yeah. Right there. You know, near the river? Yep. And then, but I 83 is only patrolled by the state police. Well, actually know it’s northern and also northern regional.

00:39:39:00 – 00:39:58:07

Are they patrolling it or are they just accessing it if they need to? I’m pretty sure Northern Regional also has a slice of 83 just north of York, I think. I don’t know that they’re necessarily patrolling it, but it’s right where the route people over on on one on the three. And I would think it would be because they were traveling somewhere on 83 and saw it.

00:39:58:10 – 00:40:28:25

That’s myself in their jurisdiction. But it could also be that they’re sort of allowed. There’s like a correspondence agreement that they like, if there’s a violation on there or an accident that that Northern Regional can respond. I know I’ve seen Northern Regional on traffic stops on 83 as far north as like just before the, what is that it just before the, no, after that, you know, like where the truck lane is that opens up going northbound shrines, town area after shrines, town.

00:40:28:26 – 00:40:44:11

Really? I’ve seen them. Oh, when you go down the hill and it’s up and then and it opens up into the three lanes, and then there’s no trucks left town after. Yeah, but that’s it’s the one before. It’s the where the rudders is the rudders and the Newbury town. That’s what it is. It’s Newbury. I’m pretty, I’m pretty.

00:40:44:12 – 00:41:01:08

I’ve seen them as far north as that. I’m pretty sure that they, they can stop on I-83, but I don’t think they patrol it. I think they might see an infraction off of I-83, and then the vehicle might get onto I-83 and they can execute a stop. And they’re actually like with people out of vehicles. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.

00:41:01:08 – 00:41:20:24

I’m gonna, we’re going to have some other police officers on our episode here. And specifically one I’ve been talking to is from Newbury Township. I hope he’s able to come on. And I want to ask him that. Yeah. You know, because they have that area, they’re like PSP in New York. Their jurisdiction is actually people don’t realize it’s bisected by a bunch of other jurisdictions.

00:41:20:24 – 00:41:41:23

So they have a they have an area in the southern part of the county and also in the northern part of the county. So like they don’t they don’t have a contiguous jurisdiction in York County the way that some other departments would. So, like they are kind of stretched thin because there they are. Manning is probably less than what you would probably want, ideally for an area that large.

00:41:42:00 – 00:42:01:14

So it would not at all surprised me if there is kind of an understanding that some departments will also cover down on that enforcement area, because under certain situations. Yeah, that gets us into the there’s there’s law on that. Executing a traffic stop in someone else’s jurisdiction. There are requirements for that. But that’s probably a topic for another time.

00:42:01:16 – 00:42:19:23

Well, yeah, I mean no, I mean I think that’s a that’s a great topic to talk about a little bit. I mean, yeah, you know, there is what’s it called? Concurrent jurisdiction through agreement. And they just have to have a like an I figure out what the name of the law is, but it’s like municipal, it’s like the Municipal Policing Act or something like that.

00:42:19:24 – 00:42:48:24

I actually saw it come up in a suppression hearing one time. I had to I had to defend a suppression issue against that, because a D.C. and R arranger initiated a traffic stop on 83. Oh, well, that’s actually like a whole different issue because that’s like a park ranger, right? Yeah. Well, and and actually, I think that the, the law that was being cited was misapplied because it’s a state agency, which means that I don’t actually think the Municipal Policing Act even applies to the state agency, because the state agencies jurisdiction is the entire state.

00:42:48:26 – 00:43:09:11

Now, there is law on D.C. and Rangers, because their jurisdiction specifically is like parks specific, like state parks. But as far as the general law, they have to have probable cause that there’s a misdemeanor or felony being committed in order to initiate a stop outside of that jurisdiction. They don’t they don’t need to request permission, though, in my opinion.

00:43:09:13 – 00:43:35:05

Okay. You just kind of gave me an idea for a future episode. With hunting season coming up. Yep. We should do a hunting violation episode. You don’t see it a ton, but during hunting season, we kind of do. Well, I’ve got some great hunting. Two years ago, when I was out hunting with a buddy of mine, we were stopped by a game warden on our way out of the hunting spot, and they they stopped us in our vehicles and basically asked to see our hunting licenses.

00:43:35:10 – 00:43:51:10

Oh, yeah. And that we were both talking about it afterwards. We were both prosecutors at the time, and we were like, I don’t think you can do that. Like, what would the Game Warden have done if we’d have been like, no, thank you. Yeah. Because like you had you were just present at the time. We’re just present on game land during hunting season.

00:43:51:11 – 00:44:08:26

Yeah. Like we don’t have rifles in hand. We’re in our car like you can’t stop our car, right? Yeah. I wonder if we could also get the attorney for the PA, Fish and Game Commission on this on this podcast. A good friend of ours, I’m not going to stand by name yet, but, you guys boat?

00:44:08:26 – 00:44:27:24

Yeah. He’s. You guys both know that just this earlier this week, I had the opportunity with my son Lincoln again to go to one of the state hatcheries, for trout, and actually get in the trout hatcheries and help with the mating of the trout. It was such a neat. And that was facilitated by that attorney and having that opportunity.

00:44:27:26 – 00:44:42:13

But he’s going to have a ton of knowledge on like the hunting stuff. Yeah. And the fish stuff and like all that. We should do a whole episode on that. I’m going to reach out to him. So if you’re listening, I’m going to call you. All right. All right, guys, let’s move into CD. LS a little bit here.

00:44:42:13 – 00:45:13:04

I think this will be a good way to kind of wrap up the last topic for today. And I want to we do deal with a lot of CDL drivers here at our law firm. We’re frequently getting phone calls. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we have Interstate 83 in our jurisdiction, and there are a ton of warehouses up the I-83 corridor, which specifically trucks are having to pull off of the I-83 and like, navigate these little, almost residential areas to get to some of these warehouses.

00:45:13:10 – 00:45:42:02

So Northern Regional frequently cites this. I know a lot of other police departments in those areas do. Newbury’s another one up there. So I want to get into this. For all you CDL drivers out there that may listen to our podcast. You need to be very careful when you’re a CDL driver, because the effects on you on on your CDL license are significantly different than the effects from maybe a specific traffic citation on a regular non CDL driver’s license.

00:45:42:05 – 00:46:14:16

And it can be the difference between you losing your job and you staying employed and being able to support your family. You know, specifically, one of the things I see frequently, guys, is, you know, you get a CDL driver that gets a ticket from a police officer that might normally be like a non-issue type of ticket, say like a 3111, because I think a lot of times when the police pull over CDL drivers, they think, oh, I mean, I don’t want this guy to lose his job, so I’m going to give him a 3111 or I’m going to give him, you know, something that doesn’t carry points on a regular license and he’ll be

00:46:14:16 – 00:46:40:04

good. The problem is that still causes issues for CDL drivers. And one of the ways I’ve seen it cause issues is through the liability that the company, the CDL company, the trucking company has to take on. If the driver gets a specific citation, that liability can cause them to say, hey, we can’t we can’t like take that on as a company.

00:46:40:04 – 00:47:02:19

And for that reason, we’re going to have to let you go. And they might not have actually lost their CDL for the purposes of actually driving, but the company might fire them because they can’t take the risk. So this is something that I see frequently that we have to insulate people from. And I know there are definitely some safer sections in the law that for CDL drivers.

00:47:02:22 – 00:47:18:08

You know, and we can kind of go over that a little bit. But, Justin, I’d like to get your take on this a little bit. I know you’ve handled some CDL cases before for us. You know, what’s your thoughts on this and what would your message to CDL drivers be if they find themselves in a situation here in York County?

00:47:18:11 – 00:47:42:04

Yeah. I mean, obviously, again, as we always say, contact an attorney because there are offenses under the vehicle code that, you know, just with a regular driver’s license. And if you’re in a personal vehicle versus a commercial motor vehicle, even if you’re or excuse me, with the personal vehicle and regular license, you know, there’s there’s not the same effect.

00:47:42:06 – 00:48:06:16

So Pennsylvania has kind of two classifications for CDL drivers. They have what they’re called serious traffic violations. And if you accumulate 2 or 3 of those qualified convictions within a three year period. The first two violations can result in a 60 day suspension. The third would be or three or more result in a 120 day disqualification.

00:48:06:18 – 00:48:32:22

And those include speeding 15mph more over the limit, reckless driving. And that’s in a personal vehicle or a commercial motor vehicle. Improper, erratic lane changes following too closely, which again, both of those 3309 is the the lane change or improper laning. And then 3310 is falling too closely. If you’re in your personal vehicle and you get one of those.

00:48:32:23 – 00:48:54:18

I mean, we can certainly work that out to something else. But generally that doesn’t have too much of an effect. But when you’re, when you have a CDL and you’re in a commercial motor vehicle, those are going to affect you. There’s also violations in construction zones. Certain moving violations connected to an accident with injury or death.

00:48:54:20 – 00:49:14:11

And then essentially driving a commercial motor vehicle without a CDL. Those offenses are going to be the serious violations and some of these serious and major offenses, you can actually get lodged with them if you’re a CDL licensed driver, but you’re not in your commercial motor vehicle. Yep. You can if you get just that citation, you plead guilty to it.

00:49:14:17 – 00:49:33:01

That can jack you up on your actual CDL, even though you weren’t even driving your truck at the time, you know? Yeah. And that’s kind of something that I think people don’t always think about because they’re like, oh, well, I wasn’t in my truck, so I’m free and clear. Yeah. Nay, nay. You might not be. You need to talk to somebody before you just plead guilty to that, because you might actually be losing your job on the back end of that.

00:49:33:02 – 00:49:53:28

Yeah. And then the, the major offense is a single conviction for one of those kin. Disqualify the CDL. That I would say the main one that we see the most is going to be a DUI. So if you get a DUI, whether. Well, if you’re in a commercial motor vehicle, that’s a bigger problem. But if you get a DUI and you have a CDL and you’re in your personal vehicle, that’s a one year disqualification.

00:49:54:00 – 00:50:15:22

If you get a second, you are banned for life. So they take your CDL for life, which is can really affect somebody that that’s their, you know, their livelihood for sure. A refusal in a DUI also results in a year. Leaving the scene of an accident. And again, that is both a commercial motor vehicle and your personal vehicle, using a vehicle to commit a felony.

00:50:15:24 – 00:50:43:14

We talked a little bit about that last week. Certain drug distribution felonies involving a vehicle, that results in a lifetime ban. Driving a commercial motor vehicle with your CDL suspended, revoked, canceled or disqualified, or causing a fatality through essentially negligent operation of a commercial motor vehicle. All of those are major offenses. A single conviction can disqualify your CDL for you.

00:50:43:17 – 00:51:03:14

Generally, the minimum is a year for one of those. But again, it can go all the way to a lifetime ban. Yeah. So I think just a quick way to kind of break that down is when you’re dealing with CDL, there’s two types of violations. You have to be concerned about major violations, which are the ones that actually will disqualify you from your CDL.

00:51:03:16 – 00:51:28:11

That means you get your CDL suspended or disqualified for a period of time. If you have one of these offenses, even the first one, and then, as you said, Justin, the very second one is a lifetime ban. And then the second category is these serious traffic offenses. And you went through all of those. And the way that kind of works is if you get one or 2 or 3 of those, depending on how many you get and what period of time, you actually can lose your ability to have a CDL also.

00:51:28:11 – 00:51:47:07

But usually it’s not immediate for the serious correct violations. But it does. As I said, guys, it creates that situation with your employer where you’re probably going to become a liability and you’re probably gonna lose your job anyway. So if you are in this scenario or you are a CDL driver and you get a traffic ticket, I don’t care if you think it’s nothing.

00:51:47:10 – 00:52:05:28

I don’t care if you think it’s. Oh, I’ll just pay the fine. It’s just a 3111 or it’s just this or that or the other thing. Do not do that. Talk to an attorney. Call us. We will talk you through it. We will look at this. We will kind of examine what your exposure is here so you don’t lose your job and your ability to support your family.

00:52:05:28 – 00:52:26:06

Because once you plead guilty to that and pay your fine, it’s kind of all she wrote. You know, at that point, we have to then go file a summary conviction appeal. It goes up to the higher court. The district attorney’s office gets involved as the prosecutors, and the path to a good resolution becomes innumerable harder for you. To to resolve.

00:52:26:08 – 00:52:45:05

So, Tim, have you had any interactions with any CDL drivers? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, tell me about kind of your thoughts on that. Well, I mean, there’s two sides to that. There’s my opinion of it as an attorney representing someone. And then there’s my opinion of it, seeing what I see on the roadways, which is which is not great.

00:52:45:05 – 00:53:11:23

So, I mean, I think as a prophylactic prophylactic approach for CDL drivers. Another thing that that we should say is this is becoming a hot button issue with certain departments and also certain parts of society. Right now, we obviously just had an incident in Pennsylvania where a CDL driver is involved in a in a fatality with a trooper, and we’ve had quite a few fatalities across the Commonwealth and other places involving CDL drivers.

00:53:11:25 – 00:53:26:07

Yeah. I mean, just just to think it was a two, three years ago, maybe here in York County, we had a I think it was three different construction work on I-83. I don’t think that guy was a CDL driver, though. He was driving a box truck. Okay, I could be wrong about that. But yeah, I mean, that happened like that.

00:53:26:08 – 00:53:47:18

Yeah, that that was just a few years ago. I mean, you can still see the construction like a year ago is up there. So I mean, what needs to be said. And again, I’m not saying this as a, as a thing for all CDL drivers, but what’s happening on the roadway right now is there is, I think, a particular interest that certain police officers and society is taking in the quality of CDL driver on the road.

00:53:47:23 – 00:54:13:12

And what I’m seeing in my experience representing people is that depending on the driver history of the individual involved and depending on the facts that are alleged, officers may be less willing to work with you because you have a CDL. I’m seeing some officers that are generally agreeable to what we’re doing, but I’m also starting to see some cases where officers are saying, I think that this guy needs to be held accountable, and if it has effects on his CDL, so be it.

00:54:13:15 – 00:54:32:24

Yeah. And that is a view that it’s becoming a little more common now. And to be honest with you, I get it, because in the last year I’ve had my property damaged by the negligence of a CDL driver. I’ve watched CDL drivers damaged the property of other people. I’ve watched CDL drivers throw things out of their vehicles at at out of their their rigs, at other vehicles.

00:54:32:28 – 00:54:56:28

I see I just saw yesterday CDL drivers deliberately moving into a lane where there are signs posted frequently saying no trucks in this lane. So we are dealing with some CDL drivers out there that I think are causing issues for for everyone, and they are kind of driving a little bit stupid on the roadway. And it’s it’s drawing attention, especially when there are fatalities.

00:54:57:02 – 00:55:22:23

So CDL drivers need to be careful when they’re especially when they’re driving their rig. They need to be the best drivers on the road. And unfortunately oftentimes they’re not. And that’s causing problems. Yeah. And Tim, to your point, you are right about the officers. Are being more strict. I think with a lot of CDL drivers, I’ve especially seen some state troopers that run turnpike traffic be very, very strict about CDL stuff.

00:55:22:25 – 00:55:45:28

But the other thing is the judges. Yeah, we have judges that are now and I’ve talked to them about this stricter on CDL drivers because of what we’ve seen in our county. It is becoming a hot button issue. And so the day I think that when I first started here, even us coming to the officer and saying, hey, he’s a CDL driver, like, you know, this isn’t really a major offense, can we do something to protect it?

00:55:46:04 – 00:56:06:00

Officers were pretty willing, I think, to negotiate with us, but I think we are entering a phase where they may be a little less. They may be a little more apprehensive about doing that. Depending on the facts of the case especially. So we have to we’re gonna have to be artful. I’ve seen a cop be willing to do it, but then you put it in front of a judge and a judge says I’m not doing it in this case.

00:56:06:00 – 00:56:24:04

There’s also some judges in our county. Some wonderful guys that we work with regularly that require, if we have like a speed violation or something for a CDL driver and we’re trying to work it down, they want to see the out of state driving record for that driver because they don’t want to. And the way they’ve explained it to me, it makes total sense.

00:56:24:08 – 00:56:39:13

They don’t want to find themselves in a situation where this person has a slew of out of state offenses on their driving record in the state that they’re actually licensed, and then they’re giving them a break, and then the guy goes out a week later and kills someone because they they just kind of keep hopping state to state.

00:56:39:16 – 00:57:00:11

So I’ve actually had situations with judges where they say, I’m not doing this, and you present me with the driving record in their state that says they’re clean. And, you know, it’s so I always now prepare for that and tell my client who I know is a CDL driver, you better get me your driving record from Florida or Mississippi or wherever you’re at, because we’re going to need it in court.

00:57:00:13 – 00:57:21:05

The other the other thing that I think is going to become an issue, and it’s probably in the early stages of it at this point, is we’ve seen an advent of sort of freelance CDL drivers who are not affiliated with like a major carrier. So, like, they may own their own truck or they and and so they kind of contract with some people to just move freelance, you know.

00:57:21:06 – 00:57:44:06

So and there’s a lot more rental trailers on the road. So what the reason that that’s important is because if there is an issue and there is like damage or an accident and a CDL driver flees, there is not on some of these drivers a lot of accountability. Because if you’re driving for a major carrier like Estes, for example, Estes has their logo all over that truck.

00:57:44:13 – 00:58:06:05

They’ve got information about where to contact, who to report things to on the truck itself a lot of times. So there is there is at least a recourse for people to contact that carrier and say, hey, the driver of this trailer number did something. But what we’re seeing now is we’re seeing a lot of sort of anonymous CDL drivers on the road who will do things.

00:58:06:08 – 00:58:23:18

And then there’s like not really any way to track that person down that I think is going to be an issue, especially on the civil side. I think that’s going to become an issue. Yeah. And Tim, I love that point. And this is another thing that the judges have actually talked to me about, because they’re seeing it in their courts every day.

00:58:23:18 – 00:58:45:28

And what they’re seeing is people that are not United States citizens. They’re coming from other countries, and they’re hopping in here and, driving trucks. We’re seeing a lot of this from Russia and, you know, Asia and those types of areas, even South America, where some of these trucking companies that aren’t really established trucking companies are bringing in non American citizens.

00:58:46:02 – 00:59:02:10

They’re driving trucks, they’re licensed, but they’re not very good drivers. And they don’t know the language and they don’t know the language. They don’t know the laws. They haven’t brushed up on it. They’re quick hitters. And frankly a lot of these companies are fronts, their money laundering, situations where they’re doing it for other, you know, nefarious reasons.

00:59:02:10 – 00:59:22:07

Well, and the troopers family that was just killed, I mean, they’re suing that carrier and they’re they’re probably going to win. I would I would estimate they’re going to win because they’re they’re raising like a wrongful death, negligent supervision claim that carrier may if they lose that suit, that carrier is going to be in big trouble. Yeah. So again, guys, I mean, you know, we’re out there seeing this.

00:59:22:07 – 00:59:38:25

For those of you that aren’t CDL drivers, be careful. You know, you can’t assume that the guy driving that truck is what it might have been ten years ago, where it’s the guy that’s been doing it for 30 years. And, you know, he works for a company. It’s his career. They might be these quick hitter guys that are really, really dangerous out there.

00:59:38:27 – 01:00:10:24

And, or frankly, working for chop shop slash money laundering situations. So Tim’s me actually a really good point, because we’ve talked about this numerous times and even a couple of times on the podcast just mentioned, like we drive up and down 83 frequently. And Tim brought up a good point. You know, some of the people that are coming over here, you know, illegally and, you know, don’t speak the language like they also can’t read the language, meaning they can’t read the signs, which presents a whole nother issue, you know, in and of itself.

01:00:10:26 – 01:00:31:16

But I would just echo what, you know, what Tim said with some of the CDL drivers on the road today. I mean, it’s it’s it’s egregious, to be honest. Like, there’s just some driving habits out there that we see so frequently driving up and down the interstate that like, again, it’s agreed. And, you know, people are getting killed.

01:00:31:16 – 01:00:57:18

People are getting hurt. And, you know, when I talk to people with CDL now, and like you said, especially on the Turnpike, you know, some of these, these troopers are kind of willing to work with you. But at the same time, if you know that person has quite a history and just has been kind of snubbing their nose to the law, if you will, with respect to the, the safety on the road, you know, they’re they’re not going to work with us, especially in the aftermath of that trooper being killed.

01:00:57:19 – 01:01:15:22

I mean, I I’ve seen a noticeable change in my interactions with officers since that has occurred. There are officers that are taking a very different approach to this now. Yeah for sure. All right, guys, so to wrap up the CDL portion, if you’re a CDL driver out there and you get a ticket, talk to an attorney before you plead guilty.

01:01:15:23 – 01:01:38:01

Do not fall into the personal vehicle trap where I think I’m not in my commercial motor vehicle, so I can just plead guilty of this, you are going to get slapped with CDL penalties a lot of times, even if you’re not in your commercial motor vehicle. And lastly, pay attention to things other than fines. I mean, other than points even because for CDL drivers it’s more than just fines and points.

01:01:38:01 – 01:01:56:18

It’s the ability to continue operating commercial motor vehicle that’s on the line every single time with these, that isn’t on the line for, you know, the mom taking her kids to soccer practice, you know, and isn’t have a CDL license. So. All right, guys, well, thanks for listening to our our podcast this week. And now we defend Kearney Law.

01:01:56:20 – 01:02:14:04

Check us out on our socials. We got a lot of great responses in our last episode. Frankly, hundreds and hundreds of responses. And I try to respond to every single one of them good, bad and ugly. And if I give you a little of a hard time. Just because I’m trying to do my job and explain things to you.

01:02:14:06 – 01:02:32:18

But really, that’s where I like to work on talking to people about their individual situations. So I, we indicated on this episode a few different times, if you’re a mail carrier, if you’re a school bus driver, if you’re involved in any situations that you think would be beneficial to comment on and leave in our comments, please, please do it.

01:02:32:20 – 01:02:38:12

We’d love that interaction and we will continue to respond. You all have a good rest of the week. Have a great weekend. We’ll see you next week.