Traffic tickets blitz Ellsworth court

ELLSWORTH – Lawrence Matthews was one of 14,000 motorists issued tickets last year in Maine who wanted his day in court.

Matthews, 29, of Ellsworth, had to wait nine months to tell his story to a judge. He finally had his chance Tuesday.

The long delay was due to a backlog of contested tickets caused by the installation a year ago of a new computer system in the Traffic Violation Bureau in Lewiston. Matthews’ case was heard on the state’s first “blitz day” – days when 200 cases are scheduled in individual District Courts around Maine.

Matthews, charged with operating a vehicle at imprudent speed last May, lost his case and was ordered to pay a $114 fine within 30 days.

“I’m glad I came to court,” the truck driver said after his trial. “I think it’s kind of unlawful. I don’t understand how you can write a ticket without getting it on radar.”

Ellsworth police Officer Rick Roberts issued Matthews a ticket about 12:45 p.m. May 14 after he heard a loud motorcycle accelerating on Route 1A. Roberts testified Tuesday that he pulled out of the McDonald’s restaurant parking lot and saw the motorcycle go by “in a blur.”

He estimated Matthews’s speed was between 65 and 75 mph, but did not catch him on radar because the patrol car was not pointed toward the moving motorcycle. Roberts followed the motorcycle when Matthews turned left onto Route 1 and headed toward Hancock. The officer overtook him after Matthews pulled alongside a car and spoke to the passenger.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Matthews testified that he could not have been going that fast because of the number of cars in front of him. He also said that he sped up so he could tell his friend driving the car that her rear tire was dangerously low.

“The state has convinced me that Mr. Matthews failed to operate his motorcycle in a careful and prudent manner,” the judge said in ruling against Matthews. “I understand the motivation here, but that, in the scheme of things, didn’t justify the speed.”

Matthews, who represented himself, wondered after the trial why, if he had been going as fast as the officer claimed, he hadn’t been issued a ticket for criminal speeding since he allegedly would have been driving 30 mph over the speed limit.

He was not alone in his loss. Of the 21 trials held Tuesday in Ellsworth, just one defendant won his case, Hancock County Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellett said after court adjourned for the day. Each trial averaged around 15 minutes in length.

The court session was convened in Hancock County Superior Court to handle the large number of “blitz day” cases. Ninety-one were scheduled at 8:30 a.m., and 110 were scheduled at 1 p.m. Between 70 and 75 percent of the defendants failed to appear.

“Some of those whose cases were scheduled decided to pay their tickets,” Kellett said. “We just got that list late yesterday, so we didn’t get them off the judge’s list. … In my experience, about 50 percent of people don’t show up for traffic court.”

Those who have not already paid their tickets and failed to appear Tuesday will have 30 days to pay their fines. If they fail to do so, their licenses will be suspended, Kellett said. That means the next charge could be operating after suspension, which is a criminal, rather than a civil, matter.

In the end, 13 of the “blitz day” cases were dismissed, five were continued, and four people decided to pay their fines rather than go forward with a trial after discussing their cases with Kellett. She said that most of the dismissals were proof-of-insurance cases where defendants proved Tuesday that they did have insurance when the tickets were written, but did not have proof with them in the car when they were stopped.

More blitz days are scheduled throughout the state to handle the 14,000 or so tickets contested since the new computer system was installed. That’s about 10 percent of the 140,000 tickets that were issued in 2004, the latest year for which figures have been compiled. If approximately the same number were issued in 2005, then about 90 percent of the tickets were paid without the alleged violator appearing in court.

The largest number of backlogged tickets will be handled in District Courts in southern Maine, where a majority of the state’s drivers live. In Portland, approximately 3,600 tickets are to be dealt with on 21 days. About 2,600 are scheduled in Biddeford over 12 days.

District Court in Bangor is scheduled to handle about 400 cases in three days, including a “blitz day” on March 1 in Penobscot County Superior Court. Courts in Skowhegan and Belfast are scheduled to handle about 300 cases apiece with “blitz days” on March 2 and March 8, respectively.