SEATTLE — A Seattle attorney found a legal loophole on a street sign and it got him out of a traffic ticket. Now the city is scrambling to change the sign and dozens of others.
Joe Hunt admits he was speeding in this north Seattle school zone and might have paid the ticket if he hadn't looked closer at the sign.
"It didn't seem like it could be right, that that sign could be right and that's when I dug into it a little bit,” Hunt told us outside his law office.
Hunt dug up the 2012 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and found there are two too many words on the sign.
"It sounds like it's a technicality but there's a significant difference,” he told us, showing us the manual.
The manual reads signs are supposed to tell drivers to slow down "when flashing,” not "when lights are flashing."
Hunt wrangled his way out of the ticket and now the Seattle Department of Transportation says it has to recheck all of its 70 flashing signs for wording issues.
“Some of the signs have been installed since the MUTCD has changed the language so they're OK; some of them were done under a previous version of the manual,” said Jim Curtin.
SDOT says the checks and changes are costly but worth it if it makes drivers more compliant.
“I see a speed limit 20,” one man told us, looking at the sign from the other side of the intersection.
"What does it say underneath?" KIRO 7 asked him.
"Photo enforced."
But he couldn’t read the small print that says, “When children are present or lights are flashing.”
"I wear contacts. I can't read it,” another driver told us.
Hunt claims safety was the reason he put up a fight-- one that cost him $700 in court fees. Speeding in a school zone is a $189 ticket.
"The fact that the city is now making it more clear is rewarding,” Hunt concluded.
We checked with the city attorney's office to find out if other drivers have asked for their tickets to be thrown out. They said one driver tried it before, but the judge in that case didn't budge because one judge’s ruling doesn’t necessarily apply to another judge’s courtroom.
KIRO
