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Failure to Yield tickets are some of the most common traffic tickets in California and they can carry some serious penalties. On the bright side, knowledge is power—especially in California’s traffic court system. The more you know about how to handle Failure to Yield tickets, the more likely you are to get them dismissed.
What Does Failure To Yield Mean?
The phrase “failure to yield” means that you didn’t give the right of way to the right person at the right time. In order to understand what that means, you’ll first need to understand what the right of way is and who has it.
The right of way is the right to use the roadway. Not everybody has that right at the same time. This might sound odd, but think about it this way: how safe would pedestrians be if drivers didn’t have to stop at crosswalks when people are crossing the road?
Right of way works slightly differently in each county, depending on specific local laws and street signs or markings. But the following list (in order from first to last) can help to learn who has it and when:
- The driver who is currently using the road.
- If there is a crosswalk (marked or unmarked), then pedestrians.
- The driver who got there first, then second, and so on.
If you act out of the above order, then you might receive a Failure to Yield ticket for doing so. This can happen even if you do so accidentally, but the odds of the ticket resulting in a conviction increase if the ticketing officer believes that you did so intentionally.
How Does One Yield at an Intersection?
There are a few ways to properly yield at an intersection. What you need to do is determined by when you arrived at the intersection and your positioning relevant to the other vehicles and pedestrians.
First off, if you are already in the intersection when another vehicle arrives at the intersection, you have the right of way. The other vehicle will have to wait until you leave the intersection or until your presence therein no longer poses a hazard. For example, if you’re driving forward and they want to turn through your lane, they will have to yield to you. This is only true if you are legally using the intersection. Law-breaking behavior voids much of your legal protection.
However, if you get to the intersection after another vehicle has already begun to use it, then you will have to wait. Wait until the other vehicle has completely exited the intersection or no longer poses a risk to you should you enter. See the example in the above paragraph.
If you get to the intersection at the same time as another vehicle, look for any street signs. If one of you has a stop sign but the other doesn’t, the one without the stop sign has the right of way. If you both have stop signs, then it’s a little more complicated than that.
If you are positioned across from each other, the vehicle turning left must yield the right of way. That means you would have to wait for the other driver to completely move through the intersection before you can make your turn. If neither of you are turning left, you can proceed at the same time—provided that doing so would not pose a hazard to anybody. If both of you are turning left, you can signal for the other driver to pass first just to be safe.
If you are positioned 90 degrees from each other, the driver to your right goes first. You will have to wait for them to complete their use of the intersection before you can proceed. If four vehicles all arrive at the intersection at the same time, refer to the rules mentioned in the previous paragraphs.
Penalties for Failure To Yield in California
First things first, there are two types of Failure to Yield tickets in California: standard Failure to Yield and Failure to Yield to an emergency vehicle. This section covers the penalties for the standard type.
Those penalties include fines, points on your driver license, insurance increases, and more.
Let’s start with the fine. The base fine for a standard Failure to Yield ticket is $238—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what you’ll have to pay. Your actual price could be more than that, depending on the specific circumstances that resulted in you getting a ticket. You could also have to pay extra fees and surcharges.
Then come the points. If you’re convicted of certain traffic violations in California, you can receive points on your driving record. Like in golf, the goal is to stay as close to zero as possible. Meet any of the three following thresholds and you can have your license suspended for a whopping six months:
- 4 points within 12 months.
- 6 points within 24 months.
- 8 points within 36 months.
But the most expensive part of Failure to Yield tickets for many people is the subsequent increase in insurance premiums. On average, one of these convictions can cause your premiums to rise by 21.3%.
If you’re paying the average cost of car insurance in California ($1,810), that amounts to an extra $385.53 every year for three to seven years—a total of up to $2,698.71 in addition to all other financial penalties.
But worst of all, Failure to Yield is a misdemeanor. In other words, it’s a crime and crimes can leave you with criminal records. Get convicted of this particular crime and you can find yourself being sentenced to up to six months in jail.
If your violation resulted in any degree of injury to another person, the above penalties can increase monumentally.
Failure To Yield to an Emergency Vehicle in California
The second type of Failure to Yield tickets in California pertains to emergency vehicles. The way the law works is similar to the standard type of Failure to Yield violations but with one key difference: the vehicle you failed to yield to was an emergency vehicle performing emergency services.
Notably, this upgraded violation usually only applies when the emergency vehicle is actively performing emergency services. So, if you cut off an ambulance at an intersection when the driver was off duty, you could be charged with just the standard version of this violation.
The penalties, of course, increase for this type. The base fine more than doubles, increasing to $490. As a reminder, that’s the base fine, which means you can end up paying much, much more. And, if your insurance provider hears about the conviction, the total price can go up another couple thousand dollars.
You’ll also risk receiving the other standard penalties as well, such as a point on your license and up to six months in jail.
Hire an Attorney Through appwinit.com To Fight Your Case
If you’ve received a Failure to Yield ticket in California, take a moment to weigh your options. You can pay the ticket and accept thousands of dollars in fines and other penalties and possibly go to jail or you can hire an attorney to fight for you through www.appwinit.com.
Lawyers tend to cost significantly less than the overall cost of a conviction for these violations. And the affordable traffic ticket experts on the WinIt app can often cost even less. So why spend thousands of dollars on a traffic ticket when you could potentially take your case to your court and win it with WinIt?
