(A) (1) Penalties. Unless another penalty is expressly provided by law, every person convicted of a violation of any provision of this traffic code shall be punished by a fine of not more than $100 or by imprisonment for not more than 30 days or by both such fine and imprisonment.
(2) Forms and records of traffic citations and arrests.
(a) The town’s Clerk-Treasurer shall provide books to include traffic citation forms for notifying alleged violators to appear and answer to charges of violating traffic laws and ordinances in the court having jurisdiction. Said books shall include serially numbered sets of citations in quadruplicate in the form prescribed and approved by the Town Marshal.
(b) The town’s Clerk-Treasurer shall issue such books to the Town Marshal or his or her duly authorized agent and shall maintain a record of every book so issued and shall require a written receipt for every such book.
(c) The Town Marshal shall be responsible for the issuance of such books to individual members of the police force. The Town Marshal shall require a written receipt for every book so issued and shall maintain a record of every such book and each set of citations contained therein.
(3) Procedure of police officers. Except when authorized or directed under state law to immediately take a person before a magistrate for the violation of any traffic laws, a police officer who halts a person for such violation other than for the purpose of giving him or her a warning or warning notice and does not take such person into custody under arrest shall take the name, address and operator’s license number of said person, the registered number of the motor vehicle involved and such other pertinent information as may be necessary, and shall issue to him or her in writing on a form provided by the town’s Clerk-Treasurer a traffic citation containing a notice to answer to the charge against him or her in the court having jurisdiction at a time at least five days after such alleged violation to be specified in said citation. The officer, upon receiving the written promise of the alleged violator to answer as specified in the citation, shall release such person from custody.
(4) Disposition and records of traffic citations, warrants and complaints.
(a) Every police officer upon issuing a traffic citation to an alleged violator of any provision of the motor vehicle laws of the state or of any traffic ordinance of the town shall deposit the original and a duplicate copy of the citation with his or her immediate superior officer, who shall cause the original to be delivered to the court having jurisdiction and said duplicate copy to the Central Records Section of the Police Department. The second duplicate copy of the citation shall be retained in the traffic citation book and shall be delivered by such superior officer to the town’s Clerk-Treasurer together with such book when all traffic citations therein have been used.
(b) Upon the filing of such original citation in the court having jurisdiction as aforesaid, said citation may be disposed of only by trial in that court or by other official action by a judge of that court.
(c) The Town Marshal shall require the return to him or her of each traffic citation and all copies thereof; except that, copy required to be retained in the book as provided herein, which has been spoiled or upon which any entry has been made and has not been issued to an alleged violator.
(d) The Town Marshal shall also maintain or cause to be maintained in connection with every traffic citation issued by a member of the Police Department a record of the disposition of the charge by the court having jurisdiction.
(e) The Town Marshal shall also maintain or cause to be maintained a record of all warrants issued by the court having jurisdiction on the traffic violation charges, and which are delivered to the Police Department for service, and of the final disposition of all such warrants.
(f) It shall be unlawful and official misconduct for any member of the Police Department or other officer or public employee to dispose or alter, or deface a traffic citation or any copy thereof, or the record of the issuance or disposition of any traffic citation, complaint or warrant, in a manner other than as required in this section.
(5) Illegal cancellation of traffic citations. It shall be unlawful for any person to cancel or solicit the cancellation of any traffic citation in any manner other than as provided by this division (A).
(6) When copy of citation shall be deemed a lawful complaint. In the event the form of citation provided under division (A)(2) above includes information and is sworn to as required under the general laws of the state in respect to a complaint charging commission of the offense alleged in said citation to have been committed, then such citation when filed with a court having jurisdiction shall be deemed to be a lawful complaint for the purpose of prosecution under this traffic code.
(7) Failure to obey citation. It shall be unlawful for any person to violate his or her written promise to appear given to an officer upon the issuance of a traffic citation regardless of the disposition of the charge for which such citation was originally issued.
(8) Citation on illegally parked vehicle. Whenever any motor vehicle without driver is found parked or stopped in violation of any of the restrictions imposed by ordinance of the town or by state law, the officer finding such vehicle shall take its registration number and may take any other information displayed on the vehicle which may identify its user, and shall conspicuously affix to such vehicle a traffic citation, on a form provided by the town’s Clerk-Treasurer for the driver to answer to the charge against him or her within five days during the hours and at a place specified in the citation.
(9) Failure to comply with traffic citation attached to parked vehicle. If a violator of the restrictions on stopping, standing or parking under the traffic laws or ordinances does not appear in response to a traffic citation affixed to such motor vehicle within a period of five days, the Police Department shall send to the owner of the motor vehicle to which the traffic citation was affixed a letter informing him or her of the violation and warning him or her that, in the event such letter is disregarded for a period of five days, a warrant of arrest will be issued.
(10) Presumption in reference to illegal parking.
(a) In any prosecution charging a violation of any law or regulation governing the standing or parking of vehicle, proof that the particular vehicle described in the complaint was parked in violation of any such law or regulation, together with proof that the defendant named in the complaint was at the time of such parking the registered owner of such vehicle, shall constitute in evidence a prima fascia presumption that the registered owner of such vehicle was the person who parked or placed such vehicle at the point where, and for the time during which such violation occurred.
(b) The foregoing stated presumption shall apply only when the procedure as prescribed in § 70.26 of this chapter has been followed.
(11) When warrant to be issued. In the event any person fails to comply with a traffic citation given to such person or attached to a vehicle or fails to make appearance pursuant to a summons directing an appearance in the Wabash Superior Court, or if any person fails or refuses to deposit bail as required and within the time permitted by ordinance, the Wabash Superior Court may secure and issue a warrant for his or her arrest.
(12) Record of traffic cases; report of convictions to state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
(a) Every magistrate or judge of a court shall keep or cause to be kept a record of every traffic complaint, traffic citation or other legal form of traffic charge deposited with or presented to said court, and shall keep a record of every official action by said court or in reference thereto, including, but not limited to, a record of every conviction, forfeiture of bail, judgment of acquittal and the amount of fine or forfeiture resulting from every said traffic complaint or citation deposited with or presented to said court.
(b) Within ten days after conviction of forfeiture of bail of a person upon charge of violating any provision of this act or other law regulating the operation of vehicles on highways every said Magistrate of the Court or Clerk of the Court of record in which such conviction was held or bail was forfeited shall prepare and immediately forward to said state’s Department of Motor Vehicles an abstract of the record of said court covering the case in which said person was so convicted or forfeited bail, which abstract must be certified by the person so required to prepare the same to be true and correct. Report need not be made of any conviction involving the illegal parking or standing of a vehicle.
(c) Said abstract must be made upon a form furnished by said state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and shall include the name and address of the party charged, the number, if any, of his operator’s or chauffeur’s license, the registration number of the vehicle involved, the nature of the offense, the date of hearing, the plea, the judgment or whether bail was forfeited and the amount of the fine or forfeiture as the case may be.
(d) Every court of record shall also forward a like report to said state’s Department of Motor Vehicles upon the conviction of any person of manslaughter or other felony in the commission of which a vehicle was used.
(e) The failure, refusal or neglect of any such judicial officer to comply with any of the requirements of this section shall constitute misconduct in office and shall be ground for removal therefrom.
(13) Disposition of traffic fines and forfeitures. Except for funds from parking violations and other funds required to be paid into the Ordinance Enforcement Expense Fund of the town all fines and forfeitures collected upon conviction or upon the forfeiture of bail of any person charged with a violation of any of the provisions of this traffic code shall be paid to the town treasury and deposited in the General Fund.
(14) Authority to impound vehicles.
(a) Members of the Police Department are hereby authorized to remove a vehicle from a street or highway to the nearest garage or other place of safety or to a garage designated or maintained by the Police Department, or otherwise maintained by the town under the circumstances hereinafter enumerated:
1. When any vehicle is left unattended upon any bridge, viaduct or causeway, or in any tube or tunnel where such vehicle constitutes an obstruction to traffic;
2. When a vehicle upon a highway is so disabled as to constitute an obstruction to traffic and the person or persons in charge of the vehicle are by reason of physical injury incapacitated to such an extent as to be unable to provide for its custody or removal; and
3. When any vehicle is left unattended upon a street and is so parked illegally as to constitute a definite hazard or obstruction to the normal movement of traffic.
(b) Whenever an officer removes a vehicle from a street as authorized in the section and the officer knows or is able to ascertain from the registration records in the vehicle the name and address of the owner thereof, such officer shall immediately give or cause to be given notice in writing to such owner of the fact of such removal and the reasons therefor and of the place to which such vehicle has been removed. In the event any such vehicle is stored in a public garage, a copy of such notice shall be given to the proprietor of such garage.
(c) Whenever an officer removes a vehicle from a street under this section and does not know and is not able to ascertain the name of the owner, or for any other reason is unable to give the notice to the owner as hereinbefore provided, and in the event the vehicle is not returned to the owner within a period of three days, then and in that event the officer shall immediately send or cause to be sent a written report of such removal by mail to the state department whose duty it is to register motor vehicles, and shall file a copy of such notice with the proprietor of any public garage in which the vehicle is stored, such written report to include the date, time and place from which removed, the reasons for such removal, and name of the garage or place where the vehicle is stored.
(Prior Code, Title VII, Ch. I, Art. XVIII)
(2) The penalty for violation of §§ 70.60 through 70.65 or 73.01 through 73.11 of this traffic code shall be the sum of $10 if the violation is paid within 24 hours after the time of violations stated on the ticket, or $15 if the violation is paid after 24 hours, but within five days of the violation; provided, however, the penalty for violation of the parking and standing prohibitions in hazardous or congested places in § 73.09 of this code of ordinances and for violation of the handicapped parking restrictions of Ch. 77, Schd. I, of this code of ordinances shall $50.
(Prior Code, Title VII, Ch. I, Art. XIX)
(D) Except as otherwise provided, any person violating a provision of §§ 70.75 through 70.77 shall be deemed guilty of an offense and fined not less than $50 for a first offense, not less than $100 for a second offense and not less than $200 for all subsequent offenses, but no fine for any individual offense shall exceed $2,500.
(Prior Code, Title VII, Ch. I, Art. XV, § 15.13)