INFORMATION ON THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL (CHP) ENFORCEMENT DIVISIONS - CHP SPEEDING TICKETS

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) focuses on providing the highest level of safety, service, and security to the motoring public of California. Despite an often negative connotation from the public that enforcement in general is fiscally or statistically driven, the CHP engages in an educational approach to enforcing traffic laws. After the enforcement stop, the violator should leave feeling they were educated either in the form of a verbal warning or a citation. Although each verbal warning and citation will not ensure compliance, the CHP utilizes these enforcement lessons as a proactive approach to teaching the motoring public driver safety awareness.

Unfortunately, despite tremendous training efforts by the California Highway Patrol, the experience of the motoring public after a traffic ticket is not always a learning experience. There are many situations where an individual is absolutely convinced that a traffic violation was not committed and they were unjustly pulled over. This is a common experience for speeding violations. In most speeding ticket cases, the CHP officers rely on the speeding evidence collected by a Radar unit or pacing the target vehicle for a short distance. However, both the CHP radar units and the CHP vehicle speedometers are not always accurate in detecting the speed of a moving vehicle.

As a result a speeding ticket may be issued based on reliance on erroneous evidence. The CHP Officers do not intend to issue bad CHP speeding tickets and in most cases the Officers may not even be aware of the flaws that could have caused the erroneous Radar speed reading. Therefore, to successfully fight speeding tickets a complete knowledge of speed Radar operation and all the conditions that may have caused the erroneous Radar speed reading is needed. Our speeding ticket staff have many years of experience preparing trial by written declaration documents for fighting Radar speeding tickets and we can prepare your documents for your based on the specific information your provide to us about your ticket. 

The CHP is comprised of 8 divisions in California. Below we have provided contact information, services provided by the CHP in each of the geographical areas and the boundaries for each of the 8 CHP divisions in California:

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL NORTHERN DIVISION
CHP Northern Division – Northern Coastline, CA
Rush-hour gridlock is seldom realized in the towns, farmlands, and coastal highways of the 13 counties in CHP Northern Division. However, that does not mean the Division is exempt from traffic problems. CHP Northern Division serves as a major law enforcement presence in an effort to address traffic enforcement problems on the 36,000 miles of Interstate 5 (I-5), state routes, and county highways it patrols.

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY VALLEY DIVISION
CHP Valley Division – Emerald Bay – Lake Tahoe, CA

CHP Valley Division is the gateway to the Gold Rush country and the guardian of Interstate 80, the trans-Sierra highway. The CHP Division’s Truckee, Gold Run, and Auburn Area offices are responsible for keeping the “Nation’s Lifeline” open in winter so travelers and supplies continue to flow between the east and west coasts. CHP Valley Division oversees four major highways - Interstate 80 (I-80), Interstate 5 (I-5), US Highway 50 (US 50), and State Route 99 (SR 99)- in addition to thousands of miles of state and county roads. The geography includes fertile valley farmlands, metropolitan Sacramento, and the Sierra, where both commercial and recreational traffic vie for roadway space.

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL GOLDEN GATE DIVISION
CHP Golden Gate Division – San Francisco, CA

One geographic feature - water - dominates CHP Golden Gate Division. The CHP Division’s nine-county area, featuring some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, is
dominated by San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, and the northern sweep of the Pacific Coast. Eight toll bridges, more than any other CHP Division in the state, are the arteries that move the lifeblood of commercial and commuter vehicles over the bays. The bridges can also act as a hindrance, by narrowing traffic flow at the toll entrances, or cutting movement entirely when traffic collisions occur on the spans.

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL CENTRAL DIVISION
CHP Central Division – California Aquaduct – San Joaquin Valley, CA

CHP Central Division encompasses the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and serves as the gateway to two spectacular national parks, Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon. The valley is the world’s richest agricultural area, and the California Highway Patrol’s traffic enforcement responsibilities reflect agriculture’s impact. The CHP Division created the El Protector program, an enforcement and education effort using Spanish speaking officers. The program’s focus is the migrant farm labor community. The CHP Division’s efforts were successful in lowering the disproportionate number of traffic fatalities among Hispanics. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) adopted the program statewide and it has been copied throughout the nation. Two long freeway segments run the flat length of the Division: a 244-mile stretch of State Route 99 (SR 99) and a 275-mile stretch of Interstate 5 (I-5).

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL SOUTHERN DIVISION
CHP Southern Division - Los Angeles County, CA

CHP Southern Division is small in size, but huge in traffic flow. With the busy freeways and 64 unincorporated communities of Los Angeles County as its primary jurisdiction, CHP Southern Division serves over 10 million residents. This population is larger than the population of 42 states and is home to 28 percent of all California residents. Despite the smallest geographical area of the California Highway Patrol’s eight Divisions, the CHP Southern Division has the largest number of uniformed and non-uniformed employees. Los Angeles is the real-world training ground for many new officers. CHP Southern Division has been fortunate enough to consistently receive a large number of new officers from each new graduating class to keep up with the population growth of the surrounding communities.

An estimated one-third of all California Highway Patrol motorcycles are assigned to the CHP Southern Division. When a traffic violation or collision occurs, CHP motorcycles are the only vehicles that can weave between the gridlocked cars. Some freeways have no shoulders to allow law enforcement and emergency vehicles access to a collision scene. Los Angeles County also has the largest Asian and Latino populations in the country, with over 1.4 million and 4.3 million respectively. CHP Southern Division has Asian and Latino liaisons that provide safety classes and education to those communities. The CHP officers travel to primarily foreign language-speaking communities with the intention of providing safety, service, and security.

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL BORDER DIVISION
CHP Border Division – Orange and San Diego Counties

Many enforcement issues faced by the CHP Border Division stem from its diversity. CHP Officers in Orange County deal with freeway commuter congestion, while their fellow CHP officers in rural Imperial County may face problems with farm machinery on the roads.

Proximity to Mexico led the California Highway Patrol to open two state-of-the-art commercial Inspection Facilities within the CHP Border Division, one at Otay-Mesa and the other at Calexico. These CHP facilities, located in San Diego and Imperial Counties, operate jointly with the United States Customs Service, inspecting thousands of trucks annually to ensure they are mechanically ready for California’s highways.

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL COASTAL DIVISION
CHP Coastal Division – Santa Cruz coastal area

The CHP Coastal Division is a perfect balance between rural and urban, serving seven counties, with a population of 2.3 million. From the beaches of Santa Cruz to the majesty that is Hearst Castle, from the quaint streets of Solvang to the national pride that is the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the CHP Coastal Division includes some of the most familiar scenes in the United States. From the seasonal rain and fog to the summertime traffic influx, CHP Coastal Division’s transportation system presents many difficult and ever-changing traffic safety issues. To help confront those issues CHP Coastal Division staffs nearly 700 uniformed and non-uniformed employees who share a unified commitment: to enforce safety laws to save lives, service the motoring public, and provide security to state employees and property.

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL INLAND DIVISION
CHP Inland Division

The CHP Inland Division faces the widest spectrum of traffic enforcement challenges of the California Highway Patrol’s field Divisions. CHP Officers patrol the largest Division in the state, an area larger than 12 of the 50 United States. Included in the geographical boundaries are the lowest point in the United States at Death Valley, and the highest point in the contiguous 48 states at Mount Whitney. CHP Officers working the western metro section of the Division encounter some of the most intensely congested roads in the nation. In the CHP Division’s sparsely populated eastern region, with hundreds of miles of winding two lane highways, motorists tend to speed. Additionally, the CHP Division has several desert areas with long stretches of highways through hot and desolate regions.