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ANCHORAGE -- In Courtroom 25, beneath the faint hum of fluorescent lights, a trim, grim blonde stands before Magistrate Ron Wielkopolski explaining why she blasted through a red light that dark, slick winter morning at rush hour.

"I did see the yellow light as I approached the intersection of Ninth and Gambell," she says, shoulders rigid, voice cracking. "I did not feel it was safe enough to stop in time. ... So instead of braking before the intersection, I accelerated. At the time I was on my cell phone."

Wielkopolski listens patiently from the bench.

Then, she continues, she saw lights flashing behind her. On, then off. The officer must be on his way to an accident, she thought. She changed lanes. So did he. Again, the lights. Odd. She changed lanes again. So did he.

Finally, she got it and pulled over.

Already tense from driving on icy roads and having to run a red light, being pulled over that way was confusing and terribly stressful, she explains. Oh, and she's really sorry. She's learned her lesson and will never do it again.

"Anything else?" Wielkopolski asks.

He then calmly explains the law and the way things work in traffic court. She either ran the red light or she didn't.

She did.

"Guilty as charged."

The bad call she made that morning cost her $200 dollars, plus a $10 surcharge, four demerits on her driving record and possibly a hike in insurance rates. Dejected, she picks up her paperwork and heads out the door.

Next.

Sometimes people get traffic tickets who don't deserve them. Sometimes they present a convincing case. But often, traffic court is a perpetual parade of excuses, most of them old and tired. Among the oldest and tiredest?

"I thought it safer to run the light than slam on my brakes."

You can almost hear the buzzer going off every time someone tries it: EEEEEHH! You lose.

Clerk Nara Brown, who asks involved parties to raise their right hands and swear "to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth," recalls one particular favorite:

"She said she was speeding because she'd had surgery and she couldn't hold her bowels.

"That was sort of different."

One can easily get through this world without experiencing traffic court. You get a speeding ticket, you write a check, drop it in the mail and get on with your life.

But, if you want to contest the accuracy of a traffic cop's laser reading - the remote sensing technology NASA used to map the topography of Mars - knock yourself out. Check the box on the back of the ticket to fight this affront to your driving integrity and you'll get yourself a personal invitation to traffic court.

Show up on time, take a seat, tap your feet, swap nervous glances with the others, wait for your name to be called, then tell your side of the story. Bring evidence or witnesses if you like. If there's anything to your story, there's a chance of getting your fine reduced. Maybe a little, maybe a lot.

It can't hurt to try. The worst that could happen is you pay the fine you would have paid anyway - plus prime-time downtown parking fees.

You may even win the traffic court lottery. The officer fails to show up and your citation gets dismissed.

It happens now and then. And when it does, unless the officer called in or has a good excuse, he or she could be in hot water and you get to skate.

Just a little advice should you be so lucky. Bite the lip. Don't say what the guy with sunglasses and a smug smile said the other day on his way out the door:

"Same thing happened last time I was here."

Just make sure you're not the one pulling the no-show. Blow off your date with traffic court, and you get a default judgment entered against you and slapped with an additional $25 in court fees.

If ever there was a cross-section of humanity, traffic court is it. On any given day, the docket ranges from habitual traffic menaces to worn-out moms running so late for their early morning school drop-offs, they get pulled over in their pajamas.

"What makes traffic court interesting in my perception is that for many, many people, it's their only exposure to the justice system," said Suzanne Cole, who did a traffic court rotation for 11 years before becoming a Superior Court master. "You get the wide range of folks who have never been in court before, never had contact with a police officer before, who are terrified and don't really understand what's happening. ... They're sobbing. They bring their entire support network.

"And then you get the frequent fliers.

"I think some people take their traffic tickets far more to heart than many people take their criminal cases, or their civil cases, I should say."

You'd be surprised, for instance, how controversial "stop" can be. The opposite of go. A total cessation of movement.

Defendants are certain they stopped at the stop sign. The traffic officers are certain they didn't, and sometimes have footage to prove it.

"It's not uncommon for people to argue with the videos," said Magistrate Brian Johnson. "I had one earlier this week, a guy on video who just bombed right through the stop sign. I mean, he slowed down a little but he still probably went through that stop sign at 10 miles an hour. He thought he came to a complete stop. He said, 'That video is not what happened.'

"One would think when you saw it. ... But people will come up, stand right in front of the monitor and watch it over and over again.

"We watched that one probably 10 to 12 times, and it didn't change from the first time to the last."

The man had the right to question it. And Johnson had the right to find him "guilty as charged."

Next.

It's not always about misbehavior at the wheel behind these doors. A magistrate's courtroom is like the emergency room of the courthouse. Traffic court gets interrupted now and then to accommodate urgent business, like bail hearings for the newly arrested.

Between this ticket and that, for instance, Wielkopolski set bail for a guy charged with child endangerment, who was caring for an 11-month old baby while drunk on his lips. He was nearly three times the legal limit, and there appeared to be beer in the baby's sippy cup.

Magistrate Tina Otto had a show-stopper the other day. It went down something like this.

A man was slumped in the driver's seat of a car parked near the courthouse, someone thought it suspicious and called police. An officer checked it out.

"How's it goin'?"

"Fine."

The officer then noticed a baggy in the front seat.

"Crack?" he asked.

"No. Methamphetamines."

Turns out the guy was on his way to traffic court.

But it was not to be. His traffic court brethren got to hear his sorry story over speakerphone at his bail hearing on his way to jail.

Next.