breakin' the law

The corner of 1st and Berendo is a right-turn only. There's a big sign right next to the stop sign, and a big arrow painted on the street.

Unfortunately, I need to turn left on 1st to go to school every day. So for the past year-and-a-bit, I've simply ignored the sign and gone on my merry way. I could never figure out why it was right-turn only to begin with.

Today, all that time I saved finally caught up with me. I got pulled over. The cop walks up: license, registration, and insurance.

"You a California resident or a student?"
"Student"
"What's your address here"
"[My address]"
"Ah, local. You should know about that turn then"
"Yeah, I know"

He writes my ticket, comes back to my window.

"You really should pay attention to that sign. Giving tickets for that is really easy"
"I imagine. Why is it a right-turn only, anyway?"
"I dunno. Doesn't make any sense to me"
He hands me my ticket, then says:
"So you have to appear in court on June 9th. You can get that date extended, though, if you want to. I go on vacation in July, so you might want to extend it until then"
"... What?"
"You didn't hear that from me. Have a great day"

And he's gone.