His Motto: Stick It to Your Ticket : Coping: An eye surgeon believes the traffic ticket system is unfair. He’s written a book to help San Diego drivers beat it.

Dr. Louis Kartsonis concedes that he likes to “go at it” with the powers that be.

Over the years, the San Diego eye surgeon has done battle with the Internal Revenue Service, emerging “squeaky clean” from an audit. He has taken on the U.S. Justice Department, winning the release of an internal report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (one of his hobbies). Just last month, he sued the county for raising his property taxes more than he thought was fair.

It should come as no surprise then, that, when Kartsonis got a traffic citation for running a light he insists was still yellow, he didn’t take it lying down. He fought his ticket, and then helped a friend fight his, going toe-to-toe with San Diego law enforcement officials and learning so much that he wanted to share it with the world.

The result, a self-published booklet called “How to Beat Your San Diego Traffic Ticket,” has transformed the 39-year-old ophthalmologist into something of a local celebrity.

A distributor in Santee has picked up his 47-page treatise, marketing it in 30 bookstores around the county for $7.95. Television and radio talk-show hosts, intrigued by Kartsonis’ descriptions of police who “pester and harass,” judges who exhibit “judicial arrogance” and insurance companies that excel at “gouging the public,” have welcomed him to the airwaves.

For Kartsonis’ book is more than a step-by-step guide to traffic court. Between the sample court documents and the sage advice (always answer no, he says, when the officer asks if you know why you’ve been stopped), Kartsonis has penned a scathing indictment of what he calls the inequities of the San Diego traffic court system.

“I did shellac a couple of people,” he acknowledges.

In short, Kartsonis believes that the driving force behind most traffic citations is the desire to raise revenues--not to protect public safety. Further, he says that, because nearly all traffic violations are considered infractions--and because infractions are tried before a judge, not a jury of one’s peers--the system is inherently biased.

“What judge has the guts to side with the defendant when the court dispute boils down to believing the word of the cop or the citizen?” asks Kartsonis, who says judges “kowtow” to the police. A traffic fine, he says, “is essentially a tax that has not been authorized by the voters,” and the aim of his book is to help readers “stick it” to their tickets.

Kartsonis is not the first to write such a book. The San Diego Public Library has no fewer than six self-help guides for accused traffic violators, including David W. Brown’s “Fight Your Ticket,” a weighty manual, now in its fourth edition, that Kartsonis consulted in writing his book.

“It’s the Bible on this subject,” he said, clearly proud that his book will soon share shelf space with Brown’s--the public library just purchased 16 copies.

Then there’s “The Ticket Book,” a humorous 467-page tome penned by a San Diegan named Rod Dornsife in 1978. In chapters titled “Who Is This Cop? (Is This Guy for Real?)” and “How Did He Get Me? (You’re Easier Than You Think),” Dornsife, a former police officer, promises to “expose the true story of traffic citations in America.”

Among the questions Dornsife sets out to answer: “Will It Help If I Cry?” (Dornsife says no.) “Should I try to bribe the officer?” (No, again.) He also includes a list of excuses commonly uttered by accused drivers, among them: “The kids must have played with my cruise control.” “There was a bee in the car!” “Do I look like the kind of person who would break the law?”

With such prose already in print, one might wonder what compelled Kartsonis to spend more than $3,000 to publish his thoughts.

“I felt I had some things to say,” he said. “It’s not the first time I have stood on principle.”

“Lou is as tenacious as they come when it’s something that matters to him,” said Steve Kelley, the San Diego Union’s cartoonist, whose own winning battle over a traffic ticket is memorialized in Kartsonis’ book. Kelley says that, without Kartsonis’ help, he wouldn’t have had the patience to fill out the required papers and keep track of his court appearances.

“They wear you down,” Kelley said. “It’s purposely that way. But they can’t wear Lou down.”

Indeed, this is a man who writes his congressmen--regularly. A gadfly in oculist’s clothing, Kartsonis loves a good crusade.

The Kennedy assassination is an enduring interest, despite the fact that Kartsonis, a registered Libertarian, says he is not a big fan of Kennedy’s political beliefs.

He has studied all the periodical literature and done a little independent research as well. In 1974, he had lunch with Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, who told him she believed her son had connections to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Then, in 1979, he became the fifth private researcher to be granted access to examine the autopsy file at the National Archives. Among the items he examined were autopsy photos, bullet fragments, Oswald’s weapon and the back brace and clothes the President wore.

“It changed my recollection of the guy,” says Kartsonis, who believes evidence suggests that Oswald did not act alone.

More recently, he has become fascinated by the case of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, the former Green Beret physician who was convicted of the 1970 slayings of his wife and two small daughters in Ft. Bragg, N.C. Two weeks ago, Kartsonis wrote MacDonald a letter in care of Terminal Island Federal Prison at San Pedro.

“I think the man is innocent and did not get a fair trial,” Kartsonis said. “The prosecutors withheld evidence.”

Kartsonis applies the same skepticism to San Diego’s courts and comes up with an unlikely proposal. In this era of crowded courtrooms and crammed calendars, he wants to make jury trials available for traffic violators who want them. He wants it so much, he’s even willing to settle for a mini-jury, if necessary.

“Athree-member or even a one-member jury would suffice,” he writes in his book. “The key is to remove the rubber stamp that exists between judges and police.”

When told of Kartsonis’ proposal, D. Kent Pedersen, the administrator for San Diego County Municipal Court, responded, “It won’t ever, ever, ever happen. Not ever . . . . The good doctor may have the interest of the public at heart when it comes to individual cases, but he doesn’t have the interest of the public at heart when it comes to funding the system.”

According to Pedersen, more than half a million traffic citations are issued in San Diego County each year, bringing in more than $30 million in fines.

“We couldn’t create enough judges and lawyers in the state of California to be able to handle that load. Imagine getting jurors for jury trials for every single one of these half million cases,” Pedersen said, groaning.

So many people would have to take time off from work, Pedersen speculated, that whole industries would grind to a halt as scores of employees proclaimed, “Sorry, I’m fulfilling my civic duty.”

Kartsonis knows his book--and the proposed strategies within it--has its critics.

“People say, ‘Isn’t that going to cost more money?’ But you can’t have it both ways--either you give people their rights or get rid of the rubber stamp,” he said, turning toward the little red volume that has put him in the spotlight.

“It will never make the best-seller list, but then I haven’t spent a penny on advertising,” he said with a smile. “It’s really been a labor of love.”