check the actual violation first, the videocam recording.
this happened to me before and i did not settle for months and thus living a stressful life of driving from thereon.

soon when i am about to renew istimara, it's only then that i found i'm only few ticks on beating the red on a U-turn.

thus, my actual penalty is only QR500.

maybe same thing happened to your friend, so no harm in checking it out.

good luck ;)