Can I pay a fine to the traffic court in installments in California?

You will have to go in front of a judge and ask him for an installment plan and there is no guarantee they will grant you one (or so said the cop who gave me a ticket a few days ago).

I read the “payment of the fines”, it says credit cards can be used. Implication is NO payment must be paid in full.

@nikipedia beat me to it.

My experience has been, that if you want to do traffic school to erase it from your record, you have to pay it all up front, plus the traffic school fees. If you want to accept the consequences to your driving record, the judge will usually grant a payment plan. This is the real class warfare :-(

You can make arrangements with the court.