Speeding Ticket advice

S

Sxotty

Legend
Ok, so I was driving home tonight, and the wife goes "Look a cop" I see him look down and notice I am not speeding. He merges onto the road behind me and I am aware of it though he is quite a ways back. Then after another light I drive off and weave thru the traffic that is all going 40-45mph though the speed limit is 50 mph. They are afraid of the cop as apparently I should be.

He pulls me over and asks why?
I say I am not sure sir.
He says you were going 60.
At this point I am like WTF! B/C I was careful not to speed. In any case he writes me a ticket and I ask him how he measured my speed. He indicates that he "paced" me (drove behind and looked at speedometer), but that was crap since he had to catch up from behind. In addition, like I said I really wasn't speeding.

So what I wonder is it possible to get the video from their car camera? I could prove my speed by showing the rate I travelled at. Also if he did not stay a constant distance behind it would show that the pacing was just make believe.

Anyway any suggestions? I do plan to at least take it to court, but I am not happy since I do not have the time. At the same time I refuse to roll over and take it up the ass when he is lying.
 
F*** it. It ain't worth any trouble. The chance that jackass will ever see you again is low and only if you had more poblems with him, you could go to court.
 
You do not understand how tickets here work, there is none of that point bullshit.

You get a ticket and big fine.

Then your car insurance goes up.

I don't care about the officer, yes he was lying, but it doesn't matter. He may be a swell guy. I just refuse to incur thousands of dollars of costs due to his lying.

I was hoping someone on B3D had some idea of how a person could go about getting a hold of the police tape from a cop car to prove I was not speeding.
 
If you contest it in court, you could probably get the video. In addition, in the place where I encountered this (Alabama), if you contest the ticket in court and the officer doesn't show up (which happens 9 times out of 10 unless it's a severe violation), the ticket is dropped.

So basically, contest it in court. Talk to a lawyer.
 
The Baron said:
If you contest it in court, you could probably get the video. In addition, in the place where I encountered this (Alabama), if you contest the ticket in court and the officer doesn't show up (which happens 9 times out of 10 unless it's a severe violation), the ticket is dropped.

So basically, contest it in court. Talk to a lawyer.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
Yes it is the same here. If the officer doesn't show up you win.

Friends have suggested in the past if you reschedule a few times then they will not show up.

The thing is I don't want to pay a lawyer, and I really was not speeding anywhere near 60, I kept track of my speedo and it was at <=50mph any time I looked, now maybe it is off a bit so I could believe 51-52 but 60 is just ridiculous...
 
Firstly the points sytem we have in the UK isn't bulls**t, it's purpose is that people who consistently break the law/demonstrate that they are unsafe drivers, lose the privelege of driving.

Second, If the guy used his speedo to determine your speed then he should be able to prove that his speedo is accurate, I am not sure if this is an urban myth or not, but I have heard that they are supposed to get the speedo calibrated every so often and if it has not been calbirated then it is not valid evidence that you were speeding. Obviously the counter argument is that your speedo is inaccurate and that you were in fact speeding in which case you are screwed.

[edit] Looks like it is not an urban Myth.
http://www.motorists.com/ma/pacing2.htm
http://www.jesbeard.com/s13.htm

CC
 
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how many tickets have you had in the past year (any traffric violation)? Even if you contest and you have 1 or more tickets in the past year, its hard to win if the cop show up. A lawyer might be able to drop the charge down to a lesser speed though. Go with a laywer its always better, either way the money that will go towards your ticket and increase in insurance will go to the lawyer.

Contest it the court might drop the charge down a bit on thier own. Always can change a not guilty to guilty at anytime. Can't go the other way around though.
 
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The last ticket I received was in 2000.

That last ticket that actually was on my record was in 1998. If I go to traffic school I still have to pay the fine Demo, while it is prefferable to getting it on my record, I am still unhappy with the option because I simply was not speeding. And the fines are ridiculous now.
 
Where do you live?

I would appeal big time. You're likely to win too since if you really weren't speeeding, then there should be no evidence of you speeding at all. If the speedometer fucked up, i think it's provable that it did.
 
i stopped counting tickets i got.... depending for what it is, i either pay or go to court....
i managed to walk free for 4 red lights (2 of them i REALLY didnt do) just cause cops never showed....
 
silence said:
i stopped counting tickets i got.... depending for what it is, i either pay or go to court....
i managed to walk free for 4 red lights (2 of them i REALLY didnt do) just cause cops never showed....
Click to expand...

Yeah well it's easy for you! you can just bomb the police station and BOOM NO MORE RECORDS!!! :LOL:
 
nah, no need.... thing is that after 2 years, even if it stays in record, when you go to court they are not counting those....

i remember going once.... judge asks me "have you had any other traffic violations?"...i start counting, he stops me and asks "in last 2 years, that you have been sentenced for?"...i say "no"...he says "then you are clean and you have none"....

good system ;)




and no, i didnt buy that pack i told you about.:p
i acctually wanna get MP-5 SD, but its little pricey....
 
I'd go to court. If the only thing he has to offer is that he was "pacing" you and thinks you were speeding based on that, I imagine you should be able to call into question the accuracy with which he was able to judge your speed (though talk to a lawyer first of course). If there is other evidence (like video footage or a laser) that should be made available to you.

Honestly if he didn't do anything other than pace you, I doubt he'd even bother to show up in court. It isn't worth his time. I'd definately go to court over it though. If you didn't do anything wrong you shouldn't be penalized for it.

Nite_Hawk
 
At the very least, go to court and ask for deferred adjudication. It means if you don't get a ticket before your probation is up, the ticket is expunged. (Yes, it generally means you have to pay court fees, but it doesn't go on your record).

And yeah, if you show up and contest, you have a good likelyhood of getting it overturned on a technicality.
 
There was no laser/radar or anthing, however:
Pacing simply means that the officer followed you with another vehicle, attempting to maintain a constant distance and referring to his speedometer to gauge your speed. In this case, the calibration of the police car is critical to your defense. The defense strategies that we outlined earlier may not all apply since the officer does not have to be specifically trained in reading a speedometer, and it is unlikely he was following the wrong vehicle. Your best bet is that the officer does not appear in court and that the prosecution fails to prove all the points in the specific section of the vehicle code.
Click to expand...

Now the problem, is that pacing is the hardest to ague against, basically it is your word against the officers. In this case he is at fault b/c he did not keep a constant distance, in other words he was 1/8 mile behind and caught up to me and then used that speed to say I was going 60mph which is frankly B.S. No one can judge distance or speed as well at night.

Unfortunately, apparently my wife is not a good witness as she is related, and has a vested interest that we not get a ticket. I wrote a letter to the judge asking to have access to the video footage of the incident from the patrolman's car. I should be able to show by the time between when I pass landmarks that I was not speeding.

Also unfortunately I was passing people, but the people were all going slow because of the cop, perhaos he felt I did not give him the respect he was due by crawling along at his pace...

In any case I will go get data today for the average speeds on that section of road. For some unknown reason everyone consistently drives well below 50mph on that road even though it is 3 lanes each way. On the other hand everyone speeds on the roads marked 40mph and pass me... ah well

I will update this when I have any further information.
 
Does your state have the Good Driver Statute?

If your record is reasonably clean, you can practically erase any speeding fine.
 
Blade said:
Does your state have the Good Driver Statute?

If your record is reasonably clean, you can practically erase any speeding fine.
Click to expand...

I live in Texas, when I looked it up on google I did not find anything, but one can always hope.
 
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