Speeding Ticket

[tbloomq]

Hi Folks, I received a traffic ticket early this morning from a CHP on 101N near Novato, CA. He wrote me up for 81 in a 65 zone which translates to a 22349(a) vehicle infraction.

 

Has anyone had any luck in beating tickets like this? It wasn't unsafe just fast.

 

What's the group's view on what is the best path - go to court and hope for a no show? or pay the fine and go to traffic school? or go to court and deal with the outcome?

 

First ticket in 15 years... arrrghh...

 

Tom

[Whip]

Call whatever court or jurisdiction is in charge of collecting your m0ney.

 

Ask em if there is any additional money you can pay to keep the ticket from going on your permanent record.

 

DAMHIK

 

 

....remember it's not about the money

 

 

[smiller]

First ticket in 15 years...

In most states you can get the charge dismissed by going to traffic school (can probably even do it online.) This will save you the points and any potential insurance surcharges, but between the 'administrative fees' and traffic school charge you won't save much money.

 

Also, in a lot of states they have it rigged so that if you choose to appear then the automatic option of traffic school is canceled and you must then get an OK from a judge (no doubt to incent you to just pay the fee and go away.)

[mrduck]

Some cheap advice for ya

 

Pay the fine and do an online traffic school to keep it off your record. The whole 8 hr course took all of an hour for me, and I know of someone who paid his 11 year old daughter to take his! (and she did it in even less time than me!)

 

If ya try to tie up some judge's time with a speeding infraction, all yer gonna do is make things worse.

 

All the court wants is your money, and one every 15 years is a good record.

Think of this as a kinda "sin tax" for having this much fun!

 

 

 

My cheap advice for this evening

 

Don J

 

 

[BanjoBoy]

Hey Tom,

How'd they clock you? LIDAR? pace?

They'll add surcharges for exceeding the maximum speed limit, and a bunch of other stuff. That's gonna be some big $$$

If you can go to court, you should. Postpone it as long as you can, fight it, and clog up the system. (If nothing else)

Here in Sonoma County you can go to court and still take traffic school if you loose.

But as smiller pointed out, a few miles away in Lake County you can't. If you fight it and loose, you can't go to traffic school.

Here's some info to help beat the extortion racket. Linkage

Since we have a massive deficit here in the golden state they'll be extorting more than usual. be aware!

 

Good luck,

[MotorinLA]

Hi Folks, I received a traffic ticket early this morning from a CHP on 101N near Novato, CA. He wrote me up for 81 in a 65 zone which translates to a 22349(a) vehicle infraction.

 

Has anyone had any luck in beating tickets like this? It wasn't unsafe just fast.

 

What's the group's view on what is the best path - go to court and hope for a no show? or pay the fine and go to traffic school? or go to court and deal with the outcome?

 

First ticket in 15 years... arrrghh...

 

Tom

 

As far as beating the charge you're %@#$ out of luck. CHP officers are very anal about their speed measuring equipment and the charge you got hit with requires no "unsafe condition", only that you exceeded 65 mph.

 

With that said, I'd suggest the following:

Do a Trial by Declaration and hope the officer doesn't reply. If he doesn't, you win. If he responds and you lose, request a new court trial (Trial de Novo) and go to court. If the guy doesn't show up, you win. If he shows up, ask the judge to change your plea to Guilty or No Contest and request traffic school (most judges I know will let you change your plea and take traffic school, if you ask for it before the trial).

 

It really depends what you value more, your money or your time.

 

 

[Polo]

Some cheap advice for ya

 

Pay the fine and do an online traffic school to keep it off your record. The whole 8 hr course took all of an hour for me, and I know of someone who paid his 11 year old daughter to take his! (and she did it in even less time than me!)

 

 

My cheap advice for this evening

 

Don J

 

The last time I took the course on line, it was timed, so I could not advance and do it faster than the scheduled time. What's the URL of this course. I don't need it now, but riding with LIMECREEK and SWMKINLEY, is just a matter of time. Almost got nabbed yesterday.

 

Usually, the chances of beating a speeding ticket are quite small; aside from the LEO not showing up, most arguments we hear about, they have already heard about. Now, if you are approaching a losing milestone, then an attorney may be your best bet. One defensive driving course every 15 years... You are definitely ahead of the game here.

 

It's better and cheaper to play along by the unspoken rules, cough up the bucks and take the defensive driving course.

[Deadboy]

www.safe2drive.com works for me.....

[Mister Tee]

As far as beating the charge you're %@#$ out of luck. CHP officers are very anal about their speed measuring equipment and the charge you got hit with requires no "unsafe condition", only that you exceeded 65 mph.

 

With that said, I'd suggest the following:

Do a Trial by Declaration and hope the officer doesn't reply. If he doesn't, you win. If he responds and you lose, request a new court trial (Trial de Novo) and go to court. If the guy doesn't show up, you win. If he shows up, ask the judge to change your plea to Guilty or No Contest and request traffic school (most judges I know will let you change your plea and take traffic school, if you ask for it before the trial).

 

It really depends what you value more, your money or your time.

 

 

Beat me to it.

 

CHP tends to be pretty good about showing up to court and submitting Declaration paperwork, local City cops less so.

[stubble!]

I've noticed the CHP does a lot of stakeouts in the Novato area on weekend mornings.

 

Did you get clocked with radar or laser?

 

Nothing else to add here really. With my ticket last year (similar circumstances, but in Mendo county) I just paid up and used idrivesafely.com for traffic school. Easy-peazy. My "partner in crime" showed up in court instead, argued safe-speed-for-conditions, got the fine reduced and no points.

 

[Gregori]

Ditto what MotorinLA said.

 

Trial by Declaration: You can write nothing more than "Not Guilty" in the TBD, and if the officer doesn't do his part, you win by default. (Same applies in traffic court, but in my my experience, they're MUCH better about showing up in court than they are about doing the TBD paperwork...)

 

FWIW - Whatever you write/say in the trial by declaration isn't seen (or admissible, anyway) in the in-court trial, as well.

 

Bear in mind that no matter HOW the judicial branch is SUPPOSED to operate, in traffic court, you really *are* presumed guilty unless you have very compelling evidence to the contrary. And I've actually heard that said almost verbatim, by an officer of the court - IN A CALIFORNIA COURTROOM.

 

I've got secondhand experience with clearly biased behavior in Massachusetts traffic court as well:

The officer who wrote a ticket to someone close to me DID NOT SHOW UP in court - instead another officer from the same department showed up with only a copy of the citation. Despite photos and other evidence showing a violation did not occur, the 'judge' would not consider the evidence because the officer wasn't present to be cross examined or make a rubuttal and found the ticketed party guilty, "because we take traffic violations very seriously." (And she was told she could not ask for an appeal without paying substantial 'fees' to do so.)

 

 

[Dave McReynolds]

Bear in mind that no matter HOW the judicial branch is SUPPOSED to operate, in traffic court, you really *are* presumed guilty unless you have very compelling evidence to the contrary. And I've actually heard that said almost verbatim, by an officer of the court - IN A CALIFORNIA COURTROOM.

 

There's a lot of difference in the standard of proof required, depending on what you're charged with. For example, in my business, income taxes, if the purpose of an IRS audit is to find out whether my client has paid all of his taxes, my client has to show proof of all deductions and income, or else he doesn't get the deductions and may be taxed on whatever other receipts the IRS thinks might be income. And that standard is followed right on up to the tax court and beyond. This would be similar, I guess, to having to prove you weren't speeding if the LEO writes you up for it.

 

OTOH, if the purpose of the IRS is to make an example out of you and put you in jail for a while for tax fraud, the shoe is on the other foot and the IRS has to prove, under criminal evidence standards, that you did or didn't do whatever it was that they charged you with. I suppose this would be similar to a more serious motor vehicle offense, like felony hit-and-run.

[onmyrt]

He wrote me up for 81 in a 65 zone.

 

It wasn't unsafe just fast.

I must be missing something here.

 

Are you saying that you weren't doing 81, and that the ticket was issued in error,

or are you admitting to doing 81 (16 miles over the speed limit)

and just not willing to accept responsibility for it.

 

If it's the former, then by all means, fight it for all it's worth,

but if it's the latter, then friend, I'd say pay the fine and move on.

[tbloomq]

Thanks for all the advice. I was clocked using Lidar.

 

I was heading down a small grade and had pulled out to pass a slower car. According to Lidar, I was clocked at 81 and the "target" next to me was 74. He showed me the Lidar gun's display. After passing said car, I went back into the number 2 lane and subsequently was pulled over. Nothing unsafe about my passing maneuver, in fact, it was the safest thing to do since it allowed me to keep my safety zone (the space around me) intact.

 

I might roll the dice and do the trial by declaration.

 

Tom

[Dave McReynolds]

Passing does seem to be the ultimate catch-22 of speeding citations. What do you do if you're stuck behind someone who is not going the prevailing speed of traffic (which might be the speed limit, but more likely is the speed limit +5 or 10)? So the speed limit is 65, prevailing traffic is going 70, with the LEO's tacit blessings, and you come up behind someone going 62. Now while the LEO is indifferent to a speed of 70, his eyes will perk up at a speed of 75, and 80 definitely gets his attention. But 80 is what you need to do to blip around the guy going 62 unless you have a mile of open highway in front of you. I guess it will always just be a lottery....

[Nice n Easy Rider]

Thanks for all the advice. I was clocked using Lidar.

 

I was heading down a small grade and had pulled out to pass a slower car. According to Lidar, I was clocked at 81 and the "target" next to me was 74. He showed me the Lidar gun's display. After passing said car, I went back into the number 2 lane and subsequently was pulled over. Nothing unsafe about my passing maneuver, in fact, it was the safest thing to do since it allowed me to keep my safety zone (the space around me) intact.

 

I might roll the dice and do the trial by declaration.

 

Tom

Tom,

I'm sure I probably would have done exactly as you did. But do I understand you correctly that the car you passed was clocked at doing 74 mph? If that is indeed the case I would think you might have some difficulty in making your argument that you 'needed' to pass a car already doing 9 mph over the posted limit. Just a thought. Good luck on whatever strategy you use.

[Polo]

Thanks for all the advice. I was clocked using Lidar.

 

I was heading down a small grade and had pulled out to pass a slower car. According to Lidar, I was clocked at 81 and the "target" next to me was 74. He showed me the Lidar gun's display. After passing said car, I went back into the number 2 lane and subsequently was pulled over. Nothing unsafe about my passing maneuver, in fact, it was the safest thing to do since it allowed me to keep my safety zone (the space around me) intact.

 

I might roll the dice and do the trial by declaration.

 

Tom

Tom,

I'm sure I probably would have done exactly as you did. But do I understand you correctly that the car you passed was clocked at doing 74 mph? If that is indeed the case I would think you might have some difficulty in making your argument that you 'needed' to pass a car already doing 9 mph over the posted limit. Just a thought. Good luck on whatever strategy you use.

 

No criticism on my part. But yes, the safest thing to have done was to keep your distance from the vehicle in front by slowing down to 65. I would be very surprised if you were found not guilty on the merits of this argument.

 

IMO your best bet is to take the defensive driving course and move on.

 

What we feel is safe has nothing to do woith what the law dictates. Most of us think that we are above average drivers and riders; you probably are, since you have gone 15 years w/o a ticket. I will admit to have gone 2-3 miles, maybe even 4 above the speed limit once or twice, but when you get caught with your pants down, it's just best to grin and bear it.

[ian408]

I have a question. Were you doing 81 as the officer alleges?

 

If so, why not go to court, plead guilty and request traffic school? Accept your responsibility for speeding. Who knows? Maybe you'll catch a break.

[tbloomq]

I have a question. Were you doing 81 as the officer alleges?

 

If so, why not go to court, plead guilty and request traffic school? Accept your responsibility for speeding. Who knows? Maybe you'll catch a break.

 

I actually have no idea of my actual speed. I was not looking at the speedometer. I'm sure it was faster than posted. So technically, any argument I would have would be weak cuz I won't make up a story.