Speeding Ticket when not speeding. What now?

[Chris Lovell]

I am looking fo some advice....

Here's the situation:
Friday, September 1, 2006
Interstate Route 80 Indiana
Posted speed limit 70 mph
Nissan Pathfinder, registered in Connecticut, driven by my son (21) and girlfriend
The kids "tested" the car's speedometer on a highway speed display and found it accurate
They set the cruise control at 74 mph

The kids were pulled over by an Indiana State Trooper who issued a ticket for travelling 81 in a 70 mph area. My son asked to see the radar which reflected the 81 mph reading and he was refused by the trooper.

So, what to do? I seems to me that this is the perfect scam situation for the Indiana police. Out of state vehicle, college kids, no way to contest the ticket due to inabaility to get back to Indiana, invent the 81 mph speed and simply issue the ticket.
The ticket is for $125, but with driving points hitting his driving record in Massachusetts, he will see a $300 increase in his insurance for each of the next 6 years.

And, you may find this hard to believe, but this kid is a steady, no nonsense, honest person. If he said he was going 74 on cruise control, that is probably right.

Thanks.

[Oh Haha]

Fight it. If you truly believe your son was wronged, fight with him.
I had a situation with a MSP trooper this year. He claims he clocked me at 91. I know that I wasn't going that fast. I WAS going over the limit but not 91. He agreed to write me up 70 in a 55. I just paid the ticket as I was breaking the law.
I don't know if the police are required to show the radar reading but the ticket should show the speed he was clocked. Mine did anyway.

Call the county prosecuter for which the ticket was issued. If your son has a clean record, they may be willing negotiate a lesser penalty.

[David]

Jury trial. A clean cut, well dressed kid should win if the prosecutor wants to take it to trial.

[nightheart]

Originally posted by 125shifter
Jury trial. A clean cut, well dressed kid should win if the prosecutor wants to take it to trial.

Must differ from state to state, but PA doesn't allow for a jury trial for driving offences.

[David]

Originally posted by nightheart
Must differ from state to state, but PA doesn't allow for a jury trial for driving offences.

Bummer. I've never had a ticket go to court when I requested a jury trial. I did have a prosecutor tell me he was ready to go, so I said I was too. I sat at the defendent's table for about 15 minutes with the jury pool sitting behind me. The prosecutor finally came in and told me they were dismissing the case for lack of evidence.

[competentone]

Originally posted by Chris Lovell
The ticket is for $125, but with driving points hitting his driving record in Massachusetts, he will see a $300 increase in his insurance for each of the next 6 years.

$300 for six years is $1800; add the $125 cost of the ticket and the total cost is $1925.

The question now is how much will it cost to fight the ticket in travel and defense expenses.

There is a good chance that if he fights the ticket, the officer will not show up for court and your son will likely have the charge dismissed. Even if the officer does show up and testifies, your son might still have the charge dismissed.

It is the officer's judgement, when he aims his radar gun at a group of cars and gets a reading above the speed limit, to determine which car is actually the speeder -- this can be difficult to do if the group of cars is traveling toward him or away from him.

If the officer claims to remember the specific events when he clocked and ticketed your son (which he probably won't, but will try to testify that he remembers), I'd question his abilities to remember such details. By asking him, how many tickets he wrote that day, how many he wrote that week, what were the makes and models and colors of some of the other cars he wrote tickets for on the day he gave your son a ticket, what the weather was like on the day he wrote up you son, and other such questions, you can raise doubt about his testimony as to the specific facts relating to your son's ticket.

Your son is likely to remember the specifics surrounding the ticket (for example, how heavy traffic was when the officer clocked him) because that was the only ticket/contact with law enforcement he had that day -- a very memorable event. The officer probably clocked a lot of cars with radar, wrote many tickets, and had contact with a lot of motorists that day, subsequently his memory about the specific events surrounding the incident with your son can be questioned.

You can also raise question about when the radar gun the officer was using was calibrated last, what his training was in the use of it. If you know of any calibration requirements and training the manufacturer recommends regarding the unit, you'd have some potential good defense material if the department can't demonstrate they are following the manufacturers guidelines.

I do believe too that in most states, the officer is supposed to provide the driver with a print-out of the radar reading -- showing the speed and time -- if the driver requests it; that is something you should look into.

Of course "defense research and preparation" and the trip to court in another state will all be expensive, but if there is a "principle of the thing" element to the situation -- your comments seem to imply that's the case -- it might be the course of action you and your son will want to pursue.

[techweenie]

Speed limit 70. Actual speed 74.

Do you really think there's a case to contest?

[Tervuren]

Originally posted by techweenie
Speed limit 70. Actual speed 74.

Do you really think there's a case to contest?

74 indicated - not 74MPH real speed if I read aright. I drive 40MPH indicated in a 35MPH zone, and am comfortable doing it even with a cop up my tail, radar, speed trap, whatever. I know my speedometer is that far off.

I would not trust jsut one pas on radar to judge my speedometer buy, it very well may have read low on that one pass, so they thought it was accurate. I've checked GPS, and multipl of those radar statiosn, in multiple conditions, and get a consitant 40MP is 35MPH. I'd not just check by radar once and make an assumption. Granted - most cars read high, not low...

[Brew 66]

It must be different in Indiana, isn't 74mph still over the posted 70mph!
I say let him pay it and the insurance and hopefully he will get a little smarter at the school that he was speeding to

[Seahawk]

If you trust him (you do) fight it WITH him, not FOR him.

BTW, this is not a zero sum game...should he get ticketed again, the results will be compounded by this issue.

Snce I was a bit of a reprobate, my father's solution was to have me pay both the ticket and the insurance...I fought the law, but my Dad won.

[Chris Lovell]

Yes, 74 is over the posted 70 MPH speed limit, and yes he was in violation of the speed limit and therefore has earned the right to be ticketed. But, he was driving slower than the majority of traffic, was ticketed for 81 MPH, not the 74 he was actually driving.
To say i should tell him to drive slower would have 1. made him an unsafe driver on that highway of much faster vehicles, and 2. would be an arogant and condescending response.
I think I'll just help him fight it or live with it. I'm not perfect enough to say there is a lesson in this.
C

[Moses]

Find a local attorney who specialized in traffic offenses. He might be able to "negotiate" the infraction to a non moving violation. Good luck. I'm a Californian who went to college in Washington and was regularly targeted by the Oregon state troopers.

[Dantilla]

Originally posted by Moses
Find a local attorney who specialized in traffic offenses.

+1.

For a couple hundred bucks the entire issue will probably dissappear.

[Tobra]

Originally posted by techweenie
Speed limit 70. Actual speed 74.

Do you really think there's a case to contest?

Speed limit 70, actual speed 74, ticketed speed 81

I am saying yeah, there is a case to contest.

[john70t]

Under 5 mph may still be a ticket(justified), but no points-that's the biggie that'll stay on the record. This might be a good time to show your son when to "fight the good fight" and create a memory that stays.


-Way back in high school, I was sleeping in the passenger seat of the gf's car on the way up north, and awoke to a flashlight in my eyes.
-Saginaw, Mi. officer asked for my i.d. and I told him I wasn't driving and he didn't need it. That resulted in a multi-hundred dollar "no seatbelt" ticket.
-I went back and fought it twice.
-The first time in from of a local (wink,wink) magistrate who said the officer was "mistaken" about not wearing the seatbelt, and the the ticket was reduced to a $75 "not wearing it snuggly" (i.e.1-4" from chest). Pretty smug for two buddies who've got a teenager in a small room.
-I fought that one as well. Mom(who was a lawyer) took long trip up with me for the trial. We sat and exchanging glares with the officer for 45 min. (he was on time and a half pay of course) and then he and the other lawyer dissapeared 5 minutes before the case was called.
-we should have had a juicy counter-suit, but the time spent with mom and the result was worth it.

[snowman]

In Indiana you are just plain screwed. Your best bet is to fight it, tell the local yocal that you will not continue to fight it if they do not report it to your state. You will pay if they do not report it. Might work, might not, but the local judge is probably closely related to the cop. Been there done that.

[masraum]

Originally posted by Brew 66
It must be different in Indiana, isn't 74mph still over the posted 70mph!
I say let him pay it and the insurance and hopefully he will get a little smarter at the school that he was speeding to

Oh pulease. I understand the whole "you did something wrong, now you've gotta pay the price" thing, but sometimes it's taken too far. Having the cruise set at 74 on the interstate when the speed limit is 70 and taking it on the chin while being blamed for going 81 is dumb. I suppose if the cop had given him a ticket for going 108mph he should just take that too, same thing. Not.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

The whole thing about "cops never show up in court" is bull. It's considered part of a police officer's duties to back up any citations they write in court and they're scheduled for it as part of their assignments. Don't count on it.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally posted by Dantilla
+1.

For a couple hundred bucks the entire issue will probably dissappear.

Bull*****. I recently placed lawer rates to contest a ticket of mine (speeding) and it was $600 for a basic trial by declaration, $1,200 (minimum, plus expenses) for trial representation with discovery and over $2,500 for representation by a highly-aggressive (and successful) attorney that has a 99% success rate in winning speeding ticket cases.

I haven't decided which way to go yet, but I'm actually leaning towards the $2,500 one, since it'd probably be cheaper than the increased insurance premiums.

Any notion of paying a lawyer "a couple of hundred bucks" and expecting miracles is ridiculous.

[Dantilla]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Any notion of paying a lawyer "a couple of hundred bucks" and expecting miracles is ridiculous.

I recently had two tickets dismissed. A local one for $200, the other was $350 since the lawyer had to drive to a different county.

There are a couple lawyers here that do traffic defense, and have a flat fee. If they are not successful in getting your ticket dismissed, they pay the fine, so their fee is all the ticket will cost.