Outran the cops BUT...
 

Today is the NICEST day of the year so far in Pennsylvania, and I was out driving with a buddy in my 911. I let him drive for a while, and he took it for a spirited run. We stopped to have lunch and noticed about half way into it that 3 police cars were surrounding my 911 in the parking lot. Mind you - we had been there for AT LEAST 15 minutes. As we left, the police informed us that we passed the scene of an accident where at least one officer and 3 civilians witnessed "a white 911 driving by at a high rate of speed". I sincerely do not remember going by an accident, but anyways... my buddy fessed up to driving fast, didn't try to get out of it, and took the near $300 "reckless driving" citation.

The sickeningly neat thing to me is that my buddy wasn't even trying to outrun the police officer who left the scene of the accident to chase us down, and the police didn't find us until 20 minutes later. Nice car, but your sins do catch up with you...

You can not be convicted unless your car can be specifically identified by a witness, basically that means if no one saw your license plate you are free and clear.

This sounds bogus. Fifteen minutes later they see you parked and charge you because you have white 911? And your friend doesn't try to get out of it? Come on...

Haha - you don't know my friend. He didn't even inquire about the circumstance they "caught" him in. He just confessed. It's alright if you don't believe me - not going to ruin my day!

Was he out on a day pass?

Just a guy with a really sensitive conscience...

Too bad you have the ONLY white 911 in the state.


Seriously, I think that if a cop was in pusuit he would have caught you guys. ...not 15 min's later.

Where I live, the witness would have to make a citizen's arrest.

The cops won't ticket or arrest based on someone's say-so; only if they witnessed the infraction themselves (even if, as your friend did, one admits guilt to the officer).

They gotta catch you in the act.

Edit: Oops - you did say one of the witnesses was a cop, so maybe not.

back roads + 911 driving spiritedly = hard for Ford to catch

It's unlikely - I admit.

$300 for what? Why wait until his insurance rates double. Reckless driving is nothing to scoff at. At the very least he should try to get it dropped to excessive speed. How did they determine he was reckless?

He should contest the ticket. A good mouthpiece would have that kicked out.
Believe me it is worth the effort.

Fight ALL tickets ( tie the bastards up in court) but ESPECIALLY fight this one!!! it's win-able

Good story, you ask for no advise, I give you none.....The laws differ in each state - end of story.....

Point taken, but I have to add my .02 that this one needs to go to court. The driver did the right thing by not protesting the ticket. It never does any good to give a cop any lip. You can't try a ticket on the street, only in front of a judge. Perhaps the cop who wrote the ticket won't show out of some sort of dignity (OK, fat chance) or something else like not being able to POSITIVELY identify the driver or the vehicle. He damn sure can't ID the driver. On the ticket in CA it says that signing is not an admission of guilt, only a promise to appear.

if caught red handed, ok , i would admit it, fair enough

but if caught with something like this, hearsay, or whatever

i'de stone cold deny it... let them try and prove it
witness says high speed? define high speed?
how did the witness establish this? engine noise? did he have a Lidar speed gun?? what is his eyesight like? 20/20? what angle did this witness see me from?? what distance?? is this witness trained and calibrated for speed measurements??

on his court date show up with your car.... and as many white 911s as you can round up, request a line-up.
see if the "witnesses" can pick out the right car?
if not, should be case dismissed based on the purely circumstantial aspect of the situation.

hahahaha - SO many good ideas! My favorite is the white 911 line up. I'm going to show this post to my friend. Though I wasn't asking for advice (as someone noted), my buddy's conscience may be persuaded by all the logical (and comical) advice in here. You guys are great!

If it was 15 minutes, with two adult occupants, and the car was out of sight of the police, even briefly, then they have no way to prove who was driving. And I find it unlikely they would issue a ticket under these circumstances.

I still call this as B$.

not to shower this with a cold soak, why would you not slow down driving by an accident? if for nothing else but to look at the carnage? and this is tech how?

blame it on cliffy, he has a white 911 and rarely an alibi.

T$

That's the thing man - we didn't even see an accident. Like I said... my buddy didn't make any inquiries.

How fast was "Spirited?" What was posted speed?

Paul

Re: Outran the cops BUT...
 

This was win-able in court up until the above quote. The officer's testimony that your friend admitted to driving fast is probably enough to sink him.
Side note: I really don't care but shouldn't this be in Off Topic?

Re: Re: Outran the cops BUT...
 

Yeah you're probably right. I'll remember that... Feel free to have the thread moved.

There was no listed speed at all. Just "reckless driving"

It is probably still winnable because he wasn't cited with speeding. He was cited with reckless driving. The admitting that he did anything wrong was just plain dumb. The only way to win this is with legal representation and it is no longer a slam dunk dismissal.

Basically the cops were almost certainly playing 'go fish' and your buddy took the bait. The accident probably didn't ever exist. Most likely someone called in on their cell phone because no one likes to be passed. The cops found a car that fit the description and then your buddy made their life easy by confessing. Now they could write a nice expensive ticket which looks good for them 'back home'. No one believes this was any sort of a safety issue and that includes the cops. The only real thing that happened here is your buddy has donated to the local government and his insurance company's shareholders.

Have his attorney petition for the alleged accident report.

Actually, you can not be convicted unless a witness can put you behind the wheel when the offense took place. Basically, if the cop loses sight of your vehicle at any point and can not prove that you switched drivers etc. you are off the hook. I have successfully used this to beat a ticket twice.

Here in Alberta, they can give the owner a fine for being the registered owner of a vehicle that was speeding but there are no demerits, just a reduced fine.

Bah ha ha ha

Todd SmileWavy

Sure a lot of people with law degrees on here all of a sudden....

http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/wat3.gif

This is of a T-E-C-H-N-I-C-A-L nature - right?

Yea, you know how technical the Big bear run and BB photos are and the Treffen, Mid Tennesee fun run,show me your Black Beauties etc...:rolleyes:

Wow, is it that surprising to you people that someone out there is honest? Obviously some of you are not.

He knew he broke the law and when asked he told the truth.
And your adsvice is to try and lie his way out of it? I wasn't raised that way and apparently neither was he.
No wonder this country is going down the tubes. No morals left.

Just a dumb question here – is his statement admissible if he wasn’t read the Miranda statement?

I like the idea of having 30 white identical 911s outside the courthouse for the “witness” to identify yours.

I agree with safe driving and appropriate enforcement. This looks like no fault, no foul .... There appears to be dubious law enforcement. I suspect any opposition will result in a dismissal.


I was the object of such prosecution in the late ‘60s. We had an SCCA Saturday night party in Snowmass-at-Aspen. For some reason Bugsy and I needed to go to his house on the other side of Aspen. Going back up the Snowmass road (with my 2.0 911 at 7000 with a Bursch 2-into-1 straight pipe), I passed a matron in her Volvo. An hour or so later she appeared with two Pitkin County Sheriff Deputies in tow. I was issued a summons for something (admitting nothing).

At the court date (I love any reason to drive my 911 to Aspen), I parked my 911 next to the judge's Jaguar. My witness was my passenger, Dr. Robert “Bugsy” Barnard, Mayor. :D

‘Nuff said.


Andy, the question is; does your friend want to have points on his license and double+ insurance premiums for an improper prosecution? Even you guys can’t be absolutely sure the “witness” was referring to you. :rolleyes:

Best,
Grady

PS; I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice. :D
However I have stayed in a Holliday Inn Express.

What SammyG2 said +1.

Just because you dont admit to something does not mean your dishonest, or are we all dishonest then? Then we should all run right down now and admit to all the times we went faster than the posted limit. Remember, you have nothing to prove, they do!

Who advocated lying? We have an adversarial system, the onus is on them to prove you committed and offence, not on us to confess.

And relax, I'm from outside the U.S., I'm dragging a different country down the tubes for a multitude of reasons.

What PBH said +1. Not to mention they didn't EVEN SEE an accident!!! All they admited to was driving spirited.. They may have not passed the accident... Not exactly dragging the country down with lack of morals..

Good point, sammy. If you got a ticket for doing something you knew you were doing, yet could weasel out of due to technicalities, does that make it OK to do so? At the same time, this is a ticket that was given for "reckless driving," not for "speeding." So, is polezei's buddy actually guilty of "reckless driving?" There's definitely a gray area. Personally, I may be found "speeding" when I'm driving in a spirited fashion. But that doesn't necessarily constitute "reckless driving."

His accepting the ticket is not an admission of guilt. As one posted, the roadside is not the place to dispute an alleged offense. If the cops were of the mind that they were going to cite you I doubt you would have talked them out of it. I suspect that if you two were evasive about who was driving they may have upped the ante and taken the two of you to the station and made your lives miserable for a couple of hours, taking statements and launching lots of paperwork even without the likelihood of a charge being laid.
If your friend saw flashing lights at an accident scene and blew right past it I think he should do the right thing. Maybe try to get the charges reduced. On the other hand, if there was no visible accident scene warnings ( flags, pylons, reduce speed signs, police with their light bars on, etc) your friend should contest it. Even a speeding charge will be hard to pursue if there is no way to determine what speed you were travelling.
In my experience (my dad was a police officer) you may dodge a ticket at the roadside if the infraction isn't too severe and you're civil when speaking to the officer. But if they've decided the infraction was serious, your arguing with them will only make it worse. Then you may get the complimentary 'vehicle inspection'. I don't know of anyone who argued their way out of a ticket, but a few have apologized their way out!

Basically, I agree w/sammy, but:

How many times have you heard anyone ever say ”Damn, I got a speeding ticket! I deserved it though and I’m certainly not going to try to avoid being penalized for my transgression!” That just ain’t human nature (and bet it wasn't generations ago either).

Consider also that breaking a speed limit is not by definition dangerous. While illegal, there are certainly stretches of road where very high speeds can be attained without putting anyone at risk other than driver and passenger. Less extremely, isn’t it irritating to get a ticket for doing 43 in a 35 zone?

There’s really nothing sacrosanct about speed limits; they exist to try to protect the public from itself and are sometimes not well determined and sometimes are even very specifically designed as speed traps.

Yes, breaking the law is breaking the law. However there is a profound difference between being a dangerous scoff-law and exercising civil disobedience when you don’t agree that a law is just and proper.

Actually, that’s been the American way throughout our history; Thoreau comes to mind. Admittedly, those of historical note (Mahatma Whutzizzname, et al) who've employed civil disobediance as Thoreau referred to it, did it openly to try to change laws or policies. They didn't lie to try to avoid the consequences of their disobediance, but rather used it as a tool to try to affect change.

I’ve always balked at the old saw “speed kills”. At how many mph does speed become a murderer? I know 100 mph can kill you if you hit a big tree. 30 mph can also kill you if you hit a big tree. Reasoned sound judgment need reign at whatever speed.

I've gotten lots of speeding tickets but have been able to keep the span of time between them long enough that my insurance hasn't gone up. I didn't fight any of them because I was "guilty" of all the charges and figured I'd loose; and I hate lying.

And furthermore, I believe that everyhttp://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/pyth.gif

Oh moderators... where are you?