Legal advice S. California

[Wilhelm]

OK, its a bit off topic. Sorry.. But the "Off Topic" Forum doesnt have as much action as the Tech Forum. (And the topics in the Off Topic Forum are a little strange sometimes )
I received a B.S. traffic ticket a week ago...40 in a 35 zone. An "estimate" by the CHP officer who said I seemed to be going too fast. No radar, etc. This was in LA County. Someone told me to do a "Trial By Written Declaration" since this supposedly causes a lot of paperwork for the officer who wrote the ticket and a lot of times they just dont bother doing the paperwork.

Anyone heard of or have experience with this?

Thanks Much !

[Danny_Ocean]

You can legally speed in CA, depending on conditions at the time:

CA Veh. Code, Basic Speed Law
22350. No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.

Amended Ch. 252, Stats. 1963. Effective September 20, 1963.

[Danny_Ocean]

And here's the form:

http://courtinfo.ca.gov/forms/fillable/tr205.pdf

[Danny_Ocean]

And some interesting reading for your particular situation:

Ticket Assassin

[Packy]

if you asked for a radar gun print out and he could not produce one I think you have him pretty good.

[Danny_Ocean]

Originally Posted by Packy

if you asked for a radar gun print out and he could not produce one I think you have him pretty good.

Not true. They don't have to show you sheet, except the ticket (and they don't need radar to write a ticket). Is CHP even using radar? When I left CA (2000), they hadn't been using radar for citations up to that point. Everything was paced or estimated (or "trapped" by their planes).

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by Danny_Ocean

You can legally speed in CA, depending on conditions at the time:

CA Veh. Code, Basic Speed Law
22350. No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.

Amended Ch. 252, Stats. 1963. Effective September 20, 1963.

I don't believe that is true, or an accurate reading.

IMO in California (and just about every other state), you can never legally exceed the posted speed limit.

In ADDITION to that, you can't go faster than is reasonably prudent. That means you might have to go SLOWER than the speed limit.

I.e., it's possible to get a ticket for going 55 in a 65, if that is unreasonable or imprudent.

But you can't EVER legally go 70 in a 65, even if it is a deserted highway, no car for miles, dead straight, noon, clear day and you are in a car that just passed an inspection by the Ferrari F1 team.

[Danny_Ocean]

Originally Posted by McLovin

I don't believe that is true, or an accurate reading.

IMO in California (and just about every other state), you can never legally exceed the posted speed limit.

In ADDITION to that, you can't go faster than is reasonably prudent. That means you might have to go SLOWER than the speed limit.

I.e., it's possible to get a ticket for going 55 in a 65, if that is unreasonable or imprudent.

But you can't EVER legally go 70 in a 65, even if it is a deserted highway, no car for miles, dead straight, noon, clear day and you are in a car that just passed an inspection by the Ferrari F1 team.

That's not what the law says. It has been used as a defense in the past when the speed limit was exceeded, but conditions weren't hazardous to drive at that speed (e.g. weather, traffic conditions, etc.). I believe traffic surveys may be needed as well to present a defense using this law.

[BeyGon]

"Someone told me to do a "Trial By Written Declaration"

I have done that twice, didn't do crap, once I really believed I should get off, no chance, I sent in the second try, still no chance, finally went to traffic school, in Orange County there is no internet school, they tell you in class, "this is punishment" we don't care if you learn squat. But you will stay awake and sit up.
You can try and if you aren't satisfied you can still go to court. Just drag it out.

[Wilhelm]

OK. Thanks for the replies. But, more to my point...has anyone here actually used the Trial By Written Declaration approach? And if so, was it a rather easy procedure, and what was the outcome , etc?

[Wilhelm]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

"Someone told me to do a "Trial By Written Declaration"

I have done that twice, didn't do crap, once I really believed I should get off, no chance, I sent in the second try, still no chance, finally went to traffic school, in Orange County there is no internet school, they tell you in class, "this is punishment" we don't care if you learn squat. But you will stay awake and sit up.
You can try and if you aren't satisfied you can still go to court. Just drag it out.

BeyGon;

Thanks. I was making my post just at the same time you were posting I guess !

[Wilhelm]

I did Traffic School 15 months ago. I think it needs to be 18 months between tickets to do Traffic School again. Although the last ticket was in a different County, I dont think it makes a difference.

And besides, I would like to get out of this one at no cost since it was total BS !

[aigel]

I have done several trial by written declaration for myself, family and friends. Gotten off several times with it with the local town police force. NEVER with the CHP. I believe the CHP has some incentive for the cops to write the letter.

You can do the trial by written declaration, it is very easy. However, by filing it, you give up your eligibility to go to traffic school. It may be better to bite the bullet, pay up and go to traffic school.

That said, if your trial by written declaration doesn't go in your favor, you can get a new trial (trial de novo) and still go to court as usual with our without legal help. You can get the judge to let you go to traffic school pretty easily - I hear. Never made it that far.

Hope this helps.

G

[aigel]

Oh, and one more word of advice. Don't speed. Ever. Play by the rules 100%. It is the only way to avoid getting tickets. The highways and towns are crawling with cops waiting to better their agency's balance sheet. I set the cruise whenever I can and am not dragged along by "everyone else is going 80".

I also wanted to comment on the "reasonable speed" law for the conditions present. This is true. However, I believe there is a hard limit - 65 in CA, IIRC, so you can never say going 100 mph was prudent.

George

[ratpiper71T]

If you do something that is going to piss the officer off like give him more work to do, I guarantee he will make the court date. They, meaning the the cops are hard working blue collar people and making him or her have more time to spend on your case isn't going to make it forgettable. As far as print outs there is no such thing. It's his word against yours nothing more. Trust me, I found this one out the hard way. If you ask for that, you are also going to piss them off, because what they will think you are asking for is the written record of testing the device for calibration. They will probably have that and you will look like an a$$. Declare either guilty with an apology or not guilty and explain that you were traveling the speed limit, and though you mean no disrespect to the officer you still don't understand how he figured your speed without instruments to measure it. Might work might not either way 5mi. Over the limit shouldn't be to much of a fine. Good luck.

[BeyGon]

Originally Posted by Wilhelm

I did Traffic School 15 months ago. I think it needs to be 18 months between tickets to do Traffic School again. Although the last ticket was in a different County, I dont think it makes a difference.

And besides, I would like to get out of this one at no cost since it was total BS !

You should never go to traffic school on the first ticket, just wait and see, if you don't get another ticket OK, but if you do, then take the school.

[Flieger]

I heard officers get paid overtime to go to court for ticket protests but for the written declaration they do not get any extra money to write the big report.

[rnln]

Can you explain why you should never go to trafic school on the first ticket?

Originally Posted by BeyGon

You should never go to traffic school on the first ticket, just wait and see, if you don't get another ticket OK, but if you do, then take the school.

[silverwhaletail]

CHP probably has a written directive ordering them to respond to Trial By Declaration subpoenas. I would bet a paycheck on this.

When "connected" people (relatives of judges, relatives of city/county officials, peripheral law enforcement people who received attitude tickets, etc) receive tickets in socal, they submit a trial by declaration. The judge (commissioner) is advised that the person contesting the ticket is "connected." The judge finds the "connected" offender "not guilty" without having to face the officer who wrote the ticket.

Because of this reality, I don't waste my time responding to Trials By Declaration unless I read my notes and recall that the offender was "special." Many departments don't have policy requiring that officers "answer" Trials By Dec. As a result, many city/county officers don't answer them. Even many motorcycle cops (traffic enforcement officers) don't respond to them.

40 mph in a 35 mph zone is unconscionable enforcement. Even in an area dense with hookers, pimps, drug addicts, drug dealers and transients jaywalking all over the place, NO JUDGE is going to convict you for "unsafe speed."

The Chippy had a hard-on for you, for whatever reason. I suspect that you were driving like an A-hole, lane changing, or most likely, following too closely. But of course, I wasn't there. Depending on the time of the stop, it is possible that you were stopped for investigation of dui (using the speed estimation as probable cause for the stop) and then the contact degenerated due to your bad attitude and he cited you just because he can.

14 mph is generally the number of mph over the posted limit that is "overlooked" by officers using radar or lidar in SoCal. The reason for this is that 15 over, on city streets, is generally indefensible. When I go to traffic court, at least half of the time after the offender sees my smiling face, he/she requests traffic school. Testifying bores me. Therefore, I don't write questionable tickets. Never have.

I get $205 every time that I go to traffic court. There may be departments that require that traffic court overtime be banked as "comp time" to be "taken off later", but I am not aware of any. But given the current budget situation, that wouldn't really surprise me at some smaller or poorer cities/counties.

I hope this answers some questions for you.

In a perfect world, you would go to the same section of roadway where you were cited, at the same time of day, on the same day of the week, take 15 minutes of video, preferably with a properly calibrated radar gun in view of the camera, and take the video to court for the judge to see. 40 in a 35 does not pass the smell test, in and of itself.

But if you were following too closely, your a dead man.

[sammyg2]

How fast were you actually going?