Quote:
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.