I had exactly such a thing years ago back in California when I got a speeding ticket on my motorcycle while going 10 mph under the speed limit, because at the exact moment I came up on their radar, I was being passed by a of other guys on bikes who were speeding about 20 mph over the speed limit. The other bikes blew past me and went on up the road and got pulled over after they had rounded the next corner. I came up the road a minute later, NOT speeding, and definitely NOT part of the same group, but the cop stepped into the road and flagged me down and wrote me a 20 mph over the limit ticket, insisting that I was with that other group.Jaguar wrote:I could fight it in court, but really, my word against his, who would the judge side with? I know for a fact that I did not violate the law, I was wondering if I had a tail light was out when he got behind me.
Anyway, I was flabbergasted by the whole episode. What would you guys do if issued a citation for a law you know didn't break, plead your case in front of a judge and hope for the best? Pay up - and then keep paying higher insurance? This really bothers me.
I went to court, and I put the cop on the stand and asked him why he had pulled me over when I was A) not speeding, and B) not even riding with that other group of people wom I'd never even met before. I explained that i had known that the officers were ahead up the road and was intentionally trying to avoid getting a ticket. I explained how the others had come up behind me, blown past me, and raced one another up to the point where they got popped, while I deliberately hung back. He sat there and lied on the stand, and said "no sir, you were with that group, and you were speeding." I looked at the judge and said, "Your Honor, that is just simply not true, but I have nothing else by way of evidence."
You see, I just naturally expected that the officer would tell the truth, but he didn't, and it turned out that there was another agenda in play. The alleged violation took place on Mulholland Highway, a twisty 2 lane country road, and local residents along that road were tired of getting nailed by speeding bikers as they tried to back out of their driveways, and hosing blood and body parts off of the road out in front of their homes. So they got the CHP and the local courts involved, and they basically set about doing everything they could to discourage bikers from riding on "their" road—regardless of the speed they were riding at. I was simply a victim of that. I had been required to post 10% of the $150 fine in order to get a court date, and the judge reduced my punishment to the $15 already paid......but I still got another point on my driving record.....which was worse. I told the judge that I would rather pay the whole fine and not get the point on my record, and his answer was "NEXT CASE PLEASE!!!"
Later, I asked a friend of mine who was a CHP officer why that cop would have lied on the stand like that. His answer was that the cop in question knew that I had no real evidence to offer in my defense, and that, as a LEO, he is what is called a "Friend of the Court." In any conflict between the word of the accused or the word of a witness, and the word of the officer who wrote the ticket, where there is no evidence to refute the officer's word, the court is going to naturally assume that he is telling the truth and that the accused or the witness are lying.
My friend said that is is quite common for officers to lie on the stand in traffic cases precisely because there is rarely any evidence to the contrary, the accused is presumed to be guilty, and "cops never lie."
In your case, you're telling the truth, but the cop is going to get away with his lie because that is how the system works, and it works to encourage him to lie.