First Contact

[Shasta]

To fight or not to fight?

I want to start by saying that I seriously mean no disrespect to any LEO. I do not approve of enforcement of traffic laws for generating revenue, rather than for public safety.

I have had a TDL for over 35 years without a speeding ticket. I don't mean I've gotten out of them all, or taken a DD course. I mean I've never been issued a speeding ticket. I attended TAMU for a couple of semesters back in the early ‘80s, and anyone who lived in the College Station area for more than about 15 minutes knows that you simply DO NOT speed through Navasota. I work contract in Bryan a couple of days per month.

All of this is background for my story.

On Friday the 22nd, I was driving Northbound on Hwy 6 to Bryan and enjoying the first bluebonnets of the season. From the time I left 290 onto highway 6, there was a white midsize Toyota or Lexus SUV (I drive a white GMC Acadia) along with a smaller black sedan constantly riding my tail (I was generally in the outside lane, unless passing) then speeding past, then reducing speed again. Driving through Navasota, I was, as usual, particularly careful of my speed and even put on the cruise control, until I had to brake because of the jerk drivers.

At one point, just past Westward Ho, I came over a rise. There was an LEO vehicle parked in the center, and another LEO vehicle headed southbound on 6. I looked down, and even accounting for acceleration due to the downhill, I was going about 76 or 77. I was very shocked to see him turn around, but he didn’t put on his lights for a mile or 2. Just as HE passed over Peach Creek road, he put on his lights and pulled in behind me. At this point, the other two vehicles were quite a bit ahead of me. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to get their tag numbers.

Pulled over and was told I had been stopped for speeding. He was Brazos County. I was polite, handed over my ID (he didn't bat an eye at the CHL or even ask about a weapon and handed the CHL right back) and didn’t argue. When he handed me the ticket with instructions to “slow down and have a nice day” he had cited me for 86/75. THERE IS SIMPLY NO WAY. Absolutely, positively no way. If he had said up to 80, accounting for downhills, I would have felt like that he was being overzealous, but not protested much.

Now, Mr. Shasta says I should just suck it up, and take the Defensive Driving course, and be done with it. I think that secretly he thinks it’s funny. I am offended, though, and confused. First of all, I don’t understand why the LEO who was in the median and headed our way didn’t move. I don’t understand why he waited so long to pull me. I really am wondering if perhaps he was clocking the Lexus and not me, and lost us as he was crossing the median?

Any of you have any input? Honestly, most of all I hate that I can no longer claim my “no speeding ticket… ever” record. I need to make a decision in the next couple of days. My next trip up is on Thurs or Fri and I need to run by the courthouse to either start the DD process or plead not guilty and have a court date set.

[RoyGBiv]

I had this almost identical situation happen to me 25 years ago...
I was being passed by two cars. I was in the right lane going 55 (remember those days?) and passed a radar trap. A few hundred yards later a second LE pulls out, signals me to pull over and wait for the other guy (the one running the radar) to catch up with me as the second LE goes after the other speeders. I was not speeding at ay time, by any margin.

I could not afford a lawyer (college days) and I could not afford a ticket (insurance penalty).

I went to court and fought it.

The officer began to testify about how his equipment was properly calibrated and he was properly trained. I interrupted and offered "for the sake of saving the courts' time, I'm willing to stipulate that the officer was properly trained and his equipment was functioning properly".

I then was given an opportunity to question the officer and spent a few minutes asking him to describe the stop. His recollection of the details of the day were minimal. Nothing against LE, but, are they really gonna recall the details of a measley traffic stop from two months prior?

After questioning the officer I was allowed to give my testimony. I brought out a small diagram of the stop, explained that 2 cars were passing me as we were passing the officers radar and that the second officer pulled over the wrong driver. My case was CRYSTAL clear.

When the Judge pronounced me guilty an audible gasp came up from the gallery of other accused sitting behind me. I was sincere. I was right, I was broke but I was still guilty because I had no witnesses. My word against the officer.

The judge looked at me for a few seconds and must have decided I wasn't lying. He said "in the interest of justice I'll reduce this to 57 in a 55" (the ticket was for 68 in a 55). I was still broke, and still guilty.

If I was you... I'd hire a lawyer (don't worry, all the local ticket lawyers will be writing you soon), explain it to them in detail and pay them to plead it down for you.. If they know the officers and judges, they can guide you as to what to do. Alternatively, you can request a PJC (prayer for judgment continued) pay the fine and if no more tickets for 6 months (?) the ticket disappears. You can only use a PJC every 2 years or so (I forget exactly) but, since you have no prior tickets, this option is available.. Talk to a local lawyer in that jurisdiction and get their advice before you decide what to do.... You can usually get a 5 minute phone call to feel them out before they want to charge you...

Good luck...

[The_Busy_Mom]

Had the same thing happen to me a couple of years ago. This car was speeding by a cop in the right lane as I moved from the center to the right. I was in no way speeding the 10 miles over he said I was. I am sure he clocked the car in front of me when he thought he was clocking me. I have a Commercial Drivers License, and you can't take Defensive Driving to get moving violations dismissed. So I have a point on my license that I will never be able to get off. Very annoying. My husband, who gets a ticket a year, likes to tease me about it because he knows it gets me worked up. I'm the first to admit when I am wrong, but in this case, I was not the one speeding. But I had to eat the cost and take the point. Grrrr....

My suggestion is to get one of those traffic lawyers whose job it is to make speeding tickets go away. Seems to work for my husband!!

TBM

[texanjoker]

1st I don't agree with revenue stops either and I have never worked anywhere that required it - Thank God.

There are various reasons for the stop being 2 miles away that are all normal. One officer may have been running radar and called another unit to stop you. They probably know where they want to stop you in advance and waited until you got there. They probably wanted you out of site of the radar guy, otherwise their flashing lights would warn other drivers to slow down. They may have been running your license plate before the stop to see if it was reported stolen, ect. The spot you saw them may not have been where they got you on radar.

[RX8er]

Had the same thing happen to me a couple of years ago. This car was speeding by a cop in the right lane as I moved from the center to the right. I was in no way speeding the 10 miles over he said I was. I am sure he clocked the car in front of me when he thought he was clocking me. I have a Commercial Drivers License, and you can't take Defensive Driving to get moving violations dismissed. So I have a point on my license that I will never be able to get off. Very annoying. My husband, who gets a ticket a year, likes to tease me about it because he knows it gets me worked up. I'm the first to admit when I am wrong, but in this case, I was not the one speeding. But I had to eat the cost and take the point. Grrrr....

My suggestion is to get one of those traffic lawyers whose job it is to make speeding tickets go away. Seems to work for my husband!!

TBM

A ticket a year, what? I haven't had one in a while. Maybe 13 or more months. knocks on wood, knocks on wood.

Just ask her about our 18 m/o son crashing the van in to the light pole........ Hey, TBM, you started it. love ya!!!!

[Hola Gato]

My suggestion is to get one of those traffic lawyers whose job it is to make speeding tickets go away. Seems to work for my husband!!

They often cost as much as the ticket but your insurance rates don't go up and you have the righteous satisfaction of usually being found not guilty. The easy choice is defensive driving and you may get an insurance discount but you have to admit guilt for something you didn't do.

[OldCurlyWolf]

Out on the open road I run a gps program that keeps a continuous log of my speed, location and heading. If I have to go to court over a mistaken ID stop, I am going to win.

[RX8er]

Out on the open road I run a gps program that keeps a continuous log of my speed, location and heading. If I have to go to court over a mistaken ID stop, I am going to win.

Good luck with that. Do a quick Google for it as many I have read about are not successful.

At one time, when I was gadgetizing my RX8, I thought about adding in audio/video for the front, sides and rear. On a Mobile PC forum I was in, there were countless posts of people taking certified GPS records to court and still loosing.

The main reason, if you go in to court and you are registered on video for 1 mph over, the ticket will stick because you were speeding. Google it an read about it. There was one guy that was so tin foil hat that he even recorded the court proceeding and posted that up. Sure enough, the judge found him guilty, even though the LEO was off by 10 mph. She reduced hist $283 (something like that) down to $150 + court costs at $50.

[C-dub]

Out on the open road I run a gps program that keeps a continuous log of my speed, location and heading. If I have to go to court over a mistaken ID stop, I am going to win.

That is a great idea. Evidence!

Sorry Shasta. It is unfortunate, but the system is biased and there's not much we can do about it if it is our word against a LEO. Stuff like that has happened to me twice in my life. Once, the officer wrote the wrong date on my ticket and the judge said it didn't matter, it only had to be close. Then, while one of the local news stations were filming for a story about HOV violators someone was filmed driving without a passenger. It was an off-duty DART officer. When someone several months latter asked what ever happened to that officer, the news station found their ticket had been dismissed because of an error on the ticket. But my judge told me ...

That's why I like OldCurlyWolf's idea. It's not just my word against another's.

[Keith B]

Out on the open road I run a gps program that keeps a continuous log of my speed, location and heading. If I have to go to court over a mistaken ID stop, I am going to win.

I do the same thing when I am flying. If I get reported for flying too low then I may have a GPS track showing my altitude for the FAA. It is also possible the GPS malfunctioned on that flight and didn't record.

[jimlongley]

Out on the open road I run a gps program that keeps a continuous log of my speed, location and heading. If I have to go to court over a mistaken ID stop, I am going to win.

I do the same thing when I am flying. If I get reported for flying too low then I may have a GPS track showing my altitude for the FAA. It is also possible the GPS malfunctioned on that flight and didn't record.

ROFL, Keith, I have a GPS track from up in Hugo that shows that for a period of time we were flying BELOW ground level, and it's right!

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A bunch of years ago was driving my Plymouth Horizon, which was running on only three cylinders and was loaded down with furniture I was taking to the refinisher, thus the hatch was open, when I passed through a speed trap just after I moved to the left lane to clear a slower than 55 car which was putting out a lot of smoke and making it hard to breathe.

A few moments before this, a Jeep had passed us in the left lane doing well above the speed limit.

I think the alarm on the radar went off and woke the LEO up and he decided that the first car he saw was the one that set the radar off. It took him a long time to catch up with us.

That car would not have done 75mph on a straight drop, much less running on three out of four cylinders and loaded the way it was, even getting above 55. At that point in time the car was about ten years old and had better than 100,000 miles on it, and it was falling apart, so we had just signed a contract on a new car that day.

When the judge asked guilty or not, I told him not, and he set a court date for THANKSGIVING, at which point my wife prevailed upon me to just plead guilty, so I changed my plea, and the judge fined me $20.00. The standard fine for that jurisdiction at the time was well more than that, and the points never showed up on my license, nor could my friend at Motor Vehicles ever find a record of my conviction.

[srothstein]

Shasta,

You can fight the ticket if you want. There are several ways to argue a speeding ticket. If you want to say you were not doing the indicated speed, I do not give you high odds on winning without some hard evidence of your sped, such as a GPS track that was live recording and shows the time. In addition, in the eyes of the law, the amount of speed over the limit is irrelevant. If you admit to one mile over, you admit you have broken the law and that is what the judge looks at.

You could argue the equipment malfunctioned, but that is also very hard to prove. You can subpoena the maintenance log for the radar gun to see if you want tot try that tack. Almost as hard is arguing that the officer did not know how to run it properly. You can subpoena his training records, again to see if it is worth trying that tack.

You can also argue that the search was illegal. Use of radar constitutes a search which must be predicated on probable cause. But most traffic courts will not agree that radar is a search because the judges are not always trained lawyers. There is no legal requirement to be a lawyer to be appointed a municipal court judge or get elected JP. Many cops will also disagree on if radar is a search or not. So I do not give this one high odds either.

Finally, you can argue that you wee not speeding, even if you were going faster than what was posted. The actual law is that you can not go faster than what is reasonable and prudent and the posted sign is just a prima facie case. If you can convince the judge that the posted sign is too low, you win. With a 75 MPH posted limit, I have trouble thinking the judge will buy this one also, but it is really the best bet in my opinion.

As you can see, I don't have a lot of faith in your beating a ticket in a trial, but it can happen. Without some evidence of your speed (such as that GPS track), it comes down to your word against the officer's. You would need to impeach his testimony to win. You would have to show that he has a better reason to lie than you do, which is very hard.

Which leads me to my advice to take the defensive driving court or work some other plea bargain (such as most of those lawyers do). Not really a fair system, but a fact of life.

[RX8er]

Shasta,

You can fight the ticket if you want. There are several ways to argue a speeding ticket. If you want to say you were not doing the indicated speed, I do not give you high odds on winning without some hard evidence of your sped, such as a GPS track that was live recording and shows the time. In addition, in the eyes of the law, the amount of speed over the limit is irrelevant. If you admit to one mile over, you admit you have broken the law and that is what the judge looks at.

You could argue the equipment malfunctioned, but that is also very hard to prove. You can subpoena the maintenance log for the radar gun to see if you want tot try that tack. Almost as hard is arguing that the officer did not know how to run it properly. You can subpoena his training records, again to see if it is worth trying that tack.

You can also argue that the search was illegal. Use of radar constitutes a search which must be predicated on probable cause. But most traffic courts will not agree that radar is a search because the judges are not always trained lawyers. There is no legal requirement to be a lawyer to be appointed a municipal court judge or get elected JP. Many cops will also disagree on if radar is a search or not. So I do not give this one high odds either.

Finally, you can argue that you wee not speeding, even if you were going faster than what was posted. The actual law is that you can not go faster than what is reasonable and prudent and the posted sign is just a prima facie case. If you can convince the judge that the posted sign is too low, you win. With a 75 MPH posted limit, I have trouble thinking the judge will buy this one also, but it is really the best bet in my opinion.

As you can see, I don't have a lot of faith in your beating a ticket in a trial, but it can happen. Without some evidence of your speed (such as that GPS track), it comes down to your word against the officer's. You would need to impeach his testimony to win. You would have to show that he has a better reason to lie than you do, which is very hard.

Which leads me to my advice to take the defensive driving court or work some other plea bargain (such as most of those lawyers do). Not really a fair system, but a fact of life.

You must be "in the business."

Very good advice and well thought out.

[Shasta]

So, I was admitting defeat (more-or-less) and headed to the courthouse this morning, only to find out that they're closed all day on Friday.

As I was filling out the plea form, I noticed that the date is wrong on the ticket. I hope that I'm not screwing up, but I'm just filling out the response as not guilty, I'll go to court and show evidence that I was at the HLSR BBQ cookoff as a sponsor all day on the 21st, which was the date the officer wrote on the ticket. I'll also print out records of my toll passes to show that I was at 290 on the 22nd in the morning headed toward Bryan and in the afternoon headed back. The vehicle I was in did not pass any toll booths on the 21st. If, as C-dub says, I have a JP who says the date doesn't matter, I'll have to argue that it certainly DOES matter. In my line of business (pharmacy, in nursing homes, hospitals, and surgery) our records are absolutely crucial and a screw-up on a date could be the difference between life or death -- or between being paid, or having our money taken back for medicare or insurance fraud.

Now my question would be trial by judge, or trial by jury? Once again, Mr. Shasta says judge, but I feel that a jury may be more likely to believe the motorist.

[OldCurlyWolf]

Out on the open road I run a gps program that keeps a continuous log of my speed, location and heading. If I have to go to court over a mistaken ID stop, I am going to win.

Good luck with that. Do a quick Google for it as many I have read about are not successful.

At one time, when I was gadgetizing my RX8, I thought about adding in audio/video for the front, sides and rear. On a Mobile PC forum I was in, there were countless posts of people taking certified GPS records to court and still loosing.

The main reason, if you go in to court and you are registered on video for 1 mph over, the ticket will stick because you were speeding. Google it an read about it. There was one guy that was so tin foil hat that he even recorded the court proceeding and posted that up. Sure enough, the judge found him guilty, even though the LEO was off by 10 mph. She reduced hist $283 (something like that) down to $150 + court costs at $50.

Since I normally run at least 5mph under the limit on the highway, I do believe that my chances of winning are nearly 100%.