Friday, November 6, 2009

Lost my speeding ticket case

I just got back from traffic court - I lost. Had to pay an additional $52 on top of the $257 that I already paid. Now I have to go to (and pay for) traffic school to keep my insurance low. (After I lost, I asked the judge if he would allow me to go to traffic school to keep my insurance rates low - he said yes.)

Anyway, here's some things I noticed:

- Be respectful - to the judge and the officer - they're only doing their jobs. Address the judge as "Your honor" or "Yes Sir" "No Sir"

- 5 out of 35 cases were dismissed - Officer did not show up - that's about a 14% chance that the officer will not show up in court.

- One person fought and won against a speeding ticket - had his case dismissed because of insufficient evidence. The defendant challenged the time between when the officer first saw the defendant "speeding" and the time that the officer pulled out, raised, aimed and then pulled the trigger on the Lidar gun. Also said that a passing truck obstructed the officer's view. The defendant also had a witness with him in court - the driver of the truck.

- Most cases are lost. It's better to have your case first or towards the first. If you're last - I was near the last, about two hours last - then the judge is tired and has heard all sorts of BS reasons, excuses, and complaints from whiners, etc. and he's just not as fresh or willing to listen as he was at 8am.

- Bring a witness if you can, someone to help support your defense.

2 comments:

Your Friend said...

Very useful information, thank you!

Challenge Life said...

Here is how to save money on ebay. Ebay recently hired Bigcrumbs to promote
sales. Each time you win an Ebay auction, you get
refunded 36% of the seller's fees (including
insertion and final value fees). You can use this
as many times as you want.

Below is the link to the informational page if you
want to do it. Just go the the link and search
"ebay" and it will be right there. You just have
to sign up and it will credit to your account
every time you buy.

http://home.bigcrumbs.com/jck52079

If you found this useful, please pass it along to a friend or a family member.