This is actually for myself but for my brother. He was caught doing 79 in a 65 and he got a ticket. The ticket itself is 155 dollars which i thought was awefully steep for doing under 15 but anyway the cop never had him sign the ticket admitting him of recieving it. Does he have to do anthing since he was never aksed to sign anything or is there anything we can do to get him out of it? Thanks for any help...oh and on a side note my friend and I were following him up to our mountain (well hill respectively speaking being here in ohio) to snowboard. Well we were behind them by about 20 car lengths but cruising the same speed and the cop tried to get my brother for street racing us seriously i was speechless when my bro called me on the cell and told me this oh and to boot i was in a beat up old chevy s10 and he was driving a pontiac vibe so not really your stereotypical street racing cars (the Z is in the garage with all the salt on the ground )

 

doesn't matter if anyone signs it or not....if the cop turns it in he's got himself a ticket.

 

Still might be something for a good lawyer to play with. You never know what a good argument in front of a so-so judge can do for you.

 

Signing a ticket isn't an admission of guilt. In court it shows that a driver understands the infractions and agrees to either pay the ticket or appear for court. All you can really dispute, since the ticket wasn't signed is that you didn't understand what you were being charged with. Unfortunately, the officer can just claim later that you refused to sign (since it's the same thing on paper). And refusing to sign a ticket doesn't do anything for you except lower your credibility with the judge. I wouldn't try to find any loopholes with the signature thing. Call the number on the back, verify that it's the correct fine for the speeding and either pay it or check with an attorney.

 

Sorry but it doesn’t matter if you sign the citation or not. Consider a parking citation: you are not present to sign the citation, but it is still valid.

 

Signing a traffic ticket merely means that one will pay the fine or plead "not guilty" and show up in court.

The citation is your written promise to appear on the date on the ticket. It allows you to be released on your own recognizance. If you refuse to sign, the officer is authorized to arrest you and bring you before a magistrate. The magistrate will then set a bond for your appearance or release you on your promise to the Court to appear on a future date.

Signing a ticket is not an admission of guilt, merely a written promise to appear in court to deal with the ticket.

In my estimation, your brother's best defense is to argue that somehow the citation is defective owing to the lack of an affixed signature. Often times courts will excuse minor errors on a ticket (i.e. misspelled name, slight color misidentification), but won't excuse things like quoting the wrong traffic statute, a substantial misidentification of your vehicle, or listing the wrong roadway. It depends on your jurisdicition. Check your local statute (Ohio Revised Code is what you want to review) to see what constitutes a defective traffic ticket.

 

dont they have video in the cop cars?

 

ok thanks i figured he was going to have to pay for it but with the uumm plethura of knowledge we seem to have with speeding hehe i didnt know if there was a little loophole there for him or not but thanks for the info!

 

This may be helpful. There are certainly loopholes, this is the most comprehensive list I have seen.

http://searchwarp.com/swa2564.htm

It always helps if the traffic ticket is illegible to the *reasonable person*. What is the reasonable person? I graduated from law school and still don't know if I can answer that definitively.

Good luck.