chee-z-name

I got busted doing 42 in a 30 mph zone. I was just accelerating from a light, look in my rearview and see the cop with his lights on. He get out and says "is there a reason you were doing 42 in a 30 mph zone?" I was going to give him a smarmy answer about how the Z is just so fast it gets away from you, but I didn't think that would go over to well. I told thim the truth without actually acknowledging I had broken the law--I said "I had no idea I was going that fast." I probably could have come up with something better but I didn't on the spot.

Anyway, the cop gives me the ticket (interestingly he didn't ask for insurance or registration, just my license). So now what? I got a ticket for rolling through a stop sign once in Atlanta and I went to court hoping the cop wouldn't show. When he did I pleaded "no contest" and I had to pay a fine but received no points on my license. Do I have that option here?

The ticket says I can make a plea by mail of guilty or not guilty. If I plead not guilty I have the opportuntiy to "receive a supporting deposition explaining the chrages" so what does that mean? Do I have a chance of beating this?

The cop said he doesn't know how much the fine will be and that it likely will add points to my otherwise pristine license. So does anyone have any suggestions? I don't mind paying the fine but can I do this without the points or insurance notification?

By the way, this happened in New York State. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks,
SS

yawhcihw

sorry, typically just lurk (buying Z 10/05 grad students can't quite afford insurance, let alone payments), but do have some NY state advice here...

cop pulled me over 'cause he said i rolled past a stop sign. was bs, so I fought it. I did it all wrong, but got it cut down to a no-points, non-moving violation. Here's what i did right and wrong.

Wrong: mail in the ticket with the "not-guilty" plea. What i later deduced was this means they set up a court date that should probably involve a lawyer. Its insanely more complicated, and the affidavit tells you nothing of interest. Mine was horribly wrong, but even that didnt do me any good.

Right: long story short, when I was waiting in the court room for my supposed "trial", people appeared on the trial date listed on their ticket. Judge asked them how they plead, and asked what they wanted to do (I think this is correct, this is more than a year ago). They typically replied that they wanted conference with the prosecutor. This meant they stepped outside the court room with prosecutor a few minutes later and they struck a deal. Thats essentially what ended up happening to me. Don't tell the prosecutor ANYTHING thats not on the ticket, he doesn't want to hear it 'cause then he might really have to charge you with something. You two typically come up with something agreeable to both of you ("obstructed view" in my case... my windshield was uhhh, obscured) and you return to the court room a bit later, the judge reads the new charge and you plead guilty and pay the fine.

Key is to come up with something you think is reasonable explanation. Obstructed view sounds good. Say you had something near your windshield that blocked your view of the sign. No points, about a 40-50 dollar fine IIRC. Insurance never even found out.

good luck. take my advice with a grain of salt, I AM NOT A LAWYER, I disclaim all responsibility for anything you do because of my supposed "advice" etc etc.

Bah, humbug.



ps: downer is you have to actually go to the court that issued you the ticket... might be a pain, dunno

pps: wow, yer in baltimore too? hows Z driving around here? I used to more New England style roads than these endless loops of freeways...

jedoublery

Sounds like you have a clean record.....
Go to court, ask the judge to put you on probation, which means that they will put the ticket aside for a year, if you don't get any other speeding violations in that year, they toss the ticket away. You don't get anything on your record and you don't pay any fine either.

If you have a clean record, they should be willing to do that.


There are many free websites that teaches you how to fight a ticket, do a Google search on keywords such as "fight ticket", "no more tickets.

Good luck.

PS: to everyone on the forum reading this, ALWAYS FIGHT YOUR TICKET, by all means, it's not just money, but principle, don't let them pigs use you as a cash machine. Their duty is to "Protect and Serve". Not hiding in a ditch at 2PM pulling people for going 15 miles over.

mrsnetpro

Some advise, although not sure if he got you with a radar gun. If he did then:

1. Ask to see the policeman's training and certification to use radar. Find out how often the law in your state says he must undergo training and recertification.

2. Go to the local courthouse and ask for the records for the radar unit. By law they must be maintained, tested and calibrated, but not sure how often.

chee-z-name

Thanks for the advice all, do you think I run a risk of annoying the judge by trying to fight the ticket? FOr instance, they must hear lines about the radar guns all the time--I don't want to turn the judge against me. Also, what about the old "if the cop doesn't show you're off." Is that true? I'm apprehensive to try a punk move on the court that will only make the situation worse...I might be able to handle "probation," but is the penalty that much more severe if I get busted for speeding again?

Beamm

I'm only a law student, not actual lawyer yet, but here goes (and this might be long). And if you're a lawyer, fill in any gaps (and yes I know that I'm excluding and glossing over some details but this serves it's purpose).

1) You can go down to the station or courthouse or wherever they have them and ask to see the cop's training recrod for the radar gun and the calibration and testing dates. Odds are this will be a waste of time...we're talking almost a 50% overage here (if you were really going 30 and it read 42). Also, odds are that they probably didn't screw this up, but you never know. If they did screw up, get the documentation, go to the judge and ask him/her to direct a verdict in your favor.

2) You did, in fact, admit to the cop that you were going 42. When you said "I had no idea I was going THAT fast," you actually admitted to going 42MPH by saying 'that fast' (yes, this is what lawyers do all day long). You should have said something like 'I have no idea at what speed I was traveling' or something like that. It's doubtful that the cop will pick this up or that anyone will take the time to notice, but just so you know a good lawyer will find that you did admit to going that fast.

3) The whole deposition thing ("receive a supporting deposition explaining the chrages"). A deposition is what happens during the discovery phase of a trial and is when the lawyers depose people (basically interview under oath and with a court reporter and opposing counsel present) various parties associated with the trial. What I think this wording means is that if you plead not guilty you can depose someone to get their testimony on what happened. This means you could interview the cop or passenger or passers-by that saw the incident and submit it to the court. I'm not sure on this because I don't know NY law and I would have worded it differently (such as 'receive and submit to the court...'). Do what you want with this, depositions can serve as evidence at trial (in this type of case) and allow you to explain to the court what happened.

4) Go to trial, hope cop doesn't show. Everyone knows, no show = you win. THIS IS TRUE! There's rules that govern this but I won't go into it right now...just take it as is.

5) Look for any flaws in the ticket (he got the time wrong, got the date wrong, etc). This has happened before (friend of mine got ticket with wrong date on it...she got off) so look at all the fine details. If there is a mistake point it out to the court and then show something that proves that it couldn't have been that date/time (e.g. sales slip, time sheet, etc).

6) If he shows, ask to speak with opposing attorney (the state in this case) or ask for judge to facilitate a settlement. Negotiate a settlement for paying the fine but no points and a 1 year probation (if you think you can go for a year without getting a ticket). This step is important because it's how you keep your insruance from finding out and keeps you from getting points.

7) I don't know how it works in NY (you may or may not go through this and the judge might do something funky with announcing the bargain and making it official) but the judge will probably enter the bargain as the judgement of the court and you're done.

Hope this helps explain some things to you.

EDIT: The judge issue...depends on the judge. It'll probably **** him/her off in all honesty (although some judges do get a kick out of it).

As for probation, I don't know how it works in NY. I know in some states the ticket is probated and should you violate the probation then that ticket is posted to your record and you get the points + insurance gets it too.

blnkx23

Couldn't you just go to traffic school? Doesn't going to traffic school take the points of your record and doesnt' affect your insurance? Although u still have to pay for the ticket and traffic school.

Beamm

Could be worked in as part of a bargain...depends on your state.

SweatyPalm

I have been driving for more than 5 yrs and I just got the first ticket 2 weeks ago in my new Z. I have to admit that I was going a little over the speed limit but so were many other cars ahead of me. That pig in bike was hiding in the wood or something. Anyway, I was very polite to him but he started writing me a ticket from the beginning. 5 minutes later, he gave me the ticket along with a "have a nice day". IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY!!!

Beamm

Dude, it could be worse...

Here in Miami the cops have a field day. University of Miami Law School students have tags on their cars that say they go to the school. FL also has some of the strictest ethics requirements for the bar. This means that cops can go after the law students because they know we can't do anything about it. If you f*** with a cop here the ethics committee will bend you over. It's damned if you do and damned if you don't...really sucks And the cops know it and they're so smug and coy about it sometimes (like when they wouldn't let me into Coconot Grove this weekend simply because I was driving my Z). It sucks but sometimes you gotta deal with it. It really is the price that we pay for driving a nice car

Jason Bourne

One correction to Beamm's post (which I'm sure was correct overall). In NJ, the cop does not have to show up in court for a ticket, you can still be found guilty.

Here's a tidbit that I have gleaned fro experience. Don't show up wearing a suit and acting overly professional/courteous.

I once went to fight a ticket at a courthouse in NJ for doing 78 in a 55mph zone (which is on a highway with a 65mph limit for its entire duration except a 2 mile section at 55 where the cops tend to hide and bust people - there's no reason for the switch to 55 either, it's just as rural as the rest of the highway). The cop didn't want to give me a warning but told me to go to court and since I had a clean record, they would issue a "no-points" deal that this courthouse apparently had. He even wrote a note to the prosecutor to reduce it to this on the ticket.

Anyway, on my court date, I went straight from work and was wearing a suit. All of the other people there were complete deadbeats (breaking and entering, failure to pay child support, DUIs, etc...) and they all wore tattered, nasty clothes and barely spoke english (even the natives). Anyway, the court had actually lost my half of the ticket so even though I was there early, they read my case last because they couldn't find it. Meanwhile the prosecutor was cutting everyone, all kinds of sweet deals (burglar on his third offense was required by law to get 30 days jail time but she waived the fine and allowed him to serve his 30 days by coming to the courthouse (not jail) on fridays for the next 8 months and just hang out). So I acted polite and diffident, waited for them to find my ticket and when the prosecutor spoke to me she was only willing to reduce me to 68 in a 55 even though *every single* other person with a traffic violation (some with far worse speeding tickets than me) got reduced to the no-points first offense fine.

I asked for the no points fine but she just wouldn't do it and acted like a real b!tch even though I had politely waited for 3 hours without complaining and had been way more forthcoming and courteous than any of the other losers she had cut sweet deals for. I even brought up the fact that since the court had lost all record of my ticket, I could have walked out at any point and they woudl not have been able to issue me the fine or the points but I had stayed to be a good citizen. Her answer: "Tough, you should have left! This is what I'm giving you, how do you plead?"

So, my advice, unless you bring a lawyer, dress like a bum and act semi-retarded, you'll have better odds of getting the pity of the state than if you look like a productive member of society.

Jason

afr0puff

iTrader: (1)

I went to fight a parking ticket in Newark a couple of years back in the dead of summer. I was wearing a polo shirt and jeans. The guy in front of me had your typical athletic tank top and jeans on. He was held in contempt of court for dressing like that and the judge said that his case would now be heard last.

Jason Bourne

Really? Well I guess it completely depends on the court then. I would therefore revise my advice to wearing decent but not too formal clothing (i.e. something like a polo shirt and jeans )

Jason

Blue Liquid

I really, really need to know exactly what this means. I took it to mean that you were trying to enter some sort of 'Member's Only' club or area and the cops regarded your Z as a piece of crap that didn't 'belong' in there. What did you mean by this?

Beamm

Coconut Grove is just a district of the Miami metro area (not sure if it's technically Miami or Coral Gables). It's just this really nice and trendy shopping area in the middle of a huge ghetto down by the water (where most ofthe major sailing clubs in Miami are at). It's very trendy (not quite as trendy as South Beach but close to it I'd say) and very popular with the under 30s. It's just easier to get to than SOBE is and a heck of a lot cheaper for your every day partying. Cops wouldn't let me drive into the general district of Coconut Grove. I could walk in, friend in Explorer could drive in, I just was not allowed to take my Z in.

chee-z-name

Hey Beamm and all others that have offered their $0.02 I really do appreciate it--this is exactly the type of advice I was hoping to get. I will scour my ticket for any simple mistakes and I will push for a bargain/probation/traffic school option. It would be sweet if I could beat the points and insurance increase my fiance ridess my @ss constantly about speeding in residential areas (i.e. 30 mph zones) and she was thick with the "I told you so's" when I got home with this stinkin' ticket.

Just to clear a few points up:
-I plead 'not guilty' on the ticket, send it in, and then try to negotiate at my court date?
-What about pleading 'no contest' when I get there?
-Can I be so forthright with the prosecutor as to say "Isn't there someway I can pay the fine without getting the points or notifying the insurance company? Would they just srew me for being honest?

Please keep the responses coming, this is really helpful.

Beamm

OK,

Jason, you are kind of right. Don't go into the court all schmultzy and overly dressed because they'll think you're a sleazeball and trying to worm you way out (no matter what you say) and they won't want to talk. Afro is right...don't like like an idiot either. And whatever you do DON'T MOUTH OFF. It is often said that the worst lawyers use the most verbose language to try to hide shortcomings in their knowledge and ability as lawyers. Just be yourself and don't try to impress.

As for the not getting off thing...I don't know how that works because it's kind of a rule (actually derived from a rule) that gets you off. Maybe NJ has a statute that overrides that...I'm not sure.

Plead not guilty on the ticket, send it in, then try to negotiate.

I wouldn't plead 'no contest'. It's a technical thing and you don't want to do it.

Can you be forthright with the prosecuting attorney? Dunno. If you want to read about negotiating go read the book called 'Getting to Yes'. I say, feel it out at the courthouse. Look at what's going on and what other people are saying and doing. Look at how the prosecutor is acting and what he/she is doing. I've never done this myself so I really can't give you any advice here.

Hope all of this helps.

And remember, free advise is worth what you pay for it....

commasense

Are you seriously planning on going back to NY just to fight this ticket? I wish I had that much free time.

I was going to give you a lot of advice based on my few ticket experiences here in the Free State of Merlin, then I read that you got caught in NY. As it happens, I also have some NY experience (unfortunately).

First, don't imagine you can ignore it. You may be too young to know about this, but in the days before computers, you could pretty much forget about tickets from states that weren't adjacent to your home state. They didn't talk to each other, so your state probably would never find out about your infractions abroad.

Not true any more. A couple of months ago when I went to renew my MD license, I got bit on the *** by a speeding ticket I had gotten in Massachusetts TEN YEARS AGO!!! $190, and I had to go back to the MVA office after the payment cleared the MA DMV. Two wasted days!

Second, if you are going up to fight it, plead not guilty, and when the court mails you the summons with the trial date, call or write them and say you can't make it, and ask for a new date. (Being as you're coming from MD, you can probably get away with changing twice, at least.) The reason is, by changing dates you increase the chance that the cop won't show up. No cop, no evidence against you, no conviction. I don't know about NY, but this absolutely is how it works in MD. How do I know? It's how I got out of my last ticket. (I'm alarmed that this may not apply in NJ.)

Of course, if you plead guilty, the cop doesn't have to be there. You've already admitted you did it. (Maybe that's what Jason Bourne was thinking about. I hope so, because that "kind of rule" that Beamm was talking about is called "The Constitution of the United States of America." Amendment VI: you have the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against" you.) I saw an acquaintance of mine get fined and points because he pled guilty when his cop wasn't there. If he had pled not guilty, he would have walked.

In court (if the cop's there), be polite, dress well, show respect to the judge and the cop. (I completely disagree with the advice about not dressing too well. A jacket and tie show the judge you respect him and his court, and also show you are a solid, upstanding citizen, not a low-life bum.) The judge will ask the cop for his testimony, and the cop will describe how he observed you breaking the law, how he measured your speed, and how he gave you the ticket. He may recount how you said that you didn't know how fast you were going. If he goes on about the make and model of the radar gun and how he calibrated it with a tuning fork a few hours earlier, you can just forget about challenging the validity of the reading.

When it's your turn to testify, you can correct any inaccuracies in the cop's testimony (politely!) or ask the cop questions. If you're a lawyer or have attended many similar trials, you might be able to do some things to call the cop's testimony into question (create a reasonable doubt), but if it's your first time, don't try it. You're much more likely to **** the judge off than help your case.

Your best testimony is probably something along the lines of "I didn't feel I was driving in a dangerous or reckless fashion" or "I was keeping pace with the traffic around me," if there was traffic around you. Don't lie. Stress your clean record (if you have one -- if not, don't try to lie about it or deny it: they have computers!). Chances are good the judge will reduce the fine. The good news is that since it's NY, he can't give you points (I think, but check with a lawyer if that's important to you).

But my bottom line is, unless going to NY to appear in court doesn't cost you anything in time off of work, or you have other reasons to go there whenever your trial is set, just plead guilty, pay the fine, and forget it. My NY ticket cost me $135. (I was speeding, but the cop took pity and entered it as "failure to use 4-way flashers," a non-moving violation.) Your relatively low speed violation probably won't cost much more. (You could ask other NY residents here about that.) Won't driving from MD to NY cost at least that much in time, gas, meals, aggravation, etc.? Not worth it, in my book. But YMMV.

Good luck.

Jsn350Z

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Z2k3

Geez you guys try to make this too damn complicated. If you get a ticket simply call a lawyer that specializes in traffic law. If you don't know one simply look one up in the phone book and call one.

A traffic lawyer can get you out of most tickets without any points at all and have the tickets reduced to a non-moving violation (as long as you are not a frequent offender).

I got radared doing 72 in a 40, the cop said I HAD to appear in court in person or a warrant would be issued for me. I got a lawyer and I then found out I didn't HAVE to appear in court at all even though the ticket said I did. In fact the lawyer appeared instead of me, and told me specifically not to appear unless she advised me otherwise. She had my ticket reduced to a non-moving violation, no probation, no traffic school, no community service, no points, no increased insurance premiums, nothing. All I had to do was pay the fine/court costs and the lawyer fees, I think it came out to about $300.

Just get a lawyer let them deal with all the drama, and don't even worry about the court, judge, prosecutor, trial, or cop. If you can afford a Z you can afford a lawyer.