I got a speeding ticket the other day …<\/p>\n
53 in a 35.<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah, yeah …<\/p>\n
I know.<\/p>\n
Sounds worse than it actually was …<\/p>\n
Really.<\/p>\n
Any 5 lane road in a non-residential area with nothing but fast food and office buildings lined up continuously on each side of the thoroughfare simply should not be zoned 35 mph,<\/p>\n
Unless of course it’s a speed trap for out-of-towners.<\/p>\n
Which it was …<\/p>\n
And I was.<\/p>\n
Now I was pissed when I saw the lights flashing behind me …<\/p>\n
As I was cutting it tight getting to court,<\/p>\n
And I was only about 2 miles from my destination.<\/p>\n
So immediately upon seeing the Officer signal me to pull over …<\/p>\n
I decided that I was going to implement …<\/p>\n
“Make them pay for giving me a ticket<\/i>” procedures.<\/p>\n
So sit back kids,<\/p>\n
And get some free worthless legal advice –<\/p>\n
Amy-wan Style !! \ud83d\ude42
\n
\nNow understand …<\/p>\n
Despite what those books say that pop up in a google …<\/p>\n
beat speeding ticket<\/i><\/p>\n
It’s hard to actually beat a speeding ticket.<\/p>\n
A speeding ticket is a civil infraction of some sort …<\/p>\n
Meaning that in a tribunal or court resolution of any kind,<\/p>\n
Your “guilt” does not have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt<\/i> as it would be if you were charged with a crime.<\/p>\n
Instead,<\/p>\n
Your “responsibility” for violating the speed limit only has to be proven by the
\npreponderance of the evidence<\/i> …<\/p>\n
Which just means that the trier of fact has to decide that it’s a fraction more likely that you were speeding than you weren’t.<\/p>\n
And honestly,<\/p>\n
If it’s your word against a cop’s word …<\/p>\n
A magistrate or judge is almost always going to find that it’s a little more likely you were speeding than you weren’t.<\/p>\n
Of course, if you’re a citizen of the community giving the ticket,<\/p>\n
And he or she is an elected official …<\/p>\n
They’ll stroke you with a few compliments of some sort,<\/p>\n
And maybe even cut you a little slack on the fine if they can …<\/p>\n
But regardless,<\/p>\n
Whether you’re a local or a foreigner …<\/p>\n
You’re going to lose.<\/p>\n
The only way you really can win is if the cop just doesn’t show up.<\/p>\n
And that happens very, very rarely.<\/p>\n
Now of course,<\/p>\n
There are some things you can do to increase your odds in that respect,<\/p>\n
And one should do them.<\/p>\n
However,<\/p>\n
That’s not my objective in these settings …<\/p>\n
My goal is for the traffic stop and ticket issuance itself to cost the locality that hired the officer more to issue me the ticket than they get in return from my fine.<\/p>\n
In this case …<\/p>\n
Either $85 or $95 dollars.<\/p>\n
(Generous cop wrote me up for 50 in a 35 which is 3 points and $85. If I fight the ticket and am found responsible for what he claims I was driving, that would be 53 in a 35 which is 4 points and $95. If you fight the ticket, they usually threaten you with going for “everything” they could write you up for … so you must be prepared to accept that risk.)<\/p>\n
Now if you ever get pulled over, remember these essentials:<\/p>\n
1. Memorize your surroundings.<\/i> How many lanes? How many vehicles? Were there any vehicles around you? What lane were you in? What were you doing at the time you were allegedly speeding? Were you the only vehicle pulled over? Was anyone with you? What was on the radio? What was the weather like? Where was the cop? Where did he pull you over?<\/p>\n
Remember every little detail … again, you’ll still lose if he shows up,<\/p>\n
But you it’s good information to use in forming the basis of very legitimate questions …<\/p>\n
So you can make the officer perjure themself a bit … something most cops do when they make up answers to questions they don’t know the answer to while under oath.<\/p>\n
2.) Make sure you have your seat belt buckled,<\/i> if not … buckle it stealthly as best you can before being pulled over. At least in my home state, that’s an easy money making ticket for them to write and it’s not cheap.<\/p>\n
3.) Keep you hands in clear view<\/i> … on top of the steering wheel is best. Even though cops have the gun, perception of authority and all that other krap … they are really p<\/s>wussies … and if you move to get your license and registration before they get to the car, their overactive imaginations will make them worry you’re grabbing for a gun or something … which happens much less frequently than a cop beating the krap out of an innocent person … but that’s besides the point … keep your hands in clear view and just don’t make the officer nervous.<\/p>\n
4.) Show respect at all times.<\/i> Refer to the cop as Officer, Deputy, Trooper or whatever actually is his\/her official designation … if you don’t know it, just go with Officer. It’s a compliment to them and strokes their ego. Now if it’s a bitter pill to swallow showing respect to them and calling them Officer … just tell yourself that Officer is code for something else. In this particular case … Officer was code for “donkey ball licker<\/i>“.<\/p>\n
5.) Don’t call attention to yourself.<\/i> If you’re going to fight a ticket, your objective is to not be that memorable to the cop. They often will jot down a few notes about the stop when they get back to their car to remind them of you in case you do challenge the ticket. So if you do something to make yourself memorable, it’s all the more likely it will trigger their memory of the stop when you are in court. So just refrain from making any idol chit chat or funny jokes … no matter how obvious they are and fun they would be to say. Now it better go without saying … don’t argue with the cop. You’re not going to talk him out of anything. On the side of the road … a cop is always right. Accept it. It’s when in court, if you’ve done the right things, that the cop can sometimes be proven wrong.<\/p>\n
6.) Name, rank and serial number only, answer no other questions.<\/i> Inherently, cops are lazy people. Which really isn’t much different than most people doing a job. They’d prefer to do as little work as possible. And when it comes to cops … they are the worst … they’ll do anything to get you to admit to something. That way they don’t have to really do their job … find proof you did something they claim you did. Instead, they can just say you admitted to it … which is usually more than enough to sink you.<\/p>\n
7.) Plead not responsible.<\/i> Getting the ticket is only the beginning of the process, but most people assume that means that it is all over at that point. However, that’s not the case … unless you admit responsibility, they still have to go through the steps of proving you are responsible. This is where you get the advantage … it’s procedural, it’s mechanical, and you’re probably going to lose when they finish going through the motions … but by making them go through the motions, they have to have a clerk set a hearing date, set up a file for the matter, get the officer that pulled you over in court on the day of the hearing, depending on the procedure and stage of the game – have a city attorney or assistant prosecuting attorney there to handle the matter on behalf of the locality, have a judge or magistrate take the time to hear testimony, and then have the paperwork processed at the end of the hearing. All that “processing” takes time and resources of the locality … even if done just once, in person hours, you’ve cost them more than they’ll ever make from your speeding ticket. And if done a few times … it’ll cost them more than the ticket and much more than your insurance rates increase once your carrier gets wind of your violation. (Hint – Most insurance companies have internal policies that they will pull your driving record each year at renewal, at which point they would become aware of your ticket. However, some stock owned insurance companies only do it once every two years … I guess to save their costs. Also, if you file a claim after the ticket and before renewal, they’ll usually run a driving record on you to see if they can increase your rates or drop you for some reason. So if at all possible, try to stay low under your insurance company’s radar as long as possible after getting the ticket so they might not get wind of it.)<\/p>\n
8.) Delay, delay, delay. Then delay some more.<\/i> Drag out the process as long as phreaking possible. Usually if you’re timely in your request, you can almost always get the first adjournment of the ticket hearing simply by asking and tossing out pretty much any psuedo-legitimate excuse. Subsequent adjournments are a bit more challenging because they know exactly what you’re doing … so it’s just your call if you want to make a run at another adjournment or just go for the second hearing. Now remember, the purpose of delaying things is not in the hopes that the officer will forget about the stop … if he or she shows up, they’ll make up answers anyways … and actually, sometimes old cases just piss them off more because they know exactly what you’re doing and they’ve been inconvenienced because of it. However, each delay means more paperwork on their end … another letter to the officer informing him\/her of the new date, city attorney or prosecuting attorney’s staff re-docketing the date … small stuff like that. And sometimes you might get lucky … the delay might actually lead the officer to just not show up (though don’t count on it).<\/p>\n
9.) Know who is stopping you.<\/i> If you’re stopped by a state trooper and at night … you’re blessed … that person obviously usually works the night shift so they’ll have to pay him or her the union minimum (usually 2 hours at overtime rate) to show up during the day if you contest your ticket and demand your rightful hearing. If you get stopped by a city cop during the day, well … the only real pleasure you can take out of it is knowing he can’t be writing others tickets while he’s at court with you.<\/p>\n
10.) Play dumb.<\/i> It is important that at no point when implementing any of the “make them pay for giving me a ticket” procedures … that you cop an attitude. As soon as attitude is sensed, then the cops and court staff will easily feel invited to give you twice as much attitude back. But if you’re nice and can convey innocently that you don’t know exactly what you need to be doing, quite often you can extract a lot of useful information out of the various court and police staffs you’ll be encountering.<\/p>\n
Now keeping these rules in play …<\/p>\n
Let’s look at what transpired when the Officer (remember, that’s code for something) pulled me over.<\/p>\n
When he first got out of his car …<\/p>\n
My hands were 10-2 on my steering wheel (Rule 3), and …<\/p>\n
I was able to see him in my rear view mirror and immediately noted …<\/p>\n
Holy Krap !!!<\/p>\n