I beat a ticket yesterday

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magnumdust

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Through an unbelievable stroke of good luck.

In February i got cited for speeding through a road i commonly drive through. I drive a company car for my job and this would've been point number 3, likely costing me my job when the company did their annual driving record check in march.(as for the number of points already, i drive 40k a yr and the new work car cruises at 80 like my personal cars cruise at 50...$*** happens i'm afraid)

My mother worked for the courts and knew that if i showed up and could demonstrate financial hardship(losing my job) i could potentially have the ticket reduced, pay my fine and have no point added. Showed up for court, plead my case on the matter and the judge told me i was SOL because of the prior tickets. :banghead:

So to hopefully skate by the driving record check i plead not guilty knowing it would extend the case out a few months and that maybe i could beat the ticket because i didn't think the officer got me with lidar/radar

The morning of the court case i'm heading off and i take one last look at my citation and notice right below the excessive speed ticket: "lidar device....." and at that point i know i'm pretty well screwed. In court the judge tells everyone that they can change their plea to guilty if they want to forego the trial.(something i almost did)

Now to the good luck:

The officer offers his report which makes me feel even more screwed as his lidar gun was calibrated a few days before the citation. :banghead: and because i was traveling through this small stretch of country road, between two well marked 45mph sections of road, he brought in a road survey showing the maximum safe speed on that road.

Turns out, the survey was 3yrs out of date and the judge was unable to use it as evidence. dismissing my citation. :prayer:

And yes, now i'm driving at a crawls pace for awhile. No need to press my luck.
 
The cops around here don't do ****.
Barely ever give speeding tickets and completely ignore not using signals, rolling stops and tailgating.
Everybody runs stop signs here and there are accidents every day in 25mph zones where both cars are totaled, and there is a two way stop intersection down the street from my house where about every two weeks there is at least one car upside down in the street.
All this in 25mph zones.
It's highly annoying actually.
 

TrailBeast said:
The cops around here don't do ****.
Barely ever give speeding tickets and completely ignore not using signals, rolling stops and tailgating.
Everybody runs stop signs here and there are accidents every day in 25mph zones where both cars are totaled.
It's highly annoying actually.
Click to expand...
Same deal here just about.
 
magnumdust said:
Through an unbelievable stroke of good luck...



Now to the good luck:

The officer offers his report which makes me feel even more screwed as his lidar gun was calibrated a few days before the citation. :banghead: and because i was traveling through this small stretch of country road, between two well marked 45mph sections of road, he brought in a road survey showing the maximum safe speed on that road.

Turns out, the survey was 3yrs out of date and the judge was unable to use it as evidence. dismissing my citation. :prayer:

And yes, now i'm driving at a crawls pace for awhile. No need to press my luck.
Click to expand...

LMAO... How long did you stare at the judge before you realized that you got off, lol...
 
Years ago if you did not mail in your ticket with the payment it meant you wanted a court date(do not contest ticket, just do nothing). By the time you got your court date 9 months have passed and then you could go in and tell them you were out of town during the week of court. You had to pay the fine but the case was extended. About 6-8 months later they would send you another date and you could tell them you were out of town or go in and see if the cop was there (if he's not there you plead not guilty). After doing this a few times you could drag it out for 3 years and then not show up (you already paid the fine so you are basically pleading guilty) Points are only on your record for 3 years and they go back to the day of the ticket so points never really hit my driving record.
 
my apprentice got his second ticket on his N license which is an automatic 1 yr suspension , got nailed along with 6 other cars for not coming to a full stop leaving a Tim Hortons drive thru at 5:30 am he's doing the same delay trick ,he figures he won't get his first date for at least 8 months and if he reschedules it 2 or 3 times the paperwork for the cop to show up will get lost , either way he has a shot at his license clearing before they convict him and maybe he won't have to ride the bus for 90 minutes to work lol . I told him to go to that donut shop every morning before work and photograph the cops leaving the same drive thru without coming to a complete stop even if the judge won't look at it he can put it on youtube and the local news will shame the cops publicly about it .
 
Video tape it and plead guilty with an explanation, when the judge asks for the explanation have him show him the tape and say "following our finests example"
 
magnumdust said:
would've been point number 3, likely costing me my job .
Click to expand...

Maybe it's time to "step back?"

and take a good long look at how you drive?

and the routes you take?

Maybe investigate a radar/ laser detector?

Or just slow down?
 
Frankie said:
LMAO... How long did you stare at the judge before you realized that you got off, lol...
Click to expand...

Honestly, the whole thing got surreal in a big hurry. That happened and there was easily a good 5 seconds of shock before it set in and then after signing the not guilty form(shaking from excitement) i walked out and the citing officer caught up to me in the hall and essentially gave me congrats on the luck and told me he knew his case was effed when he saw the date on that survey, and then we had a friendly conversation on the way out of the building.

Which again, wtf!?, everytime i've fought a ticket, the officer was a giant ahole in court and then angerly stormed out to their car afterwards.

Honestly, if i didnt have that form to prove it happened, i might think i was having a complex delusion.
 
67Dart273 said:
Maybe it's time to "step back?"

and take a good long look at how you drive?

and the routes you take?

Maybe investigate a radar/ laser detector?

Or just slow down?
Click to expand...

eh not really, the issue *was* a bit more complicated than it seems

What it came down to was an issue with going to school full time and working full time. In the past my job had a policy that the late night person was to finish the days calls regardless of the overtime involved.(i've had a lot of 2pm-1:30am-`3weish nights) This was when we were fully staffed with 7 people and those late nights were far and few between. Say 2 yrs ago, my manager got on a corporate ordered warpath to start axing people whenever possible and we got down to 3-4 people with the same policy.

And so those awful nights for me got more and more common. The only viable solution was to start speeding and work at a very very rapid pace so i could get off around 11-midnight-ish and get enough sleep for school the next morning. Which obviously, led to a build up of speeding tickets.

Out of all the tickets i've gotten in the last 5yrs(calculated it for a current job appl.) 1 was in a personal vehicle. 5 were on the job. :banghead: Luckily because of the time spacing, i was able to do traffic school for two of them and this recent one was thrown out.

Thankfully, my company axed all their current management and brought in some new people. Who don't want the crazy late night overtime. So i work at a reasonable pace and there's no need to speed.
 
TrailBeast said:
The cops around here don't do ****.
Barely ever give speeding tickets and completely ignore not using signals, rolling stops and tailgating.
Everybody runs stop signs here and there are accidents every day in 25mph zones where both cars are totaled, and there is a two way stop intersection down the street from my house where about every two weeks there is at least one car upside down in the street.
All this in 25mph zones.
It's highly annoying actually.
Click to expand...

Where in AZ are you? Cops around my area here in Gilbert are a pain. I even have one patrolling the neighborhood now and marking tires. Has marked my Jeep once and the Cruiser once. I'm getting tired of having to clean that Orange paint off my tires.
 
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