Beating a Traffic Ticket
I don't remember if I wrote about it or not, but on March 27th, I was pulled over by a police officer on Redwood Road (around 10300 South). He pulled me over for speeding. He said I had been going 51 in a 35 zone. I told him that at one point I had looked at my speedometer and saw that I was over the speed limit (I couldn't tell you what speed I was going because I wasn't paying that close of attention) and had slowed down accordingly. I had thought it was around 3200 W, but he said it was closer to 2700 W. Either way, he followed me all the way to Redwood road (which is 1700 W). It is anywhere from 1 mile to 1.5 miles away from where the alleged speeding took place. He wrote the ticket for 44 in a 35 zone so it would reduce how much I had to pay.
At that time, I didn't know exactly where the ticket was for. I looked at the ticket itself and it was noted that the location was 10255 Redwood Road. It also said I was going eastbound. Of course you need to show up to the court between 5 and 14 days from the date of your ticket (or pay the fine by then) and plead guilty, not guilty, or no contest. Before I went in, I had called the court to find what times they do this. I also asked if the location on the ticket was supposed to be where you were pulled over or if it was supposed to be where the alleged offense happened. I was told it should be where the offense happened. I decided to fight it.
The time of my pleading came up, and I went into court. I plead not guilty but wondered if I should've plead guilty because the few before me did and were getting some good deals from the judge. I did try to get the case dismissed but was told that I couldn't at that time, this was just a pleading, and I had to go set up for the pretrial. This whole process to me seems crazy. At that time, I went out and waited to see when my pretrial would be. The first date came up saying June 3rd. I knew I would be in Nashville so had to wait another five minutes to get a June 10th date. Within a week, I got a letter from the court saying that the date had been moved to June 19th because of a conflict with the judges schedule. Well, that gave me plenty of time to prepare some kind of case, I guess (though I really didn't use it that much).
I kind of hated the wait because periodically I would think about it and wonder if I would be found guilty or not. I thought I had a pretty good case, but only time would tell. When I went to get insurance for my son on our cars, I worried about a ticket showing up and raising my rates even more. Of course, the cost of a ticket that is 9 miles an hour over was about $82. I thought that was way too much.
The problem is the same whether you have a long time to prepare a case or if it is a short time. It seems if you have a long time to prepare it, you procrastinate until the last minute. I didn't wait until the last minute, but it was pretty close. I called and got a discovery to see the notes that the officer had written down. They faxed that information to me on June 11th. On that, I finally found a diagram of where I was picked up. Evidently, he was behind me when he picked me up. He first estimated visually what he thought I was going and then put some kind of device up to measure my speed. There was a car in between us (which is why he claimed he didn't pull me over until he did). The alleged speeding happened clear back at 3200 West.
Before I went into court, I went to maps on google where they have a street view. I found 10300 S and Redwood Road (where the ticket was written for) and got a speed limit sign that was right there that showed it was 45 miles an hour at that point. I put those screen shots into Word and printed them out. One picture was of the road and the other I turned so they could see it was by Checker Auto Parts. I then went to GoogleEarth and grabbed a screen shot of the whole area from where I was seen speeding to the point of where I was pulled over to show them that it was over 1.5 miles. I had kind of rehearsed in my mind what to say to the judge and hoped it was enough. It still bothered me that this was only a pretrial because that means that it is totally possible that I would have to go to the courthouse one more time over this issue.
My appointed time for the pretrial was at 9:15 AM on Thursday, June 19th. I left work earlier than I had too because I thought traffic would be worse than it was. I got to the courthouse by 8:45. I was the first one there and signed in. Another guy came (the 9:00 appointment) and we sat. The prosecutor was late. We were sitting outside of the courthouse until around 9:30 when the prosecutor came in. Both I, and the other guy thought they should simply dismiss our cases on this basis alone. That probably would've happened had we missed our appointed time. Life isn't always fair though, and we still had to go through it all.
After going through the metal detector, we went into the courtroom. The other guy was called by the prosecutor to meet in a little room off to the side. I couldn't hear what was going on, but it didn't sound like it was going very well for him. I just heard bits and pieces. He came out shaking his head. That didn't bode very well for me.
My name was called by the prosecutor. I went into the little office. We chatted for just a minute and then he asked me about my speeding ticket. I pulled out my pictures and showed him that at the point of where the ticket was written for, the speed limit was 45 miles an hour which I was under. We talked a little bit about the fact that it was written on Redwood Road and at that point he was telling me that he would argue to dismiss this case and that he usually didn't do that. He was writing some things down about this and he asked me some other question which prompted me to speak out. I said it wrong though. I said, "where he caught me", at which point he dropped his pen and said, "you aren't going to make me redo this are you?. I modified my statement to say, "where he allegedly caught me", then I had him turn to the diagram of that showed where the officer was and where I was at the point that he claimed I was speeding. I pointed out that even given that the prosecution was saying at or around (for the other address) that this wasn't anywhere near there. He did say that it could've actually counted for turning onto Redwood road there. He was looking at the map I was showing him and asked, "are you telling me he followed you all that way before even trying to pull you over?" My reply was, "Yes sir". He was incredulous. He said that this was quite ridiculous. For sure, he would move that this case be dismissed.
I went back into the courtroom and he called the third person in to talk with her. I went back and talked with the other guy and he told me that although he didn't run the stop sign he was accused of running, he had made a deal with the prosecutor to pay the fine (around $80) and that no points would go on his record if he took a defensive driving course within the month. He even had his wife (or girlfriend) as a witness. They both work for FedEx. They didn't want to fight because it was just more time and he felt that they only had a 50/50 chance of winning. I showed him what I had in my case, and he wasn't aware that one could do a discovery to see all the notes of the officer. He said he would do that next time. But, he did keep it so his record would stay clean (and he probably needs that for his job).
The judge came in, and the court started. The first pleading took no time, and then it was my turn. I was called up, and the prosecutor once again said, "I don't usually do this, but..." and then proceeded on. He told the judge to turn the page to where I had him look previously and see the picture in relation to where I was pulled over. The judge did so, and shook his head and then looked at the prosecutor with an almost disgusted look. The prosecutor said that he couldn't justify taking me to court on this issue because of the distances involved and that this should not happen in this way at all. He, of course called for a dismissal. The judge looked up at me and jokingly asked if I had any objections to this. I, of course, told him "no". Case dismissed, and I'm done. I'm glad I did it. My record is still perfectly clean, and I get to move on. I spent some money instead by taking my family out to dinner to celebrate.
Friday, I was off from work, so I went and did our lawn along with all of the trimming that goes with that. We really didn't do too much though. There was some cleaning up of the house so we could have the carpet cleaner come in on Saturday. We let our son have his friend stay over night at our house as long as he would help us when we needed him too.
Carpet cleaning was done on Saturday and I moved a few things around for him as that was a little bit cheaper way of getting the carpets of the whole house cleaned. We only payed $139 for all of our upstairs to be done. After that, my wife and I went out to look at TREX for our porch. It looks like just for the materials we will be paying around $900 for a very small area. That's a lot of money, but it has to be done. I played on the WII with my son for awhile and just generally relaxed for most of the rest of the day.
The rest of this week has been mostly the same old stuff.
At that time, I didn't know exactly where the ticket was for. I looked at the ticket itself and it was noted that the location was 10255 Redwood Road. It also said I was going eastbound. Of course you need to show up to the court between 5 and 14 days from the date of your ticket (or pay the fine by then) and plead guilty, not guilty, or no contest. Before I went in, I had called the court to find what times they do this. I also asked if the location on the ticket was supposed to be where you were pulled over or if it was supposed to be where the alleged offense happened. I was told it should be where the offense happened. I decided to fight it.
The time of my pleading came up, and I went into court. I plead not guilty but wondered if I should've plead guilty because the few before me did and were getting some good deals from the judge. I did try to get the case dismissed but was told that I couldn't at that time, this was just a pleading, and I had to go set up for the pretrial. This whole process to me seems crazy. At that time, I went out and waited to see when my pretrial would be. The first date came up saying June 3rd. I knew I would be in Nashville so had to wait another five minutes to get a June 10th date. Within a week, I got a letter from the court saying that the date had been moved to June 19th because of a conflict with the judges schedule. Well, that gave me plenty of time to prepare some kind of case, I guess (though I really didn't use it that much).
I kind of hated the wait because periodically I would think about it and wonder if I would be found guilty or not. I thought I had a pretty good case, but only time would tell. When I went to get insurance for my son on our cars, I worried about a ticket showing up and raising my rates even more. Of course, the cost of a ticket that is 9 miles an hour over was about $82. I thought that was way too much.
The problem is the same whether you have a long time to prepare a case or if it is a short time. It seems if you have a long time to prepare it, you procrastinate until the last minute. I didn't wait until the last minute, but it was pretty close. I called and got a discovery to see the notes that the officer had written down. They faxed that information to me on June 11th. On that, I finally found a diagram of where I was picked up. Evidently, he was behind me when he picked me up. He first estimated visually what he thought I was going and then put some kind of device up to measure my speed. There was a car in between us (which is why he claimed he didn't pull me over until he did). The alleged speeding happened clear back at 3200 West.
Before I went into court, I went to maps on google where they have a street view. I found 10300 S and Redwood Road (where the ticket was written for) and got a speed limit sign that was right there that showed it was 45 miles an hour at that point. I put those screen shots into Word and printed them out. One picture was of the road and the other I turned so they could see it was by Checker Auto Parts. I then went to GoogleEarth and grabbed a screen shot of the whole area from where I was seen speeding to the point of where I was pulled over to show them that it was over 1.5 miles. I had kind of rehearsed in my mind what to say to the judge and hoped it was enough. It still bothered me that this was only a pretrial because that means that it is totally possible that I would have to go to the courthouse one more time over this issue.
My appointed time for the pretrial was at 9:15 AM on Thursday, June 19th. I left work earlier than I had too because I thought traffic would be worse than it was. I got to the courthouse by 8:45. I was the first one there and signed in. Another guy came (the 9:00 appointment) and we sat. The prosecutor was late. We were sitting outside of the courthouse until around 9:30 when the prosecutor came in. Both I, and the other guy thought they should simply dismiss our cases on this basis alone. That probably would've happened had we missed our appointed time. Life isn't always fair though, and we still had to go through it all.
After going through the metal detector, we went into the courtroom. The other guy was called by the prosecutor to meet in a little room off to the side. I couldn't hear what was going on, but it didn't sound like it was going very well for him. I just heard bits and pieces. He came out shaking his head. That didn't bode very well for me.
My name was called by the prosecutor. I went into the little office. We chatted for just a minute and then he asked me about my speeding ticket. I pulled out my pictures and showed him that at the point of where the ticket was written for, the speed limit was 45 miles an hour which I was under. We talked a little bit about the fact that it was written on Redwood Road and at that point he was telling me that he would argue to dismiss this case and that he usually didn't do that. He was writing some things down about this and he asked me some other question which prompted me to speak out. I said it wrong though. I said, "where he caught me", at which point he dropped his pen and said, "you aren't going to make me redo this are you?. I modified my statement to say, "where he allegedly caught me", then I had him turn to the diagram of that showed where the officer was and where I was at the point that he claimed I was speeding. I pointed out that even given that the prosecution was saying at or around (for the other address) that this wasn't anywhere near there. He did say that it could've actually counted for turning onto Redwood road there. He was looking at the map I was showing him and asked, "are you telling me he followed you all that way before even trying to pull you over?" My reply was, "Yes sir". He was incredulous. He said that this was quite ridiculous. For sure, he would move that this case be dismissed.
I went back into the courtroom and he called the third person in to talk with her. I went back and talked with the other guy and he told me that although he didn't run the stop sign he was accused of running, he had made a deal with the prosecutor to pay the fine (around $80) and that no points would go on his record if he took a defensive driving course within the month. He even had his wife (or girlfriend) as a witness. They both work for FedEx. They didn't want to fight because it was just more time and he felt that they only had a 50/50 chance of winning. I showed him what I had in my case, and he wasn't aware that one could do a discovery to see all the notes of the officer. He said he would do that next time. But, he did keep it so his record would stay clean (and he probably needs that for his job).
The judge came in, and the court started. The first pleading took no time, and then it was my turn. I was called up, and the prosecutor once again said, "I don't usually do this, but..." and then proceeded on. He told the judge to turn the page to where I had him look previously and see the picture in relation to where I was pulled over. The judge did so, and shook his head and then looked at the prosecutor with an almost disgusted look. The prosecutor said that he couldn't justify taking me to court on this issue because of the distances involved and that this should not happen in this way at all. He, of course called for a dismissal. The judge looked up at me and jokingly asked if I had any objections to this. I, of course, told him "no". Case dismissed, and I'm done. I'm glad I did it. My record is still perfectly clean, and I get to move on. I spent some money instead by taking my family out to dinner to celebrate.
Friday, I was off from work, so I went and did our lawn along with all of the trimming that goes with that. We really didn't do too much though. There was some cleaning up of the house so we could have the carpet cleaner come in on Saturday. We let our son have his friend stay over night at our house as long as he would help us when we needed him too.
Carpet cleaning was done on Saturday and I moved a few things around for him as that was a little bit cheaper way of getting the carpets of the whole house cleaned. We only payed $139 for all of our upstairs to be done. After that, my wife and I went out to look at TREX for our porch. It looks like just for the materials we will be paying around $900 for a very small area. That's a lot of money, but it has to be done. I played on the WII with my son for awhile and just generally relaxed for most of the rest of the day.
The rest of this week has been mostly the same old stuff.
posted by Craig's Blog at 10:45 PM
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