Ten Things to know about Traffic Tickets, pass it on...1. The very first thing is to have situational awareness. If traffic slows, theres a reason, Diamond says. 2. Be ready for anything. There are speed traps from moving and stationary radar, lidar, known-location speed cameras, as well as hidden cameras, VASCAR stopwatch calculators, and just plain visual observation. In Vermont, for example, a police officer can simply make a guess of a vehicles speed and it will stand in court, though that has been outlawed in most places. 3. Keep a low profile—dont call attention to yourself. A minivan in the slow lane is less likely to get a ticket than a red Ferrari. 4. Keep quiet. Diamond says to present your license and registration and insurance card, and thats it. You dont have to answer [anything] else—you have to say youre asserting your right to stay silent, or Please speak to my lawyer. Do it in a polite way, nice and respectful. Antagonists get the most tickets. There are no warnings for a**holes. 5. Fight every ticket. In court, attacks on the legality of a speed-limit sign have been known to work. Attacks on the chain of evidence have worked too. In the Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts case of 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that the sixth amendment right to face ones accuser applies to lab tests. In California, courts have interpreted this to mean that photo tickets are not valid unless the technician who analyzed the photo testifies in court. 6. Now were getting into serious ticket-fighting territory. Check for the technical calibration of radar, Diamond says. Usually radar evidence is admissible, presuming calibration. But in some states, any laser ticket is thrown out automatically because there is no calibration possible. To do this, check the manufacturer specifications for the device via a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act ) request to the police department that issued the ticket. Ask for a description of how the police department abided by the calibration specs, which usually involves checking a radar guns frequency with a tuning fork provided by the radar gun manufacturer and sending the unit to the manufacturer to be recalibrated. Its worth investing the time to get your ticket overturned. Ive done it myself in Virginia. First thing to do is pull up the vehicle code. 7. Check the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), which you can find here, Diamond says. If the speed-limit signs arent up to code, you can beat the ticket on a technicality. Even the font of the sign is specified, he says. And many places hide [speed] cameras behind signs and bushes. Theres even one behind the welcome to d.c. sign. 8. The judge is not there to find you not guilty. The judge is part of the revenue-collection machine. Give him a reason to find you not guilty, Diamond says. The best way to do this is to record the conversation you have with the ticketing officer. If there is a contradiction between the recording and the officers written report, Diamond says, his credibility is shot. Just be sure to check your state laws before you do this. For example, Maryland does not allow you to record with a cellphone, Diamond says. There have been arrests in Massachusetts and Illinois as well for recording conversations with police, although the trend is for courts to dismiss these instances. Get all the data you can. Ask the officer where he was when he first stopped you, and how long he paced you. Then, Diamond says, photograph the speed-limit sign where you were stopped, the location where you first saw the officer, and the location where the officer says he first saw you. Pacing is one of the top methods used for tickets, but in Pennsylvania the officer needs to have followed you for 0.3 mile to use pacing, he says. Often they dont pace that far. They get sloppy a lot because they can. 9. Find a friend in the local police department. This is the advanced course—knowing the patterns of where police are and when, Diamond says. For example, the day after New Years, that morning theyre all sleeping. Look for shift patterns. 10. Finally, pressure your legislators. We need to stop federal incentives for speeding tickets. States are paid for speed enforcement—the government measures this by speeding-ticket quotas, Diamond says. Voter pressure has banned speed and red-light automatic-ticket cameras by petition in 30 cities recently. And they are liberal cities, conservative cities, rich like Newport Beach, poor cities, big like Cincinnati, small cities—it doesnt matter.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 03:37:26 +0000
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