Hey everyone,

So last night I received my second speeding ticket in the TL. I was going home from work as always and boom officer clocked me at 85 in a 65 MPH zone on Route 222 near Crystal Cave. Last year, I got a speeding ticket in NY for going 60 in a 45. I pleaded not guilty but ended up getting 4 points and a total cost of almost $600. I was going to plea not guilty this time and try to talk my way out of the ticket or alternative punishment but decided to pay it off.

So what are your thoughts? Better to pay the price or challenge the ticket?

BTW a white 09-11 SH-AWD TL passed by me while I was pulled over lol wondering if the owner is a member

 

That's hard to say... Get a radar detector! It'll probably pay itself off for you

 

Get a lawyer and they will probably be able to negotiate it down to a non-moving violation or something with no points. You might have to pay a fine, but better than points.

Here in SC, if you plead not guilty and go before the judge and are found guilty, court costs are double what the ticket said. It's a way for the court to avoid people trying to plead their mercy with the judge for a reduced fine.

The only way I'd say plead not guilty is if you have a way to PROVE you were not speeding. What evidence can you present? Your testimony? The officer's testimony is going to be held in higher regard even if he doesn't have radar because he is most likely radar certified, or paced you, etc.

Get the lawyer and call it a day. In the justice system they say, "A good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the jude." (and or prosecutor)

 

For the longest time I thought I could get away with speeding without a radar but after this incident I am definitely investing in a radar detector!! Lol

 

I tried the lawyer method when I got my first speeding ticket in NY. At the end of it, I paid almost $400 to the lawyer and another $180 for the ticket plus 4 points. This time my friends were telling me to plead not guilty and try to talk to the officer but I ended up just paying the ticket off.

 

This is an easy one. Were you going 85 in a 65? If yes, you deserve the ticket. Pay it and slow down. If you weren't going 85, by all means fight it.

I'm not sure why people are against taking responsibility for their actions nowadays.

On another note, not sure about where you're from, but in California CHP uses LIDAR, your radar detectors are useless against this because by the time it alerts you the officer already has your speed.

 

I understand I was speeding and do deserve the ticket hence the reason I paid it off One of my friends told me, most likely I will end up getting 4 points on my license so he suggested me to plead guilty and talk to the officer before court date to see if I can may be get an alternative punishment. I'm just curious what everyone thinks on here about how to deal with speeding tickets.

 

Oh ok, I guess the way you worded your question kind of threw me off when the title of your thread is "To appeal or plea guilty"

and this part

It sounds like you're asking if you should challenge the ticket, not how to deal with speeding tickets.

Your best bet is to talk to the judge, it's not really up to the officer when it comes to penalty.

 

I fought mine with a rookie lawyer who did it for free. He was able to win the case for me, not by accusing the officer or pointing at his statements, but by arguing that both the officer and I could've been right from our own perspective from where we were at the time of the incident.

Officer said I ran a red light, I said I was already crossing the 4 way intersection when the light started changing and I had no choice but to keep going through. Since the officer was in a position where he couldn't see if I had cars behind me (he was on the street to my right), then the safest thing I could do was to keep moving forward instead of slamming my breaks or even trying to reverse.


If you can get a decent lawyer for a good price, then fight it to try and save your driving record. But that's all you can pretty much do because the system is set up to make people have to fork over their cash even when they are innocent. I had to pay 75% of what the ticket was in the appeals process, nevermind what I might have had to pay a lawyer per hour.


tl;dr Fight it if you want try to protect your driving record, don't if money is not something you can afford to lose right now.

 

I tried editing my question but I guess you can only edit your post once.

 

OP... just pay and be careful next time

My speed detector Passport 9500ix saved my butt many times in CA... except one I got on laser gun ;( In CA it's a mandatory for cops to go to the court nowadays (they get paid), no point to plead not guilty anymore

 

Usually the deal would be if they caught you have they have proof with some sort of radar or lidar detector then you're best bet to pay it off. Not sure about USA but in Canada, Ontario officers who go to court will get paid 2.5x and with proof, there's no winning. Now I've been fined for other traffic violations and I appealed and told them I was poor and a student, so they removed the demerit points and dropped my fine down more than half.

Now Canadian speeding laws aren't that harsh from some of the horror stories I've heard in California but radar detectors are illegal and they will take the radar detector and fine you as well. All OPP and Ottawa Police use Lidar now so it's basically useless. Once your detector goes off, you've basically been caught.

 

you knew what you were getting yourself into when you speed.. so just pay the ticket and hope you dont do it again next time..

when you contest, you have a chance to win.. but if you loose, judge can take away the privelge of traffic school...

remember.. cops get paid to show up to court.. and i dont think you can talk your way out of it.. your best bet is that the cop does not show up.. which is not likely to happen

 

Radar detectors are perfectly legal in California, however, it's illegal to hang anything on your windshield and so it has to be mounted to the dash of your car.

 

Just to be clear, detectors may be illegal in Ontario, but that's not the case for all of Canada. They're perfectly legal in Alberta.

 

I meant they're illegal in Ontario

 

Ah yes. BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I don't know why only those 3 as it would be really beneficial to other provinces.

 

State cop or local PD? I always plead not guilty. During the stop be as nice as possible and don't try and talk your way out of it. When you go to court, you can almost always work out a better deal before the judge comes in. I've gotten speeding tickets reduced down to "failure to obey traffic control device" which is a non moving violation with zero points. Ive never had an instance where the cop wouldn't work with me. They are willing to work with you when you aren't a problem during the stop. 20mph over might be a bit rough, but if you go to court I bet you can get it dropped to 5-10mph over and 2 points.

 

In So Cal, or at least this area of So Cal, all court fees and fines are paid upfront. You write on the check if you plea not guilty, but you have to hand over the check regardless.
If you plea guilty you just hand the check over. Once the cashier sees not guilty you are given a court date.
No further fines, no further costs. Ticket is paid off and now you see a judge like a month later.

Once I got let off, cop didn't show, I was let go and told mymoney would be refunded... pretty much like I bought a product and returned it.

So you guys are saying had the cop showed and proved I was wrong than they would have charged me MORE? Fees were paid already. How would they charge me MORE? Give me ANOTHER ticket?

 

not charge you more, but judge has the choice to not give you the option to let you take traffic school just because you fought the case and wasted taxpayers money..

 

This is how most states operate.

 

+1 On this^.

Tough shit OP. Sometimes you get caught by Johnny Law while another guy drives past you laughing.

Still paying through the nose for a "Careless driving" ticket I got a while back which was followed up with an "at fault" accident.

Odds are it will not happen in the near future, so pay the man and STFU.

 

This is why you don't waste the judges time with some lame excuse. You cut a deal with the officer before the judge comes in the room and don't waste the judges time.

 

Here's a different perspective for all you moralists who say just pay and stfu, etc.
In Canada, particularly Ontario, the enforcement of speeding limits is almost entirely arbitrary, random, and inconsistent. The limits are set at ridiculously low speeds. Everyone speeds and only a relative few get ticketed. On our major highways, the limit is 100 km/hr (62mph).
It is not unusual for the flow of traffic to be doing 130 km/hr. So long as you don't stand out in some way you will be OK. Or some officer has to make his quota for the month. Etc. Speeding fines are a major source of financing for the municipalities and regions. Enforcement has nothing to do with safety. So far as I can see, it's similar in the States.
On trips to Fla. we often travel for long distances at 80 - 85 mph. The majority of the other cars and trucks are doing the same. Why is it safe in the U.S. but not safe in Canada? Why is it safe to drive 90 or 100 mph in Germany? The famous Autobahn is no more safe than any highway in NA. Speeding laws and enforcement are unfairly applied, it's so obvious. You are either lucky or unlucky, you just have to try to play the game and minimize your losses.

 

it wont help you.

if you regularly go above the speed limit; like your history suggest, a radar detector wont help you.

a radar detector is a tool to help you; but if you decide to drive above the speed limit; you will always get caught, regardless of how many tools you have in your belt.

 

being a smart driver will give you better chances than a radar detector.

at driving 85mph in a 65.

 

At the risk of being seen as a thread hijacker, this seems like a good place to mention my ticket. I got a ticket a while back that I fought, and it's still not resolved. The ticket date: January 2006. I know a lawyer who has wanted to take a run at getting the radar/lidar date (algorithms, manuals, etc), as he takes the position that without those things, radar guns are simply "black boxes" that everyone assumes are always correct. (side note: this was recently tested a couple of years back in Alberta with the speed-on-green cameras, where a driver was "clocked" at some impossible speed, and so every pending ticket got thrown out). So my lawyers has worked essentially for free, except the odd bottle of scotch I throw his way.

FWIW, I can't be certain if I was speeding by a bit, but I'm confident that I wasn't doing 20 over, as they allege. That's why I fought it. Although I don't get a lot of tickets, when I do, I typically just pay them, knowing that it's more than fair, given the 20 other times they didn't catch me.

It finally went to trial in 2010, and I was acquitted. The judge, not wanting to give in to my lawyer's request for the data, simply threw out the radar evidence. Instead, he relied (and accepted as evidence) on the "fact" that the police officer could estimate speed within 2 km/hour. Yeah, right. This fiction is fairly common. And keep in mind, this isn't seeing a car pass you and estimating speed...this is seeing headlights get bigger. Nonetheless, I was acquitted, which was the judge's way of taking away my argument, and any further attempts to get the data my lawyer was after.

But...the Crown appealed. I've heard estimates that that the Crown has wasted $50K in fighting this thing. And it's still ongoing. So my ticket is older than both my kids.

 

fify

 

Yes... we're moralist because we think if he was speeding he should pay the ticket.

As far as speeding goes, I think a lot of us here speed and you're right, either you're lucky or unlucky. You hit it on the head, you play the game and minimize your losses, but you want to complain about speeding laws, traffic enforcement, quotas because you finally got caught.

Basic speed laws are on the books and police are going to enforce it because it's their job. If you don't like it, write your local politician and try to get it changed to something you see fair.

 

Speeding tickets and parking tickets are major generators of cash for the municipalities. The city of Toronto takes in millions of dollars annually from parking tickets. All jurisdictions take in a lot of cash from speeding tickets. The authorities claim it has something to do with public safety. Bullshit. It erodes faith in the fairness of the system and it build distrust between the citizens and the police.

 

I agree that there's an element of bullshit in the "public safety" argument; certainly speed enforcement contributes to safety, but if that was truly their number one concern, they'd set up more traps in residential areas, particularly close to schools. Instead, they tend to gravitate towards freeways, where they know they'll give bigger tickets.

But I'm not sure about "eroding faith" or "building mistrust". I mean, they're not handing out random tickets. If you get caught breaking the law, does it matter whether they caught you for the "right reasons", or that they've caught everybody who is doing the same thing?

 

Cool story, bro. Did you write your local politician to try and make a change or are you just going to express your thoughts on a car forum where it will probably get nowhere?

 

He was a state cop.

 

I got three tickets in two years after I bought a BMW'r. Bought a great detector and havent had one since, even in my 2012 TL!

 

The law is the law. Regardless of why it was put into place, whether it be for municipality revenue, safety, etc... IF YOU FOLLOW THE LAW, you have nothing to worry about. If you decide to break the law like some others and you get caught, that's a risk you decided to take. Plain and simple. People need to take ownership of their own actions. I don't get it, people break the law, get caught, and want to claim police corruption. Then go to the lengths and say it's creating a distrust between the citizens and the police.

 

I'm assuming your license is in PA and you said you got a ticket in NY with points, right? PA won't recognize those points so you have a few in NY but zero in PA, it won't go against your record here. I have 2 points in NY but PA doesn't care unless it's something that would lead to a suspension. Everybody speeds from time to time, gotta take your lumps here and there. I'd plead not guilty and seek a lower fine/point punishment, being as your PA record is clear they'll probably drop the points if you're not a dick. I didn't fight my NY ticket cause the points were out of state and the cop had already written me for something way lesser.

 

I second getting a radar detector. I have a V1 since 2000 and it has saved me many times. Not to mention it is great at alerting you on red light cameras as well as stationary (or mobile) speed traps.

Another thing that I use is the Waze app. Chances are someone would have reported police presence before you get there.

Of course, driving safe and not blow the speed limit by too much, but in a metropolitan area where most people go over the speed limit on highways, it helps to have additional tools at your disposal.