Got my 2nd ticket (all time) today. Was on my way to school, was supposed to pick up a garage opener from our home owners association building, which is right infront of my school. So, I turned into the building parking lot, which is next to a day care. As soon as I turned into the parking lot, which some people use as means to bypass the traffic and turn into the school easily, a cop came up to my window and told me to pull into a parking spot and wait. Im guessing he looked at my HS parking pass and assumed i was crossing through the private property to get into school. When in reality, i had to run an errand in that area BEFORE school. In the end, I was given a ticket for cutting through private property to avoid traffic. What should I do? go fight it?

 

So I take it you didn't explain your errand to the cop?

 

Yeah, seems like a simple conversation with the officer and he can watch you go into the building and pick up your item and walk back out if he wanted.

 

get a letter from that homeowner's association stating your business there, then bring that with you to your court date. That's about your best shot.

 

he really didnt give me a chance to talk.. "go park in that spot right there, ill be right with you"..comes to my window 10 minutes later "licence and registration please".."here you go, be safe and dont cut through private property", as soon as he said that i wanted to tell him i wasnt cutting through but he just walked away after getting my signature.

 

at least you didn't give him shit about it. that, coupled with the fact that you actually had business there, and you should be able to fight and get out of the ticket easily. it was just a simple mis-understanding.

 

He didn't tell you why he stopped you before asking for your license and registration?

Why did you sign the ticket and not explain your rationale for going into the parking lot and attempting to park?


I agree with the poster about a letter from the homeowners association stating you were on their property to do business there on that specific date at that specific time (should be referenced on the ticket). Bring that to court with you and end of discussion.

 

i didnt wanna tell him about it because he looked really pissed off in the 1st place, and he wouldve just told me to bring it up in court or whatever. they had set it up, 3 people in my 1st period got the same exact ticket that morning, as well as many of their friends, they had the whole place surrounded and were just ticketing all morning.

 

The first question you ask police when pulled over should be "why did you pull me over?"

 

Depending on how you word it though, that phrase could come off as arrogant, which cops generally hate. Usually for a 17 year old everything they say comes off as arrogant and know-it-all-ish to a police officer.

 

well, i already knew why he did, so i didnt bother asking, they do this for a week, each school year, little did i know it was going to be today, the one day i would have to cross through there.

 

can they ticket on private property? Or did the business give them permission or ask them to do it?

It sounds like you have a pretty good chance to win. I've been caught in those entrapment situations before. They run up, give you a ticket, and then they literally burn rubber trying to get back into place to ticket someone else (if any of those rocks had hit my car, I would have chased him down and made him pay for the damages...his tires even smoked, and he didn't turn on his lights so you know he wasn't rushing to an emergency)

 

The daycare had complained about people crossing through, so the cops were basically allowed to give the tickets