So I’m cruising down state route 235 at 7:30 AM on my way to work this morning. It’s a rural area, visibility is excellent, the road is very straight, and traffic is almost non-existent. A state trooper passes me going the opposite direction, turns around, then pulls me over. He said he clocked me going 66 mph (the speed limit is 55) and writes me a ticket. The cost is $150. He said I could either send in a money order or appear in court.
(More info: I was wearing my seat belt and I was courteous. Furthermore, I have a squeaky clean criminal record and I have not had a speeding ticket in over three years.)
Should I pay the $150 (ouch!) or go to court? I admit I have no reason to believe I wasn’t going 66 mph. In other words, I’m pretty sure I’m guilty. What if I told the judge I was guilty, but wished for a lower fine due to good driving record, etc.?
Here’s another factor which might be significant: I got the speeding ticket this morning (Friday). My wife and I were on jury duty Wednesday and Thursday with the same judge. After the trial was over she talked to all of us for quite a while in the jury chamber. She seemed extremely nice, and even congratulated my wife and I on our new baby (my wife is 7 months pregnant). She then thanked everyone for being on the jury. I’m sure she would remember me… could I say, “Hi, remember me? My wife and I were on jury duty during that case. I had to miss two days of work and we had to find child-care arrangements, blaa blaa…." Do you think she might cut me a break? Is she allowed to cut me a break for whatever reason she wants, or is the $150 in stone?
Phone the Courthouse, & ask to re-schedule your appearance date for the day before or day after a 3 day holiday weekend. Sometimes, a cop wants a long weekend, too, & may schedule his leave time to stretch it out to 4 or 5 days. If the cop feels he has better things to do, he might not show up. No accuser=dismissed charges.
Also, show up anyway. The cop may be too busy on serious stuff to show, so it may get dropped just the same.
The fine is the same either way you go, so give it a shot.
I think I’ve had maybe 4 speeding tickets in my life, and every one was dismissed because I had (at the time of trial) a clean record. Each time the court room was packed so full of “minor” cases like speeding, the judge was happy to get rid of us all with one stone by asking us all to raise our hands and swear that we had a clean record and would never speed again. That left him free to get to the more serious cases like DWI’s, teenagers driving on suspended licenses, etc.
So I think it’s worth it. Especially if your ticket says 66 in a 55. It might be different if yu were doing 80 in a 55.
On the other hand, don’t be surprized when you have to pay court costs amounting to seventy-some dollars.
What ** Sterra ** said. If you’re there, polite, and have a decent story you can usually knock at least 1/3 off the ticket even if the cop does show up and you wind up pleading guilty.
I’m going to make a wild-and-crazy suggestion here, as someone who has racked up three moving violations in 18 years of driving (one speeding ticket, one rolling through a stop sign, one illegal left turn): If the cop got you fair and square, just suck it up and pay the fine. If you’re only thinking of going to court to get yourself a reduced sentence, then IMO, you’re eating up valuable court time that could be used for real criminals, as opposed to speeders (pretty low priority). If I’m going ten over, it’s always in the back of my mind that I’m violating the law and I’m always fully prepared to pay the price if I get caught. You have to ask yourself, is it really worth your time and effort and their time and effort to maybe get $50 off your fine? For me, it’s not worth it.
" A state trooper passes me going the opposite direction, turns around, then pulls me over."
I may be stupid for thinking this, but I thought they had to either be in a stationary position with their radar guns or behind you in order for them to match your speed to determine if you were speeding or not. How did he know you were going 66mph if he was driving in the opposite direction?
I’d say go to court. Several years ago, when I got my last ticket, there was a Saturday court just for traffic violations. I pled guilty (I was) and chose traffic school. One afternoon out of my life, court costs and traffic school costs, but it din’t show up on my record. Regardless of what Jimbo says, I wasn’t taking the judge’s time away from more valuable cases. That’s what he was there for on that day.
In my state (and in most others), they can also time you over a known distance. Also, he could have caught Crafter on the radar gun at the beginning of the stretch, and drove up to meet him in the middle (that’s happened to me before).
Yea, that’s what I’m hoping. Not only that, but I really hope the judge remembers me from the two days of jury duty and (off the record) takes it into “account.”
I’ve gone to court twice for moving violations (once I was guilty, and once, I was actually wrongfully ticketed). Every single person there got their fines reduced or dismissed altogether, and got their points reduced/dismissed. It’s not just about the cost of the ticket, or court costs, but as someone else already said, about what this will do to your insurance if you don’t fight it. I’m also firmly of the mind to ask to reschedule. This increases the likelihood that the cop that ticketed you won’t show, and it’ll get thrown out.
Try reading a book called Beat That Ticket & see what your chances are…Might not apply for Ohio, but our bookstore has it, our library too, as does amazon & bn.com & a few other on this topic.
I went to court to fight a ticket only to find out that my first “court date” was only to hear a big spiel on the process and talk to the prosecutor. If, after that meeting, I still wanted to proceed with fighting the ticket, I could have another date arranged for actual time in front of a judge.
Missing two days of work was not worth the $100 my ticket was. So I paid it.
And check with your insurance agent as well. If you have an otherwise clean record a ticket will not necessarily make your rate go up. I was told I’d need 3 tickets within a year to see any increase in my auto insurance.
Here in Memphis when you go to court they say “if you plead guilty we won’t report the ticket to your insurance company, just pay the $60 court fees”. I saw the clerks say this to at least 100 people in a row.
I was pulled over a couple of weeks ago for passing in a no passing zone. I told the officer I’d just pay the ticket, was having a pretty busy month and thought it would be the most convenient thing to do. Well, driving home that night, I took the same road, and it turns out that I did not pass in a no passing zone, so the ticket was bogus, but I didn’t think I could go back and schedule a court date. I sent the check, even though I was pretty upset about the whole thing, and then to make it worse, it showed up when I renewed my motorcycle insurance ( I wasn’t even on the bike when it happened) So, if I ever get another ticket, I’ll go to court.
