I’m due in court tomorrow to fight a tag violation. My tags expired 12/31 last year, but I sent my renewal check in November. Having paid, I crossed it off my mental “things to do” list and didn’t give it another thought. Not realizing, of course, until I saw the ticket on my car on Jan 15 that the DMV never sent me my new stickers.
I had a copy of my cancelled check and I called DMV. They admitted receiving payment in November but because of some “glitch” did not send out my new stickers. They faxed me a statement showing that my registration was renewed in time.
I hope to show the judge (or prosecuter or clerk or whomever) my paperwork and have the fine dismissed. Sure, my plates were expired (can’t blame the parking cop) and I should have kept track of the sticker absence, but geeze, I’m a busy guy and some things just slip through the cracks.
What gripes me a bit, though, is that this is something that could easily be handled via the mail. I send in the above paperwork and anyone with half a brain would toss the fine I’d think. But, no, I must take a day off work to show up in person. It’s not the $50 fine; it’s the principle. I paid on time; my car was registered on time.
I got a ticket for turning right on red, and came to court with a bunch of pictures showing that the no right turns on reds sign was obscured by a tree. The judge was annoyed by the fact that the cop didn’t show up for some reason, the prosecutor helpfully asked me if I wanted to plead guilty, I declined, and the judge dismissed the charges. I never got to show anyone the pictures.
First time, on the advice of a coworker who drove an NSX (he had a whole list of “things to do for a speeding ticket”) i called the clerk to find out when the ticket was filed, turns out it was more than 2 business days after it was written, which makes it invalid (or whatever) in Washington state.
Still had to go to court, and had to listen to the Judge yell at me for gettting off on a technicality (she had not overturned any of the other tickets people ahead of me).
Second time they took too long to set a court date, so when i showed up it was dismissed, just luck there. Although I did fax in my contention, so it may have gotten lost in the system, something to think about, exploit the bureaucracy, etc.
Most of the time I try to talk my way out of it, for which i have about a 60% success rate, got out of runnning a red light in right front of a cop once.
About 20 years ago, I got ticketed for making a left turn on red; this was in a Baltimore suburb. The fact is, I pulled into the intersection, with my left blinker on, when the light was still green. But traffic was heavy, oncoming traffic didn’t stop when their light went yellow, so when my light turned red, my choices were: stay in the intersection through a red light, or run the light. I chose the latter, and got ticketed.
I took it to court, explained the situation to the judge, and the issuing cop admitted that what he had observed didn’t disagree with my explanation. The judge said I had really had no choice but to run the light, and threw it out.
Hubby once (before we were dating) ran a stop sign, with a cop car right behind him. He went to court, with his ‘professional credentials’ (he was a private investigator at the time, and going to college), dressed very nicely, very polite, and with a perfectly straight face, said to the judge “Your honor, do you think I’d be stupid enough to run a stop sign with a police officer right behind me?”
The case was dismissed.
I see you’re from the Commonwealth of Mass. I suppose this kind of thing does go on in some other places, but it is practiced to an amazing degree in MA - or was when I lived there for a couple of years. I was astounded…If you knew the right people you could get away with anything in MA. Anything (heck, remember Chappaquidick?) On the other hand, If you * didn’t* have any kind of pull, you could be arrested, beaten, jailed, even shot on sight for anything - guilty or not. In that area at least, Boston and vicinity was the most utterly corrupt place I’ve ever been, or ever want to see. Of course that was 20-odd years ago - but I doubt if things have changed all that much.
I got into an accident, and the DA piled on all these trumped up charges on the ticket. I think they either a) mixed up several different cases into mine, b) tried to get me to pay for unrelated damages, or c) tried to make my ticket more serious than it was (no damage except to my car.)
On the day of the hearing, none of the DA’s witnesses showed up, so the judge scolded him for wasting my time, and dismissed the case.
I actually tend to think that cops will throw on any charge they think may stick, just on the belief that you’re definitely guilty of something, and if they heap on the charges, hey, something is bound to stick! Or maybe I’ve just watched too many old eps of Law & Order.
They claimed 58 in a 40 zone, which would have been $155 and 4 points. If I thought I’d done it, I would have sucked it up, but it just didn’t feel right.
I didn’t think I’d have a leg to stand on: my word against theirs, no evidence.
All I did was show up. It turns out the thing had been decided before I got there. The guy (court clerk?) said, “Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket before” I said, “Once. About a hundred years ago.” He said, “pffft” and made a fly shooing gesture. “You don’t have a recent history. The officer said he’d go down to 5 over.” I said that sounded good to me.
The judge came in and made some clucking noises about the 18 over. The clerk said, “we’ll go down to 5 over.” The judge said “OK”, dropped all the points, lowered my fine to $127, then chatted to me for the next 7 minutes about my job and some new construction in the area.
I could have appealed, but I got what I wanted (no points). They got what they wanted (money). Everybody was happy.
In Florida, I got a ticket on June 16 and my hearing wasn’t set until December 18. I read the rules and they said that the whole procedure had to be complete within 6 months. I showed up, asked the judge to dismiss, and he did.
Isn’t that pretty much a classic case of driving too fast for conditions, by your own testimony? Yeah, you *thought *you were going slow enough, but clearly were not.
Successfully contested parking tickets twice - one by sending a picture showing that the no-parking yellow line had a gap in it longer than my car and I was parked in the gap; one by objecting to confusing signage. I think my cause on the latter one was helped by also giving them my new address, 4,000+ miles away and on a different continent.
I also successfully contested “driving without due care and attention”, arguing that the guy who stepped out into the unlit road at night without looking was really the one at fault. I used a lawyer for this one. (The pedestrian was not seriously hurt, but did hit my windscreen hard enough to be concussed.)
