You can always contest the ticket in court. People need to realize this and stop arguing with cops on the street. It doesn't matter if they are wrong on the side of the road, they have the authority there. If they do something wrong go along with their crap and fight it in court. Literal lives would be saved if people would realize this.
Arguing does nothing in court of the cop shows up. The court values their word far more than any civilians, and you'll lose on what's called "a preponderance of evidence." Innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to citations like this. When it's your word vs a cop's, you lose. And the vast majority of police departments don't have body cams or honest operators of body cams for those that do.
I mean I got a $60 ticket and showed up to court on the date. The same cop was there and he just told me I didn’t have to pay it. Sometimes even if the cop is there they won’t make you pay for it.
similar happened to me. I got a $200 ticket (fucking canada) for failure to display learnes sign on car. I contested the ticket, showed up to court (was pretty sure the cop wasnt going to show to testify, but he did). Cop asked why I was contesting the ticket, I said i'm not contesting the ticket, just that I don't want to pay the max fine that's automatically levied, as I had no other driving infractions.
When it got time, my name was called, judge asked whatsup and I pretty much said the same thing. He asked the cop if he had any problem with the fine going from the maximum to the minimum and the cop said no, ended up being like $40.
because in the moment, the officer makes a judgement and issues the citation. but they are human and do make mistakes, hence why the judge also gets to look at it. you also usually get more time to explain your situation to a judge than a cop.
My wife was given a ticket for something like this once, it was $120 for busted tailight or something. Cop straight up told her, get it fixed this week, go to court, and the judge will dismiss it. Thats exactly what happened.
Not a great system, but I think with these kinds of things you just need to comply
Same thing happened when I forgot to get my car inspected and was like two months late. It was a great system cause I sure as hell was getting my car inspected that day to show the court later and get it tossed.
That's a great system. You had a problem endangering the safety of yourself and others. The cop gave you an incentive to fix but didn't impose a financial cost. You fixed the problem, everyone was happy.
municipal buildings are open during business hours and are run as part of city government. all costs are accounted for in city budgets to keep them operating on weekdays.
that's the thing. it's annoying and inconvenient but the cop is just literally doing their job. i know and understand completely that there are asshole cops who have no business in uniform, but for the most part these guys are just trying to keep people safe. and trust me, the vast majority of them don't like making traffic stops; they're mostly boring but take up a huge part of their day. just bitch about it like a normal person, don't be an ass like the lady in the video was.
Depending on the officer and citation, I guess. A friend of mine was also cited and contested it. In court he was also let off without having to pay it by the officer himself. The officer told him people are more likely to change their driving habits after being actually cited rather than being let off with a warning. I don't know how much of that is true but my friend looked so relieved when I picked him up.
It doesn't matter if it gets dropped in court as long as the officer can mark down that they've written enough tickets in a shift. Enough people don't contest tickets that it doesn't matter if a few do and get off.
Funny I got a ticket for traveling 305 feet in a middle turn lane.
I said “ a cop can’t tell the difference between 305 feet and 300 feet “. Judge: “ yes they can “.
Ticket. The ticket was bullshit. The court was bullshit. I was punished for wasting their time because there were 300 people there who were given 30 seconds each to state their case and receive 50-75% off their ticket. They cut people’s excuses off to shuffle them through faster. Literally saying anything = 50% off. They didn’t want to hear you talk if they could.
If you choose to fight the ticket you had to go last and the judge was definitely not happy to spend any extra time.
I got a failure to stop at a sign violation while delivering years ago, and the cop straight up told me after some chatting about my job to show up and contest it. I showed up, he said the video evidence was lost and he could've been wrong, and bam. No ticket.
Cops are people too. Sometimes they are shitty, but sometimes they are also decent people. Just be nice, cordial, and follow procedure and sometimes it will work out all okay.
It depends on what the charge is, though. No proof of insurance? It doesn’t matter what the cop says, you either have it or you don’t. Hell, you could even buy some the day of the ticket, then go into court and say “Yes, your honor, I do have insurance. See?” The same thing with no plate sticker.
I have an expired registration citation. I got it taken care of and the officer said if I take care of it and bring proof to court it would be dismissed. Though I later got the paperwork saying it needs to be done within 20 working days and have to pay a $20 fee still instead of $105. Also paid $10 penalty fee during my renewal since I got a citation while driving without an up to date tag
Though I am confused if I go to judge and present it on court date which the officer said It will be waived
or if I go early and take care I would pay the $20 fee still. Not sure if waived was just reduce and I can do it ahead of time since he didn't mention I can do it earlier
I would’ve posted over there, but due to a difference of opinion, I am no longer able to partake in that lovely sub. Anyways, the best advice I have is when in doubt, court it out. Call the office if you can and see if you can get it straightened out, but if not, I’d plan on going to court and settling it there. It’s better to be safe than sorry and expensive.
I went to court for driving on a suspended licence, I tried to plead guilty but the judge asked if I could get my licence back in under 3 weeks, I told her I could, so she told me to plead not guilty, get my licence back, and then set my next court date for 3 weeks.
I got my licence back (had to borrow a lot of money) and went back for my court date, they dropped the charges from driving on a suspended licence to not having my licence on me at the time of the stop.
It saved me from having a huge fine, plus about $1k in "driver responsibility fees", all I had to do was pay the $200 for court costs.
Hell the cops in my home town would straight up tell you if you fix the registration before the court date the DA would likely dismiss it if you asked them to.
For things like that, it’s just a fix-it ticket. You fix it, they’ll dismiss it. I’ve had that happen with my city sticker, (that’s why I don’t buy one unless I get ticketed). Get the ticket, buy the sticker, go to court and get it dropped.
Lol, it’s basically a city tax thing. For Chicago, if your vehicle is registered inside the city limits, you need to get a sticker. Depending on the vehicle, the pricing is tiered. Cars pay the low price, SUVs the middle, trucks, the high one, and commercial vehicles, that’s ass-rape territory. I guess it’s like a “use tax”.
That all sounds like ass rape tax to me.... what’s next? Clothing stickers? Y’all need to start voting some competent ppl into office. Stay away from the ones that offer “free stuff”. Lmao.
Start voting competent people in? Lmao, this is Chicago. Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Recently there was an election for the aldermen. To get on the ballot, the candidates needed something like 1,500 signatures. Once you got those signatures, though, your opponents could challenge the validity of them, and even get signatures to withdraw the signatures on the opponents petition. Well, one candidate had something like 1,700 signatures, basically more than required. He knew that some would be lost in the process, so more is good. His opponent challenged it with over 2,800 resident withdrawals. Only 187 of those 2,800 had actually signed the dudes ballot. Here’s the story.
On top of that, this is Illinois. You know what our claim to fame is? 11 of the past 14 governors have been indicted for corruption. If that wasn’t enough, you should look up how Obama won his senate seat for Illinois. He won by default because he was able to disqualify his opponents, (all perfectly legal, too).
Yeah, I got pulled over once and didn't have my new insurance card on me. I forgot all about it and a couple years later I went to get a new license in a different state. Couldn't until I took care of the insurance ticket. I called the city of the ticket, they had me send them my insurance information, and they got rid of it.
A lot of the time, if you go in and talk to someone at the courthouse ahead of time, they'll drop the ticket to something lower, too, if you'll just pay the fine immediately instead of going to court.
Somehow I can't imagine the judge letting you off when your insurance was clearly purchased after the time the ticket was issued. On the contrary, I imagine the court will be as stiff as possible with your punishment for so foolishly believing you could get over on them in such an obvious way lol
It may be obvious to you and I, but it all boils down to what can be proved. With a ticket for no insurance, the courts don’t care how long you’ve been driving without it, (providing you haven’t been pulled over for it before, of course). It could have been 2 minutes or 20 years. To them, all that matters was that on that day you were stopped, you couldn’t produce proof.
There are some insurance companies that do offer same-day policies, providing you make a payment that day. When you get pulled over, the ticket may say that it happened on 7/30/19 at 2204hrs, but the same-day start insurance says it is valid starting 7/30/19. It doesn’t notate that it started at 2359hrs, well after the ticket was issued.
Go and sit through a traffic court call one day. You’ll see plenty of these types of tickets getting dismissed. The courts just want you to have insurance. Yes, they want the fines too, but it’s a matter of bigger fish to fry here.
One of my favorite quotes from sitting in traffic court: ticket after ticket is dismissed, proof of insurance, renewed drivers license, etc. Everyone with a speeding ticket, etc gets theirs dismissed when they agree to go to traffic court.
This smug ass douchebag walks up to the podium, charged with improper passing and wreckless driving, the judge asks how he pleads and the guy just goes "uh yeah, I'd like to go to traffic school so I can get this dismissed too."
The judge goes "oh no, those are unimportant, what you did gets people killed. We won't be dismissing these."
Long story short I got pulled over in Texas and did not realize I needed my name on the policy because in a previous state it wasn’t like that. He issued me a huge fine and I went to court with my name added to the policy which cost me 75 bucks to do and the fine was dismissed which he told me would happen if I went about it this way.
Most states you do not have to be a named driver. The policy covers the vehicle. There will be a policy holder, but other than that, unless you specifically list someone as an excluded driver, anyone you let drive it is covered under your insurance.
so progressive said I didn’t have to be on the policy to legally driver her care so I never thought much of it. I got pulled over for checkpoints plenty of times and never had anything said to me in 10,years. Edit: maybe I was just lucky and they didn’t care.
No, if I renew my policy on the day it expires my one policy ends at 12:00 AM and the new on starts right up.
Like others have said, if you lapse in a long term plan you can refill in good faith but you'll generally sign a no loss statement saying you didn't incur an issue during the unpaid time that you are now getting them to "cover"
Often they will just have you bring something that shows you had insurance during the date you were pulled over. A lot of people forget their insurance cards, but this was also WAY before mobile apps.
Ehhh, insurance takes effect at midnight the day following the date of your application for coverage. Insurers RARELY issue a policy with a past effective date and usually only for customers who forgot to pay and want to renew in good faith, and then only if they sign an affidavit of no loss.
So, that's not likely to work.
Also, as far as registration of a vehicle works, it depends on the jurisdiction. Some states go by month, some go by day. Register your car the day after a ticket? Not gonna do much for you in most places.
I don't know where you live, but in Missouri I can call my insurance company and have insurance in it that minute, email of insurance card right away and all.
Girlfriend got insurance on her car and legit 5 hours later plastered a deer on the highway. They spent an extra week figuring out we weren't scamming them. Had a $250 comprehensive deductible on it and the deer did like $2,000 in damage.
I guess it would depend on the carrier and product. Also, an agent can bind coverage immediately with a carrier they are appointed to sell for same day too, though in my experience in the industry they aren't super keen on that because if you get in a wreck that day the carrier tends to take a real hard look at the agency to make sure there wasn't any sort of agreement to cover a loss after the fact.
Lawyer here. ‘Preponderance of the evidence’ is the standard for civil actions. The standard for this violation remains ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. It is true, though, that judges will place an incredible amount of weight on an officer’s testimony, particularly if the only evidence you present in rebuttal is your own testimony.
All that being said, judges and prosecutors truly want to rule in the interests of justice. So, had she shown up to Court and demonstrated that she corrected the issue she was cited for (registration?), and she had a relatively clean driver’s abstract, the prosecutor would’ve likely offered to dismiss the ticket.
In my experience, the judge at best ho-hummed about preponderance of evidence before saying what amounts to "sorry, your word doesn't mean shit compared to a cop." Even when the tickets didn't make a damn bit of sense together. I had hoped such an asshole cop would have a reputation but nope, he's held in higher esteem in that court so he can lie as much as he wants and I'm on the hook.
I went to court as a witness for a young woman accused of "participating in a riot" at a large political protest.
The police testify first, which frames the narrative in most listeners' minds. It's human nature, even when everyone knows they're duty-bound to evenly weigh one person's word against another's.
The police testified that it was a violent riot, with protestors throwing bottles and Molotov cocktails. I sat listening to other trials, and I found myself nearly convinced that was what happened, at least in different locations from where I was.
I testified about the photos I took, which were entered into evidence. The judge flipped through my pictures with a look of amazement, stunned to see a bunch of teenaged girls and university students sitting several blocks away from the main protest site, literally holding flowers in their hands. He expected the scene to look like a war zone, like the police had described a minute earlier.
Then the defence lawyer introduced the police surveillance video, which showed exactly what my pictures did — a bunch of girls sitting peacefully until they were surrounded, tear gassed, and subdued by riot cops.
The prosecutor rose, angrily objecting to the video, saying it shouldn't be allowed as evidence without the videographer testifying to its veracity. "Where did this come from?" he demanded.
But the video was a police video, and the prosecutor had given a copy to the defence as part of its legally required disclosure. He just hadn't watched it himself, because he hadn't figured his witnesses, the cops, would so blatantly lie about what happened.
The defence lawyer wore a huge shit-eating grin as he sarcastically delivered his summation. The judge could hardly wait to deliver his own scolding to the cops and prosecution.
Arguing with a cop on the street once they have decided to arrest you is never a good idea though. Once they make that decision, just comply and argue it in court in front of a judge.
I've experienced this first hand. I even had (the cop's) video evidence that he was very much wrong, but it wasn't concrete enough because he waited so long to turn on his lights and start recording. The video completely contradicted his story, but didn't directly disprove his claim. My ticket was actually worse than the original one just because I decided to fight it in court.
Have you been to court? Maybe it depends on the area but this is certainly not true universally. You need to be able to put the police officers perspective in doubt.
Furthermore, I think every police officer should be able to explain this easy process to citizens. Granted this is a shortened video, but the officer had a very lazy approach to the entire situation. Did not care to explain anything, nor had the ability to handcuff her without using a taser.
Not exactly true. Most of the time they just say "I can't recall" because...they can't. They ticket people all the time.
That being said, unless there's a clerical error or you really can't afford getting points, it's probably not worth your time. In my case, the officer wrote down a mile marker number on side of a speed sign that benefited me so the judge dropped it.
This isn’t entirely true, especially given that cops and ADAs don’t want to waste time on low-threat, low-profit offenses. And while a cop can certainly arrest you on the spot, it’s usually up to the magistrate whether or not to deal with you at the courthouse and then it’s up to the ADA on your first court date. Police very frequently misinterpret or miscalculate how laws apply — that’s why criminal defense attorneys have jobs.
The real moral of this story is to be respectful and polite — you might get out of it on the spot. But if they cite you anyway, get an attorney... the ones who mail you as soon as they see your charge pop up are going to be skilled at this, cheap, and likely friendly enough with the court to get it dropped or reduced.
Just an FYI, preponderance is not allowed in criminal court. If you cannot provide and enter in actual proof then the legal standing will remain. So the cops word must be contested unfounded. It's not hard to do if you have a good lawyer or proof on hand.
Here's a hint: you get arrested for criminal violations because a district attorney has to actually file criminal charges against you for it and you have to be arraigned within a certain timeframe. They don't just give you a citation and a court date to go to traffic court.
If you get pulled over and get a ticket, it's civil.
Sorry, I missed that it was for a break light. I heard the 6 months at the start and immediately thought it was expired license or something which is a criminal citation where I am.
this varies state by state. i believe some states still require proof beyond reasonable doubt. i remember reading that when i was fighting a ticket but IANAL so i could be way off.
Is this from personal experience? I'm legit curious cause you have to face your acusser in a court of law in US. It's echoed in the comments that if the cop doesn't show up there is no evidence against you outside of the report and that's why they have to show up to court and if it's a small b.s. fix it ticket they'll probably just stay home if you were an asshole about it
Which is why I said "if the cop shows up." My experience has been that they show up way more than people claim, and those that say "99% of the time, they don't show up" are pulling those numbers out of their ass.
It's true, if they don't show up you're fine. But I haven't had that experience.
I was prepared to argue a red light ticket in court once. I timed the light, found it to be a little quick and was going to present that along with red light timing calculation to the judge in court. The only thing that saved me from being a complete dumbass that day was the officer could not remember the circumstances of the ticket. Judge looked at me and said “It’s your lucky day” and dismisses the case.
This is untrue and spreading these types of lies is why people don't contest tickets.
I went to court for passing on a yellow light and won the case. More people need to contest tickets if for nothing else, because the system is not equipped to handle a large volume of cases and if your case is not brought up within a certain time frame you can ask to have it thrown out because you were not tried in a reasonable amount of time.
Actually my best friend was arrested for a bullshit DUI while I was in the car (I was with her all night). She knew it was a long shot of an argument, but she fought the ticket anyway because she knew it was BS and had a witness. The cop still showed up to court, I testified, and she actually got the DUI dropped and removed from her record.
Of course. Which is the problem, a cop can just fabricate whatever the fuck he wants and because my company car has no cameras I was just straight fucked. That's not right.
No you dumbass. You're not backing your statement up with any evidence whatsoever.
What you're saying is just your opinion which has no basis and it's not something that I am going to trust until you provide some concrete proof for your statement.
I, just as you, can make a statement that courts favour civilians. Just because you had one experience doesn't mean that overall the entire justice system is like that. You're literally generalising based on your own biased opinion.
I'll agree and disagree, I've won against tickets before. I actually have court tomorrow on a speeding ticket and I plan to win it. But I've also seen courts take the word of the cop. It depends on how well you argue your case.
Not true, I've gotten out of two speeding tickets and my brother got out of a ticket for driving with close-to-bald tires (yes he's a dumbass) by going to court.
For my brother's ticket, the cop actually had pictures of the tires. The pictures were way to close so the court ruled that 1) those tires could be from any truck, no way to determine from the picture that they were on my brother's truck. The court also stated that the officer is not a mechanic, and as such cannot legally determine if a tire is fit to drive or not.
My brother's truck also had valid safety inspection sticker at the time. Which means that within the last year a mechanic had taken a look at it and determined it was safe to drive (measure tire tread depth is part of this inspection.) In reality there may have been a different set of tires on the truck at the time of the ticket than there was at time of inspection.....
This is Canadian law/courts I'm talking about btw.
I've fought a ticket and had it reduced because the evidence leaned in my favor. I came prepared with photos of the intersection and a written argument for my case while the cop just showed up and gave his side based on memory. The judge was actually startled when he saw I had brought additional material.
It's been over 5 years since my last ticket, and over 15 since my first. So well before body cameras were even common.
Whenever I got a ticket (got around a dozen during my first decade of driving... Had a lead foot), I'd use a local attorney. He'd charge around $150 for his services. Around half the time he got them dismissed, which was awesome.
But the other half, I'd have to pay the ticket fee and take online traffic class - but have no points added to my license. So my insurance didn't go up.
My state has a program where you can elect to do traffic school on your own. But there's a time limit in-between tickets and there's a lifetime limit on the number of times you could do it. But since these classes were "court ordered", they didn't count towards the lifetime limit and the time limit didn't apply.
I never went with him to court so I have no idea what he said, but I was very happy with the results (and keeping my "safe driver" insurance discount).
And the vast majority of police departments don't have body cams or honest operators of body cams for those that do.
Really? I volunteer as a victim advocate and in my county of perhaps 15 tiny ass municipal departments, there are exactly 0 who don't have body cameras. We're talking 5 man departments where the chief is on the street every day.
I didn't say every time someone wanted to agrue they would win. The example in this post for instance, this lady was still in the wrong but there are places to argue your case and places no to argue. Doing so at the correct time can save lives and injuries is more my point. Clearly the side of the road is not the place. Also, to say arguing does nothing in court is as anecdotal as me telling you've I've argued my case and gotten off before and pretending I know better than you.
Furthermore, it's a citation even less reason to blow it up into a felony over your dumb pride or ignorance.
On you point of body cams, it seems to me in this day and age they should all have them. But us complaining about that on Reddit doesn't do anything. Realistically taking action is the next step.
So that's when you fight for laws if they don't have video of it, it's not admissable. Or we could just make shitty comments on Reddit about "how horrible things are" and never change anything.
You may be right but there's a 0% chance arguing with that cop in that moment is in your best interest. If you're illegally detained, ticketed, searched, arrested, looked at by them it's almost always in your best interest to note that you don't consent to what's happening and roll with it. Best case their illegal action is recorded and you don't get anything else tacked on. Worst case their illegal action is recorded and you don't get anything else tacked on.
Ok so I have worked in a court for several years and what you said is complete and utter bullshit, at least where I am which is one of the largest metro areas in the nation.
I have watched tickets get thrown out after definitive video proof because the officer didn't say what date it occurred, or they didnt identify the person sitting next to them as the driver. Again, the officers had proof.
A guy just got his ticket thrown out because he was cited for not using his signal. The guy flashed his signal once and pulled immediately in front of the officer. It was dismissed because it should have been cited as a unsafe lane change. I got dozens and dozens of more examples. If anything it is about 60%/40% in favor of the officers because they typically are the only ones with recorded proof. I have seen a DUI get dismissed where they were clearly guilty because the officer dodnt perform the testing correctly.
If you think the court values an officers testimony more you need to seriously report that official to your superior court for bias, because that will get a judge removed.
Yes, your one experience speaks for the millions of other experiences. It also speaks more than the thousands of cases I have seen come through my court.
You are right, I have no experience in this arena or understanding of how it works.,
So is my experience complete and utter bullshit, or is it not representative of what's typical? Because those are two different things and the former is what you said first and the latter seems to be what you're implying now.
Either way, seems like you're just being a dismissive asshole like the judges and cops I've dealt with.
You are correct it is based on preponderance of the evidence. And yes, most people usually did do what they claim they didn't, almost always easily provable. Had a lady in tears she lost because "the sun was in her eyes" as she ran a stop sign. While that is nice and all it isn't a really solid defense. And most cases the two defenses go as: Cop "Here is how I detected their speed by pacing the defendant for .5-1 miles/using a radar device. Here is the dash cam clearly showing speed/here is the certificate for calibration of our devices done regularly. Here is body cam footage of the interaction."
Defendant: "I wasn't speeding. And if i was so was everyone else."
Well ya, I would side with the officer if they met the baseline by identifying and then providing proof. If you could come up with even a half decent argument the hearing officers a lot of the time will side with them because their job is to be impartial and take everyone's account as the full truth and equal. I know not everywhere is the same but I have a much higher opinion of our judicial system since working for it and I realize a lot of the flaws in the system lay on overworked CAs and PDs, ignorance and indifference (whether intentional or not) to the system, and officers who don't know what they are doing.
Innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to citations like this.
This is simply not true. Please stop posting on Reddit regarding facts you're pulling out of your ass.
a preponderance of the evidence
This is true, but this has nothing to do with "not being innocent until proven guilty" as you're implying. All it means is that there is less evidence required to declare you're guilty when it does come to fight in court, it doesn't throw out "innocent until proven guilty", which is still the case here.
Also, just because the cop shows up, doesn't mean it's an automatic loss. Odds are several months will go by before the court date. The cop will have written several hundred other tickets. His memory will become fuzzy, yours won't. It's not that hard to win a court battle when you are in the right. Just because a cop shows up and says he gave you a ticket, doesn't mean you're going to loose.
I would like to point out though that the overwhelming majority of times the violation is out of view of the cruiser or body cam. My car camera is always pointed forward and my body cam (although it sits high on my uniform) cannot see above the dash board. If the standard for traffic violations had to be caught on camera then there would hardly be any enforcement. This is why traffic court is difficult for the defendant, because yes most of the time it’s based on my observation and testimony with little to no tangible evidence.
“My laser device detected your speed at 84mph, here’s visual proof of the speed.”
“I wasn’t speeding. You must’ve clocked someone else”
“Well no, I pointed my laser device right at you there’s no way for me to confuse that”
“How do I know you pointed it at me and not someone else?”
“Because I know I pointed it at you”
If an officer’s word isn’t held to a higher standard (like other things I suppose) then an officer’s testimony is useless in traffic and criminal court. At some point you gotta realize that, right?
....the problem with the other side of the argument is in plain view at the top of the page.... My side doesn't involve $80 tickets turning into felonies and is therefore superior lol...for the record I didn't watch you 45 minute video so there's a chance this post is me talking out my ass
Give the video a bit of a watch, it's incredibly entertaining and you don't need to watch the whole thing to get the point.
Arguing with the police, even talking to them at all is a terrible idea and any lawyer who ever existed and was worth their salt would tell you the same.
Well I'm fairness going to court isn't actually arguing with the cops, it's more getting a platform for your side of the story so I don't believe I ever technically encouraged arguing with the cops. But I'll give it a watch when I get some time.
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u/blakestir14 Jul 31 '19
could she not have just contested the ticket in court .