Sure you can beat a speeding ticket via radar!

Radar tickets can be beaten. You just have to know the right questions to ask, the right discovery procedures to insist on, and the right way to cast a reasonable doubt and present your explanation. I bet none of the people in that courtroom had an experienced attorney defending them.

 

They can be beaten, just a question of being prepared and having an impartial judge....

 

I say "Bring It On" ---you can't (no attorney) can beat me in court on a radar citation!!!!!!!!!! The only police officer that can be beat are the one's who are NOT prepared or a fresh rookie, who is still a little intimidated by the whole court process.

 

So what can we do to "beat" you in court?

 

Im gonna go with 'try to be real nice and pray.'

 

almost as effective as the "cross your fingers"

 

Well, it looks like our paths will never cross, since you are on the other side of the country. Otherwise, I would "Bring it on"--just ask my clients. We went up against a 24-year veteran in my last radar case. We won.

 

Traffic court isn't about justice, it's about revenue generation. The judge is going to take the side of the Revenue Generation Officer every time.

 

Sadly, that is true. One effective strategy is to make it more expensive than it's worth for them to collect your fine. They often reduce the charges when they see that that is where they are headed.

I don't have a problem with speeding tickets when they are handed out appropriately. I have turned down cases or advised them to take plea bargains when I felt the client deserved the ticket. But ticketing for the sake of making money deserves to be opposed. It is completely out of hand and unjust.

 

yea but come on a 200 ticket for a U turn cause it was during rush hour??? Tats what I got and I think it is way to high. In DC thats 45 dollar

 

i "heard" that you are supposed to ask when the radar was last calibrated and whatnot... usually leads to confusion

 

Dammit, this is bad news. I got a court date scheduled for this thursday and I dont have a son to get away from this one. Im still pleading guilty and hoping the office won't show up.

 

OK Art, I'm interested. I just went through the whole court process with a radar speeding ticket. What did you do to gt the ticket dismissed?

 

Guilty with an explanation....

 

Ahh.. the LA "business district" racket!

Good rule of thumb: don't do anything unless there is a sign telling you to; otherwise everything else is illegal. It's the opposite everywhere else.

 

Years back I made an appearance in traffic court mostly out of curiousity than a compelling need (read keep license). I got busted in the middle of a pack of traffic on a multi lane highway with on ramps and off ramps etc. in the same stretch.

I observed a stationary officer looking through an eyepiece mounted on a tripod and was subsequently pulled over by an unknown officer and issued the speeding ticket by yet another one. Talk about the proverbial duck shoot. Interestly, the mystery man never showed up in court.

In court I questioned the laser operator as to how exactly his system worked. In laymans terms please. He explained that he observed me through a 1x mag eyepiece approx. 1/4 mile away. His machine spat out a pulsed beam of light that bounced back. Through a math operations it can calculate closing speed, distance and a bunch of other stuff. Now a quarter mile is long ways away to be looking at cars through that little hole. His speed indicator said 108 kmh in a 70 kmh zone. He radios ahead, mystery man pulls me over down the road out of sight and another guy wrote the ticket.

I asked " From a quarter of a mile away, wouldn't this beam thingy spread out?" He indicated it would by a few feet. I replied that since I was in the middle lane and he was shooting across five lanes of traffic (with the merging and exiting traffic) and my hood is only 30" tops off the ground..........plus he's looking with one eye only through the viewfinder meaning he can't even see what I'm doing in reference to the other cars in the pack.

Tossed on two counts. No mystery man to prove I was indeed the car pulled over being ticketed for that infraction as the observer didn't actually see me being cited and for the simple fact that they were polling five lanes of traffic from a fixed tripod.

Previous to this, this particular adjucator had just accepted the machines reading as infallible. He was somewhat tickled by the lesson as well. Me, I was a couple hundred up in the billfold department.

Steve

 

You can ask for it--but a prepared officer will have a copy of the last certification.

 

Tickets are given to people who violate a traffic law and even through a ticket does generate money for a city that is not the reason a ticket is issued. I have never seen a ticket issued for "driving to generate money for the city"! I guess that would be kind of like being an attorney and defending someone when you know they are guilty for the sake of making money!

 

I just wish that ALL legal penalties could be either/or scenarios. Why not allow those found guilty to either pay a fine, or do community service? The community service could be something like them writing an article for the local free paper on something that they are an expert on. I.e. Art could be asked to write an article on the legal pitfalls of after-death estate planning that would be run in the free paper where the driving offense occurred.

Of course this would never happen because I bet BILLIONS are paid annually from court levied fines.

 

Your saying that a person who is guilty should not be entitled to any sort of defense?

 

No he just meant that there is no easy way out of a ticket.


Antony

 

Ski:

You start with an informal request for discovery. You give them a short time period. You ask for the following: 1. Maintenance records, 2. Owner's manual for the radar gun, 3. Survey(s) etc. Generally, in California, they don't or won't provide same.

If they don't hand over the stuff voluntarily, you file a motion to dismiss.

Remember, in California you have the right to speedy trial, i.e, within 45 days of the plea (People v. Agnew), and they must dismiss if you can't be brought to trial on a timely basis.

Assume that they still produce everything. California Highway Patrol uses the Staker 2 radar gun. It isn't difficult to use, but it doesn't ID the car it tracks. It has the largest target reading, and the fastest target reading. The dispersion rate is bout 3 degrees per 1/4 mile. Therefore on everyday usage over a distance in traffic, it is all but impossible for an officer to ID your car. Careful examination of the officer on that specific issue will usually bring ambiguity in his testimony, and viola, you win.

The above has been the formula that I've used over the last few years, and it seems to work pretty well.

Art