How To Beat A Traffic Ticket
Whether you see it as government funding, abuse of authority or protecting the driving public, no one likes paying a speeding ticket. Particularly when you’re seriously just over the limit.
In any case, it turns out you can get away with not paying traffic fines most of the time. Alex Carroll, author of “Beat the Cops: the Guide to Fighting Your Traffic Ticket and Winning,” has beaten 8 out of 10 tickets.
Craig Guillot from Yahoo Finance put together this article citing various instances of how to get out of paying the tickets.
Contrary to popular belief, Carroll says that camera-issued tickets are often the easiest to beat because a defendant has a constitutional right to question their accuser. Courthouses will rarely go through the trouble of bringing the video or picture to court, and even if they do, there is no human subject to question other than the officer who viewed the it.
“The minute he opens his mouth, you just object because it’s hearsay and the ticket will be dropped,” Carroll says. “Most people just don’t have the courage to do this though. That’s why some of these cities are making millions of dollars per camera. They know you’re not going to do that.”
Excellent. Have your own stories to share?
How to beat that traffic ticket - [Yahoo]
Tags: 
Loading ...
Comments
Eric says on April 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am
How about just NOT SPEEDING in the first place?
Rife says on April 27th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Here’s a thread with cops responding to this article. Interesting counterpoint:
http://glocktalk.com/showthrea.....did=688887
Sean says on April 27th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Your digg button no worky.
Edster says on April 27th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
The problem with the suggestion, “How about just NOT SPEEDING in the first place?” is that you’re assuming a person is guilty. Given all the flaws in the speed detecting technologies and personal errors (like identifying the wrong car), often, the driver is innocent, and why should an innocent person have to pay? Here is my advice — fight the ticket and go to court. I used the Nolo press book on fighting your ticket, and I won. When I went to court, I observed several other cases in the traffic court that morning. My experience is that the Yahoo advice, “The minute he [the officer] opens his mouth, you just object because it’s hearsay and the ticket will be dropped,” isn’t going to work. In fact, the judge/commissioner might find such an approach annoying. You need to really understand the legal system and be prepared.
Craig Childs says on April 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Thanks, Rife.
There’s some good arguments against this article in that forum. The best probably being that a speeding ticket is civil, not criminal, and so that hearsay argument I quoted probably won’t work.
State to state and country to country, however, things might be different. They’re talking about $250 per court appearance for some cops, which is definitely not a deterrent.
ps. can you believe that place is called GlockTalk.com?