Posts Tagged ‘law enforcement’

Tricks To Get Thrown Out A Parking Ticket

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

State laws maintain that everybody is protected by equal rights in the eyes of justice. So, even when charged with an offence, culpability is not decided upon unless judged by the court, which even then undergoes through an extensive evaluation.

Although it will require a little effort on your part, by understanding your legal rights it will greatly increase the chance you can beat a speeding ticket.

Lets start at the beginning of the process of how to beat a speeding ticket, when you’re pulled over. Known as the Miranda Rights, you are protected by law to not answer any question that might lead to self incrimination.

However, be cooperative enough to provide basic details such as your name and presenting your driver’s license. Be clear that this is not included in your rights of silence.

In order to beat a speeding ticket, you have to do things in a certain way. Being courteous and respectful to another human being can carry significant weight when an officer is still deciding to ticket you or not. Losing your temper or verbalizing insults toward an officer of the law will absolutely guarantee you will NOT get out of a traffic ticket. And if you push the issue too far it can lead to more charges, especially in court.

You are not actually guilty until a judge finds you so in traffic court. And the burden of proof has to be provided by the law enforcement official who actually wrote the traffic citation. So don’t be afraid to defend yourself in court and try to beat a speeding ticket.

Remembering the facts about your traffic stop will help you beat a speeding ticket written against you. The traffic court gives equal opportunity to both sides to prove or disprove guilt.

Some people will bring a lawyer to court, I personally don’t think it is necessary as most people prefer to represent themselves and have a good chance to beat a speeding ticket by simply stating the facts clearly.

You also have a right to have a speedy trial as the court recognizes the constraints to work and personal life of attending court proceedings. Also, you can point out lack of evidence or delay trials in case the officer-in-charge does not show up in the proceeding.

Most traffic courts offer alternative to actually paying for a ticket like community service or attending a traffic school class. To beat a speeding ticket means knowing all options available to all people facing charges.

If you can beat a speeding ticket you will benefit greatly because violations are listed in your driving history, which can in turn affect additional charges or increase in your premium rates so you would want to avoid such inconveniences with a clear record.

Abuse and biases are not tolerated by the court, so expect it to be an ally when you try to beat a speeding ticket. This means you have as good a chance as anyone to have your speeding ticket dismissed when you go to traffic court.

Also, you can point out lack of evidence or delay trials in case the officer-in-charge does not show up in the proceeding. You DO have to provide the basics such as name, proof of auto insurance and drivers license. Paying Traffic Violation The law can provide alternatives such as community service or going to traffic school in lue of payment.

Common Sense Ways To Avoid Speeding Tickets

Saturday, September 25th, 2010

Not driving your vehicle is a good way to avoid a speeding ticket. But since most of us have to work for a living, that would not be feasible. So for the rest of you who don’t like the thought of using public transportation, these next pointers should be very helpful. Unless of course you like taking the bus.

1. Don’t go over the speed limit. This is the obvious one, but honestly if you want to avoid a speeding ticket don’t speed. If you must speed do it on the highway.

2. Prepare beforehand. The only way to avoid your next speeding ticket is to stay ahead of the game. The next time you get a chance, take a walk around your car and make sure everything is in working order. Things like your headlights, tail lights, blinkers and mirrors should all be in functioning condition.

3. Quality of your vehicle. Fix small issues like cracked windows and use some touch up paint if your car needs it. Keeping it clean and up to date will help you avoid the eyes of the law.

4. Stay alert. Don’t sleep and drive! Always maintain a good visible lookout of your surroundings. A police officer can be anywhere - not only in front of you. Beware of turns and curves in the road. These are magnets for speeding tickets. Approach bridges and underpasses with caution. Keep your seat in an upright position so you can see clearly and without difficulty.

5. Suspicion. Driving a beat up 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass in a wealthy neighborhood (especially at night) will trigger any officer’s suspicion. I hate to say it, but a black or Hispanic individual driving in a predominately white neighborhood can also trigger an officer’s suspicion.

6. Don’t draw attention to yourself. High performance cars will always draw the attention of law enforcement before a Ford Taurus will.

7. Be wary of curves. Approach curves carefully as you never what may be waiting on the other side to give you a speeding ticket.

8. Stay clear of the left lane. Most police officers will admit they will observe cars in the left lane more closely to give speeding tickets to them. It is called the fast lane for goodness sakes.

9. Know your territory. Its important to know your town or city and what resources they have for law enforcement. It may seem like there isn’t a cop for miles. But that van or SUV parked on the side of the street could be a photo radar unit. They will automatically give you a speeding ticket, they have no conscious.

10. Pay attention ahead of you for brake lights. This is an easy way to be alerted to the fact that there is an officer gunning people for speeding tickets. On highways drivers rarely hit their brakes unless someone has abruptly pulled in front of them.

11. Be aware of what the police drive. A lot of the time you never know that the car you were just driving next to was an unmarked police cruiser until your pulled over and issued a speeding ticket. The unmarked cars are almost always the same as the marked cars, only they will be painted as the civilian version.

12. Watch out for speed traps. Speed traps are everywhere. Knowing how to spot one and where they may be in your area can be a great way to avoid a speeding ticket. Check out Speedtrap.org for a comprehensive list of speed traps anywhere in the US.

Unfortunately you cant avoid all speeding tickets, but you can greatly increase your odds of not getting one by using these tips.

Want to find out more about speeding tickets? Then visit Timothy Williams’s site for information on how to avoid and beat speeding tickets if you or someone you know has received one.

The Photo Radar: Coming To An Intersection Near You!

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Conventional speed enforcement has its limitations. You can only pull over one vehicle at a time. This method is unproductive, slow and expensive from the government’s point of view.

With the rapid development of technology, clever ways have been developed to make the process speedier.

The old system of traffic enforcement simply wasn’t doing the job of making the kinds of money our government wants to make.

There were just too many elements that was involved with an actual police officer pulling you over to hand out a citation. The first thing was having to hire the officer himself to pull you over. Next he had to pull you over with his police vehicle which is expensive in itself. And then what he let you off with just a warning?

And maybe the final factor was that in the time it took for said police officer to pull you over and write the ticket dozens more drivers go speeding by! Money lost down the drain.

Now, introducing the photo radar. It is the latest tactic on the governments part to make money. Oh, in the name of safety of course. In just a few minutes a photo radar can catch many cars speeding on a single road.

There’s no longer the need to actually pull people over anymore. With traffic cameras, speeding tickets are mailed directly to the home of the offender. Talk about service!

Since its’ beginning, photo radar has been proven to: Save police department’s time and money. Improve conviction rates in traffic court. Maximize city resources available for traffic enforcement. Increase individual insurance rates.

There are little more than twenty states or so that use this method of photo radar to hand out speeding tickets, but its presence is on the rise.

The photo radar is such a money maker that its popularity is growing fast.

Many cities are beginning to join the growing ranks of municipalities using photo radar because of the automaticity of its revenue generation.

Photo radar can give a financially troubled city an almost immediate injection of revenue.

Just think about it, within a short time a photo radar can take pictures of many speeding motorists, what it would take many officers to accomplish traditionally.

How does a photo radar work you may ask? Think of it as a radar gun and a high quality camera rolled up into one. It gets programmed to take a photo of your license plate at a certain speed.

Say the speeding limit is 55 mph on a stretch of road but it detects a car cruising at 60 mph it will take a picture.

When a car passes the photo radar unit and is traveling faster than the predetermined cut off point it will snap a photo of your license plate. And so it goes 24/7, courtesy of big brother hundreds of people can be cited this way.

When the database of the photo radar is accessed at a later time, they photos will be examined inaccurancies.

What the examiners are looking for is the clarity of the picture and if the plate number can be read.

Once the legible pictures from the photo radar have been determined and the license plate numbers ran through the bureau of motor vehicles database, if the car is registered to say, a female, and there is a female driving the vehicle, BINGO, a speeding ticket will be on its way to the registered owners address.

This process is repeated with the next picture and so on until all available photos have been examined. Photo radar enforcement is on the rise, hopefully this article will give you a heads up about it.

Want to find out more about getting your speeding ticket dismissed? Then visit Janet Mcintyre’s site for the best advice on any kind of traffic violation.

Incredible Facts About Speeding Tickets!

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

On average, over 100,000 drivers get speeding tickets every day. Thats 36,500,000 traffic tickets yearly.

That means 1 in 6 people will get a speeding ticket this year.

An average speeding ticket will cost you $150.

36,500,000 x 150.00 = $5,475,000,000 That’s almost 5 and a half BILLION dollars per year in speeding ticket fines alone.

The average raise in insurance costs for one speeding ticket over the course of 3 years is $900.00.

Take 36,500,000 and multiply by $900 and you get 3.28 BILLION! Thats the extra money auto insurance companies make in increased premiums.

Over 95% of people who receive a speeding ticket never contest it and just pay the fine.

A lot of the 5% who do fight their ticket will either get reduced charges, or the ticket dismissed altogether.

There are 196,000,000 licensed drivers in America today.

40% of the time the police officer doesn’t show up in traffic court. This is grounds for dismissal.

In 1987 Paradise Valley AZ became the first place to use photo radar.

Brooklyn, Ohio became the first city to mandate seat belts while driving back in 1966.

The demographic that receives more speeding tickets are the 17 to 24 year drivers.

Males receive more speeding tickets than their female counter parts.

Conversely more women than men will fight their traffic tickets.

17 year olds cause more traffic accidents than any other age.

In July 1879, two men are fined for speeding horses in Seattle.

Henry Ford’s first motor vehicle, built in 1894, only went forward.

At a London intersection in 1868, pedestrians and horse drawn buggies were the first to use traffic lights. They were lanterns that glowed either red or green.

Washington D.C. area photo radar cameras since 1999 have been responsible for almost 3,000,000 traffic tickets worth almost $200,000,000.

The earliest known speeding ticket on file was issued in 1910 to the Prime Minister of Canada’s wife. She was traveling at a whopping 10 mph over the limit.

Out of all professions, doctors get the most speeding tickets.

An average police officer will cost a city around $75,000 in salary and benefits per year. That same officer can make that same city almost double that in speeding ticket fines.

The top ten states for writing speeding tickets are:

1. Ohio 2. Pennsylvania 3. New York 4. California 5. Texas 6. Georgia 7. Virginia 8. North Carolina 9. Massachusetts 10. Connecticut

Learn how to fight your speeding ticket in traffic court. Stop by Steven Swihart’s site where you can find a lot more advice to help you challenge your traffic violations successfully.

Time Tested Advice On How To Fight Speeding Tickets

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

This article should give some hope to people who have received speeding tickets because there are ways to fight speeding tickets.

Get your evidence together. You first want to get the traffic court to show you any documents relevant to your speeding ticket. These can include calibration records on the speedometer or radar gun used to guage your cars speed. You want to examine any documents for flaws before you go to traffic court so file a discovery request with the court in advance. The downside to filing this type of motion though is that you will remind the officer of the speeding ticket which may remind him to show up for court.

To fight speeding tickets remember that speed detecting devices such as laser detectors and radar can be subject to human error. And in a lot of instances police officers have neglected to provide proof of proper positioning of these instruments and thus cases have been dismissed.

Everybody has heard of cases of all kinds being dismissed because of a technicality. And this does happen. Certain things have to be done correctly for a speeding ticket to be valid. If for instance the officers badge number or signature is illegible you may a valid point to have your speeding ticket dismissed.

You want to keep brief your report of your side of the argument to the judge when you go to traffic court to fight speeding tickets. Remember that the judge has very limited time for each individual in traffic court. Use visual aids to help your argument such as a photo of an obscured sign by a tree or bush.

You can sometime fight speeding tickets and win by default. If for instance the officer doesn’t show up in traffic court, and if the court prosecutor asks for a continuance then you should object to this. The ticket should be thrown out if the officer does not have a valid reason for missing traffic court.

Speeding tickets can raise your insurance, cause accidents and other hazards. The best way to avoid receiving a speeding ticket is not to speed!

Want to find out more about how to fight speeding tickets? Then visit Steven Swihart’s site for all things traffic violation related, and learn the in’s and out’s of the traffic court system.

Five Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make Before Battling A Traffic Ticket

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

There have been, over the years, some pretty pathetic defense strategies when it came to fighting a traffic ticket. Someone would read some information somewhere or use some advice from a relative or friend.

In this article we will go over the 5 most common mistakes used by people when trying to fight their traffic ticket. Use these as a guide of what not to do.

Mistake #1- Delaying the traffic court date

The rationale for this, some say, is that the longer you can delay traffic court for your traffic ticket, the likelier the chance the police officer won’t show up at your court date.

Delaying the court date will not improve your chance of having your traffic ticket dismissed.

My question is what if you do postpone your traffic court date and the officer still shows up?

This may be a little known fact, but police officers get overtime pay to be in traffic court.

Mistake #2- Request the Prosecution’s Evidence Before Trial.

By law you do have a legal right to see everything the prosecution plans to convict you with. This process is called ‘discovery’ and can be useful in a murder trial. But this isn’t a murder trial and doing so can actually hurt your case.

If you file a motion for discovery this tells the prosecution that you intend to plan a defense. In almost every case the prosecutor will make sure his case is airtight so you have virtually no chance of winning.

Do yourself a favor and don’t even contact the court about anything related to your traffic ticket. You don’t want them to know your familiar with the proceedings of traffic court.

Mistake #3- Doing too much needless research.

Who likes to spend their free time at the courthouse researching boring piles of books pertaining to law? Trust me, there is no need in doing this.

Only rarely would it be prudent to look up a law so you know how it may be worded, other than that it is needless to do this with most traffic tickets.

Mistake #4- Going after the police officers credibility

Going to traffic court with the sole purpose of making the police officer look like an idiot will backfire on you and any plan you had of getting your traffic ticket thrown out. Claiming things like, “the radar gun was faulty”, or “the officer clocked the wrong vehicle”, or “the officer singled you out”, or “the officer hasn’t had adequate training with the radar/laser gun” are all useless defenses.

Challenging the officers training of a radar gun will always draw scrutiny from the judge. He will take the officers side and will insist you ask the next question.

Lets face it, the officer has been properly trained on the use of the speed detecting device he used to give you a traffic ticket. There is no question about it. Where would you get the evidence the judge will ask for to support this claim?

Mistake #5- Showing up to traffic court unprepared.

This may be the biggest mistake individuals make when they try to fight a traffic ticket. They go into traffic court thinking they did their homework, when in reality they had no idea what they were doing, and end up paying the traffic ticket.

Those who did no research go to traffic court with the notion that they can just tell their side of the story and the judge will see things their way and dismiss their traffic ticket. Yeah right!

Look, I know the thought of going to traffic court can be a little scary for some, but this isn’t a murder trial. It’s just a simple traffic ticket. Traffic court is set up to be extremely ‘user friendly’ due to the large amounts of people who go there every day.

Avoid these five mistakes and you will have a better chance of winning your case in traffic court and getting your traffic ticket dismissed.

Want to find out more about traffic tickets, and how to beat them? Then visit Steven Swihart’s site for the the best advice and information on traffic violations.

Non Moving Violations And Moving Violations, What Are The Differences?

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

There are differences between traffic tickets. Determining the type of ticket you have is important when evaluating your situation.

Sometimes if your ticket is not a serious one that gets reported to your auto insurance company, you may be better off just paying the fine and not challenging it in court.

The two main types of traffic tickets are either moving or non moving violations. Non moving violations usually involve smaller fines and can be a parking ticket or some kind of fix it ticket.

These can be a nuisance but at least they wont go on your driving history or be reported to your auto insurance.

Common non moving violations can include failure to use your seatbelt, improper registration, no license plate or lamps, improper parking, and a broken or non working taillight.

These types of violations are usually better dealt with by just paying the fine. Taking the matter to court is more of a hassle on your part because the fine being imposed is normally not more than $50. The amount of time, energy and cost involved in contesting the charged violation is not worth it. Besides, these types of tickets are very hard to beat in court. I mean, either you parked illegally or you didn’t.

However if the ticket can cleared easily you should certainly try. For example a ticket for a non working tail light can be dismissed if you show proof you fixed it in most cases.

On the other hand, a moving violation is any law broken by the automobile driver while the vehicle is in motion. This type of violation is distinguished by the term ‘motion’. While a non moving violation is charged against the vehicle, a moving violations are charged against the driver of a vehicle. While usually only classifies as infractions or misdemeanors, serious violations can be felonies.

In most locations moving violations involve both a fine and points being assessed to the record of the driver. As points accumulate harsher punishments can be imposed such as being ordered to take driving classes, or even having your license suspended.

In the US fines are in set amounts that can vary from $50 or so, up to and even surpassing $750 in some instances. In other countries traffic violation fines can be set proportional to the individuals income, and judgments of $100,000 or more aren’t unheard of!

More common moving violations can include speeding (THE most common), failure to secure a load, failure to yield right of way, violating high occupancy vehicle lanes, or not stopping for a pedestrian.

Some of the more serious types of moving violations can include racing, driving under the influence, and vehicular homicide.

A traffic violation can also be civil or criminal in nature. They both carry points and fines, but only a criminal charge can wind you up in jail. The sentence in a criminal case can result in an order to pay a fine, a sentence of probation or time in a jail.

The sentence imposed in a criminal case is an obligation that a person has towards the “state” for violation of law; that is, it is a punishment for the act that was committed. The ’state’ could be a local township, municipality, city, county, state or the federal government. These are moving violations to avoid at all costs, obviously.

Looking to find the best information on the internet about traffic tickets? Then visit www.Paytrafficviolation.com to find the best advice for beating your traffic ticket.