First ticket on the VFR - Advice?

You guys are lucky in the States. If I get caught with any radar detector its $1300 straight up. All the HP cars are equipped with radar detector detectors. Not a snow balls chance in hell to get away with speeding here other than good luck and a fair idea where the coppers are.

 

Traffic regs vary so much from place to place that anecdotes are fun stories and a way to get woes off the collective chest but what counts most is specifics.

"Radar Detectors" are legal in some places and not legal in others. Check the net.

There are lawyers who specialize in traffic violations. Check the net.

All kinds of LEOs out there from State Patrol, State Police ect., to the local Sheriff as opposed to County Sheriff. Then ya got the LEOS in the National Parks. This is fed stuff and a whole nother can of worms.

Calling BS big time for reduction of a speeding ticket to a parking ticket.. Speeding is a moving violation and with one somtimes used exception where double parking can be written as a moving violation, an overtime parking violation is a non moving and does not in most places, appear on one's record.

Washington loans out State Patrol Officers to different counties. If you get nailed, and wish to contest the citation, the court will be in the county where the citation is issued. This could be on the other side of the state and the local prosecutor has you by the balls and will pull shit like change dates several times and even try to postpone until winter sets in. You must at the time of the citation request venue in the closest court to your home or you will get screwed. The top cop in the Washington State Patrol is loved in Olympia. The dude is a moneymaker.

Check your copy of the citation for errors. Any error, even a transposed number in a sequence like an address or a mispelt street name is grounds for dismissal.

...and be sure and give the cop some shit letting them know who is in charge.. Yeah Right!

 

I would love to find a lawyer that can get moving violations knocked down to parking tickets, that is quite a feat.

I would imagine that judges in rural western states hear that tax evader libertarian speech so often that when it comes up again they often figure oh WTF I'd rather just reduce your fine than watch you wade through this nonsense again and just get you the next time you're here.

Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

Just be thankful we are all not required to have data loggers installed and read by the authorities once a month. None of us would be allowed to drive.

If that's what I think it is in those Progressive comercials offering a discount for a "snapshot" of your good driving for a discount, this is not a good trend

 

The great feat would be getting a parking ticket raised to a speeding ticket.

Speeding is at times in the eye of the beholder. Ya got two types of violations. Exceeding the posted limit and Prima Facie.

Most dudes don't even take the time to look up the exact wording of the alleged violation in thier respective state vehicle codes, some of which are in thier entirety on the State website or a copy can be purchased for about the price of some chrome shit that nobody really needs..

Snapshot my ass! Insurers and underwriters have access to national databases where they can find out what kind of TP you use if they need to. I do wish though in the mag ads if they are going to show a chica insurance agent who rides, they'd at least use Kim Kardashian's body and some tats that didn't look like they came in a pack of Crackerjacks.. Then again they always seem to be on a Harley and Harley now sells insurance..

 

Gee whiz Reg, maybe you should just hold it down.. LOL


Seattle was trying to issue parking violations to multiple bikes parked in metered zones. Kind of upset the US Constitution's innocent until proven guilty part. The city council person who was fronting that chunk of BS after some homework being done, was found not to ride or drive or even have a drivers license. That deal went quietly bye-bye through The City Engineering Dept, rather than hauling the issue into Federal Court.

Lesson here? If ya let em, they will.

 

I am guessing the judge wasn't tongue tied so much as he was just thinking "ahh, crap, not another one of these guys... I did not have enough coffee today to deal with this..."

Yes the laws are in place to protect others from being harmed by you, but that is not the only reason. The laws are also there to protect you from you (whether you agree that such laws should be made is immaterial). And at the end of the day, none of that matters, as the reason behind the law doesn't matter, the law is on the books, so while you might get a sympathetic judge to release or dismiss with that argument, it doesn't have any real merit. Remember the old 55 speed limit was put in as a measure to reduce fuel consumption.
As for whether CO has the ability to pass laws, without doing any research with specifics, that is also crap. Their ability to pass laws and prosecute laws have long been established, and those laws have been upheld. There is no merit to this argument.

 

LOL!

Yea they do! Especially when I just got a clean record 3 months ago.

 

"at justs shows you aren't punctual...and they don't like that, they are schedule nazis."

NO...They just do what they say.
If they ask to have you there at 9 am, then you must be there at 9am Not 9:15 or what ever you feel like. No excuses.

I can tell you have never served in the military.
When you are not on time in the military, they just put you in jail.

Be a man, grow up. That pisses you off doesn't it?

The pay off is that when THEY say they will do something at a certain time you can count on them 100%.

 

He showed you that he is human, but he has to do his job because he has integrity.
And you appreciate that.

 

IMO what oughta be covered up is the pile of BS that is accumulating about speeding tix and the law. Sorry dudes, but just because somebody doesn't like something, the law is like the stock market, It don't give a rats ass. This comes in the form of the LEO, the prosecutor and the judge. Give em shit or get nailed in a whopper and you are gonna get it where the sun don't shine.

Speed violations can be anything from passing in front of the mayor's deepfried chitlin shack in Birdshit, Alabama exceeding the 20mph posted limit by a mile/hr to doing double the double nickel on an Interstate Like I-90.

The thing that seems in contention is the two types of "speed" laws. ie the posted limit vs the Prima Facie limit.

This covers it pretty well:

Speed limits in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


In military law, one section where ya don't show and can get nailed is "failure to repair." They might not toss ya in the brig or the stockade but there are consequences and da judge is usually wearing seven or eight stripes. AWOL is the biggie and like Martha never says, Not a good thing.

 

Interesting. So BB, what was the end result of the ticketing of multiple bikes in a single space? My thinking is, who would they ticket? All the bikes in the space? That's not right. Someone was there first. And if it is metered, and there is time on the meter, someone paid for that. Totally unfair to the person who arrived first and plugged the meter isn't it. But then, the whole concept of ticketing multiple bikes for parking in the same space that one humungous cage occupies, makes my ass twitch at the best of times. That is like giving speeding tickets for doing 1 MPH opver the speed limit. I know of a guy who was stopped...............

 

Randy,

The entire issue was unconstitutional presuming guilt before proven or even evidenced. The prez of my MC at the time was an attorney who practices mosty in Federal Court. The issuance of citations was nipped by Seattle City Engineering. Likely from a call or two from the City Attorney's office. This was nothing short of a fund raising effort by a city council person who got elected somehow. Now if we could only dump the "somehows" we'd be in good shape. We asked for "bike" parking and were assured there were sufficient spots to park bikes. Yep, all eight of them..

Seattle is known for oddball moves when it comes to traffic law. The City Council is partitioned into sectors and some of the Council persons are real doozies. We had some meters for awhile that were liquid crystal. They were great until the temperature dropped to freezing..

 

BB
Clear up some PM space for a message on this

 

Should be some space there now if I did it right. I dumped a bunch of love notes from Cundalini and some go to meet Jesus from PsychoCyborgdude who has seen way too many caped crusader flix or ate too many deepfried chitlins as a child.

 

I think Radar detectors are only illegal in two states, Delaware and somewhere else, and maybe DC. Used to be 3, but CT repealed their law.

For moving violation downgraded to parking ticked, haven't seen that exactly, but in CA right now the state is trying to stop jurestictions from allowing people to plead a moving violation to a non moving local misdemenor violation. Which several cities/towns/counties are doing. Why? The state says they are trying to stop it for safety, because then you don't get points on your license if it is a non moving local violation. But if really it is because the city/town/county gets all of the money from the non moving violation, where as a regular moving violation, some of the money for the fine goes to the state. A hefty portion. So you might get ticketed for speeding and it is a $300 ticket say, now I admit I don't know the exact numbers, so this is just to give an idea. Of that $300 the state may get say $200, the locals $100. You go to court the prosecuter offers to let you plead to a misdemenor if you don't contest it further, he offers you a $200 fine and no points on your record. It is a win for you, smaller fine and no points to affect your insurance; it is a win for the local government because they just got $200 instead of $100 and it is one less case they have to do a full trial with the judge. Everyone wins but the state.

 

They did it in Monterey one year at the superbike races weekend, ticketing bikes for "more than one vehicle in paid spot" or something like that. People were pissed, next night everyone got seperate spots, which of course pissed off business owners as the amount of open spaces was now nill.

While I think it is crappy, I don't know how ticketing multiple vehicles in a spot would violate the 4th ammendment???
and who would take that to the US supreme court? You would really have to have a lot of time on your hands for something like that, although I am sure there is someone out there.

 

Crap! i would have been in jail for my entire enlistment then! ;-)