Thank you for your good energy! UTI and Ticket update.

[sabrinamari]

It really helped, my dears. Outcomes are not bad, if challenging:

My UTI isn't happy, but I am hanging in there. I feel icky, and I need to watch my medication times closely, because if I delay the medications the pain is quite uncomfortable. The bathroom is my friend, and I don't like to stray too far from it right now.

I had to change my weekend plans, which is disappointing. Michael, Trent and I were going to visit the lovely Rose (lady_daegonna) and her mother Peggy, both dear friends of mine, and now we have to wait till next weekend. I am eager to see Rose, have some real time with her to talk and listen, and work togethor on Craft matters. I want to be able to take a walk with Peggy and talk to her heart to heart in person, as I've not been able to do in years, and share some photos of a Christmas we spent together over a decade ago.

I want Rose and Peggy to meet Michael and Trent, and vice versa, so the two groups of people I love can know each other. But it will have to wait until next weekend, when I don't have to manage pain and stay within a short distance of a bathroom.

The court situation went both better and harder than I thought. The prosecuter immediately offered me a no-point deal, which cost me plenty---$459. It's so clear here that ticketing is simply a fundraising activity for local municipalities and police departments---they don't even try to hide this. I took the deal, but resolved to fight if this ever happens again. I bought two texts that outline, step-by-step, how to challenge and win in court against a speeding ticket. The books have extremely useful strategies, but these require preparation time that I didn't take. One that I'm implementing immediately is to carry my microcassette recorder in my glove box, so I can tape all future interactions with police, and carry with me the list of questions that I will need to ask officers if and when I am stopped again:

What kind of speed tracking device did you use?
What mode was it in?
May I walk back and see the unit? (get model #, serial # and anything else of use)
What is your name and badge number?
What is the cruiser #?
In which municipality will this come to court?

I'll write up and laminate these questions and the steps I need to follow and carry them in my glove box with the microcassette, blank tapes, and a xerox of my receipt---the $459 cost of my non-action. Just so I remember. I will carry both reference texts in the drawer beneath the passenger seat, so I can pull them out fast and refer to them immediately if and when I need them.

With severe state budgetary cuts, traffic tickets are one of the few flexible funding sources left for strapped local governments. The police will be increasingly pressured to generate income for struggling municipalities and their own underfunded law enforcement departments (departments get a cut of every ticket written), so they will probably increase their predatory efforts. It's a logical response to budgetary stress, if an unethical one.

But I need to be prepared, and to remember that over half of the people ticketed just pay, another 25% or so take the prosecuter's deal, and this encourages police to just write those tickets, since most of the time, they will feel no personal consequences from doing so. But prosecuters HATE speeding cases and police HATE to be called into court and questioned by citizens. This will work in my favor, if I choose to fight in the future, as long as I do my prep work. I have the guidance I need in order to do so, and I now understand that I will simply have to protect myself, because it is in no one else's interest to do it for me.

I resent the need to do this and it makes me angry. But it is necessary in this fiscal climate. That's just the way it is.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could advertise those 2 texts for the benefit of others. I know I wish I'd been prepared when I was pulled over.

Message from Loki

[hypanebliss.livejournal.com]

Or you could stay within the posted limits. :) ::ducks and runs:: I know I know. That doesn't mean they won't stop you for some trumped up charge. I can definitely tell you that this is a money making scheme on their part. I know more than one police officer you see and that is very true! Their quotas are rising from what I hear. :)

Re: Message from Loki

[evilbunny.livejournal.com]

That was my thought, also....

Re: Message from Loki

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty good at this, actually. This is my first line of defense. But I will not be able to do it every time. I know myself in this respect.

Being prepared is the second, and necessary, line of defense.

I was stopped on a section of road that I seldom travel (Demott), and on which the speed changes a short distance from a major road that I use to get to work: the speed limit there goes from 40 to 30 miles per hour for that short distance. But the parallel street that I usually use (Cedar Lane) is posted as 45 all the way down the street. When construction clogged Cedar Lane, I took Demott and thought, that like Cedar Lane, it stayed at around 45 all the way down. I was wrong, and a police car was waiting. It was a good startegy. I bet he got alot of people that way, as they changed their routes to and from work.

This, or something like it, will likely happen more than once in my life. It's better to be prepared and armed than sorry, angry and outraged.

Re: Message from Loki

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

Wow, it does sound like you were framed. That sucks. I'm glad the solution didn't involve points.

Hey, if you are coming to see lady D, will you have time to see us as well? I know that might be too much to handle, but we'd love to have the 3 of you for brunch or dinner or something. I'd love for Trent & A & D to get to meet!

Let me know!

Re: Message from Loki

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I would love to stop and see you, but it may just be too much. I am genuinely trying to make sustainable decisions and not push to hard.

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

I love all that prep work sabrinamari! You are truly a universal overachiever!

I don't suppose driving the speed limit is an option? ;-)

In the DC area, we have a different sort of response to fiscal belt-tightening. There are red-light and speed cameras all over the place now! I have gotten a couple of those tickets and they are even harder to fight b/c they show up in the mail weeks later and in all likelihood you don't remember what you were doing or where you were going when the ticket was issued. I have been snapped running red lights that have been red for LESS THAN A SECOND when I get ticketed. This basically means that I misjudged how long a yellow light would remain. I don't count that as running a red light, but it is almost impossible to fight, esp since the tickets are not too expensive ($50) and don't involve points. Hard to justify taking the day out of my life (especially if I need to get childcare) to fight a $50 ticket.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Thank you for warning me about this! I will reread the section on photo radar before we drive up.

Yes, small tickets like this are annoying, but it's easier to pay them and go on. I would probably do the same.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose driving the speed limit is an option? ;-)

I was pulled going just about 5mph over the speed limit, though no more than that. Fair enough, I held my hands up to that. I was wrong. What I did object to, though, was being told that I was going 20 mph over the limit, but because he was being kind, the officer was going to put it down as "14mph or under" on the ticket. Clearly, I am OK with being caught Being Bad, but I resent being bullshitted. Just do me for what I did wrong, don't make out that I'm at risk of punishment for something worse and you're such a nice chap that you're going to bend over backwards to help me out.

I'm not bitter.

[castalusoria.livejournal.com]

I've been busted on two of those-- one in the District (entering onto the "freeway" that is 9th Street Southbound) back when they were still building the new convention center. I flew through there every day! Actually, I think that one hit me twice-- I could never remember where the darned thing was mounted, it was mounted on a parked car. Very sneaky!

I was also tagged by a red-light camera on Route 50 Westbound in Arlington on the way towards Falls Church, not far from where the Home Depot sits-- that one has since been turned off or disabled, during the whole upheaval over privacy rights, or whatever that was. Bummer that I got tagged before that!

Cynical voice here

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

Read the book and prepare but be aware that you might be frustrated.

Some cops are great people. A good example is the one who issued us a warning for speeding as we were on the way to the airport to get married.

Other cops are pricks. I have had cops flat out refuse to give me a name or a badge number. Cops once threatened to haul me in for drunk driving just because I got behind the wheel of my car after coming out of a bar. (I had been drinking club soda all evening.) I challenged them to give me a breatholizer and they refused. If I hadn't had friends standing by as witnesses who knows what might have happened.

Do you know where anger comes from? It comes from powerlessness. I think that's why some people (not all) become cops. They feel powerless. They're angry about it. They become cops so they can excercise power.

Some cops are courageous, honest, public servants. Others would fit in just as well in the Mafia as they would on the police force. Go up against the later and you're not likely to win.

Re: Cynical voice here

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

It's not cynical, it's true - people are just people, and every profession is packed with humans with varying reasons for doing what they're doing. My Dad joined the police because "it was better paid than being an apprentice draughtsman and it had prospects"; he stayed because he hated seeing people harmed and developed a taste (and, from what others tell me, a flair) for "chasing down villains". One of his senior officers joined because he was a politician, and knew how to suck up well enough to attain a position with prestige and sit there until his pension kicked in. Another left Greater Manchester police to join Cheshire because of the levels of thuggery and corruption he'd encountered in the city.

[daurdabla.livejournal.com]

You might want to get a digital recorder instead. Tapes can deteriorate under extremes of temperature. Plus, the digital might be small enough to turn on and pop into a pocket or other unobtrusive place; if the cop knows (s)he's being recorded, (s)he might get edgy and more aggressive. A cop who doesn't know (s)he's being recorded might say something to kill the entire case. Ya never know...

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Oh, you can get those recorders that look like pens.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

How's this for a trumped-up ticket: A friend of mine was riding her motorcycle. Not a mile from home, she went around a downhill curve a little too fast and found some gravel that hadn't been there the day before -- slid off the road and dumped the bike in someone's yard.

No one was home. The bike was too heavy for her to lift. She had no cell-phone, and even if she did, there's no coverage in the area. So she walked home to call for help picking up the bike.

After she had gotten home, cleaned up a bit, called friends, and walked back, she found a ticket for leaving the scene of an accident.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

ACK!

[diekonigin.livejournal.com]

ALL timing devices are legal in NJ, unfortunately.

Most cops don't hate court because it's usually overtime. What you don't know is that all of the device manufacturers offer training in how to testify on their device in court. These cops can tell you, even if they went out and got a donut and came back to the car, how their device accurately timed you. VASCAR and Accutrak, the devices that were heavily used in PA by municipal officers because they can't use radar, have an error-check formula that is not beatable in court.

What is beatable is the certification/calibration of a device or, if being tracked by "pacing" (using the car's speedo), the calibration of the speedometer of the vehicle. Depending on state law, they must be in compliance and have the operator be certified/trained in the operation of said timing device.

Interestingly enough, I caught Camden County in a really big gameplaying scheme. They tried to con me into copping a plea on a minor traffic infraction so I could avoid getting points on my license. I hold a PA driver's license. I looked at him and laughed, and asked him how much he liked his job. He didn't understand my reasoning, and when I explained that he really didn't want me to walk into that open court and tell the judge that I was being lied to by a county official, he backed down. There is no points reciprocity from NJ to PA. The fine on my ticket was less than $100 for me to simply plead guilty to the offense. (I realize that as a jersey driver, doing that might cause you to lose your insurance!)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Thank you for responding with this post---it is extremely useful! I learned alot from your experience. Thank you!

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

My last ticket cost me about that much too to get it reduced to a zero point ticket. Worth the savings in auto insurance! (Since that one was attached to an accident, and that'll raise the insurance enough!) However, I was also told you can only take this option like 2 times in something like a 5 year period. Just an FYI.

And for the record, make sure the police know they're being recorded. The last time I tried asking these questions the officer refused to answer me and I wouldn't have been able to do anything about proving it. Instead I just got stuck with a high cost ticket (think my asking those questions pissed him off) and lots of points. (Fortunately the a**hole didn't show up in court when I contested it, so I was let off.)

[warning-dca.livejournal.com]

We are going to have to pay 600 dollars because lou was driving with suspended drivers license in the state of nj - he does not have an NJ license. He had one, but he turned it in when he moved to alabama.

It was suspended because he didn't attend the class for drivers he was supposed to but he had ben given an "out" of the class because he was transfered to alabama; he'd have to take it if\when he came back. However; he was never informed that his driving privileges were suspended. Apparently being alerted that you have a suspended license is not the job of the state and the fact that the state failed to inform you has no bareing on your guilt or innocense to driving with suspended priviledges.

Lou was also denied the right to the answers to ANY of those questions and the court said "it doesn't matter". And that's where they stayed on the issue. All this even though the tickets had a million and one inacuracies; including but not limited to the facts that a) he had only been alive one day b) they used information from his jersey license and from his alabama license even though he lacked a jersey license c) the street names were distinctly wrong, d) no opportunity to sign the tickets.

all of this and he got NOTHING except "no additional suspension".
Proving ultimately, that the state doesn't give a flying fuck it just want's it's money.

[warning-dca.livejournal.com]

in that case I say stick it to the unethical, unjust fuckers however you can.