dude, where's my car?
November 3, 2011 10:44 AM   Subscribe

can i get out of paying this ticket?

i live in portland, or. a couple of weeks ago, i drove up to seattle, wa to visit some friends. it was late at night, rainy, and the police were out in full force so that, in addition to the fact that washington seems always to be crawling with cops on the freeways, prompted me to be more vigilant about my speed, which i estimate i kept within 0-7 miles of the speed limit. i passed a few accidents. about 40 minutes til my destination, i got pulled over by the police and issued a speeding ticket. for driving 5 miles above the speed limit. today i took a look at the ticket to make my payment. the model year, color, type of vehicle, and vehicle license are correct. no registration number is listed. BUT the ticket lists my car as a volkswagon UT. i drive a volvo XC70. this puzzles me seeing as the officer asked for my vehicle registration, so listing the make and model of the vehicle should have been a no-brainer.

can i legitimately get out of paying the ticket? can this constitute some kind of loophole? (sort of an academic question as i can fully pay the $93 bail but the fact that i was ticketed for driving 5 miles above the speed limit really irks me.)
posted by violetk to Law & Government (20 answers total)
 
No. It is just as illegal to break the speed limit in a Volvo as a Volkswagen.

Here's roughly what would happen in traffic court:

Judge: "How do you plead?"
You: "Not guilty."
Judge: "On what grounds?"
You: "I drive a Volvo."
Judge: "But were you exceeding the speed limit?"
You: "Yes."
Judge: "Guilty. Pay your fine on the way out."

Your argument about being "only" 5mph over is going to hold about as much water as getting caught shoplifting and saying "but it was *only* a bag of chips!"
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 10:52 AM on November 3, 2011


Response by poster: my argument isn't about being 5 miles over the limit. my argument is that i wasn't driving the volkswagon that is listed on the citation.
posted by violetk at 10:53 AM on November 3, 2011


Well, the ID goes by the person driving the vehicle, not the vehicle.

Is your name and DL on the ticket?
posted by abdulf at 10:57 AM on November 3, 2011


IAAL, IANYL, TINLA. In this Republic, more particularly the State of Washington in the United States, the Supreme Law of the Land, i.e., the Constitution, commands that no judicial officer may property ask you to prove your own innocence. Nor, under the constitution (properly understood) may a robed prosecutor handle your case. The answers above suggesting otherwise are in error.

Properly handled, you should prevail at trial. The cop has a huge credibility problem if his testimony is that he clocked a Volkswagen speeding, but wrote a citation for a presumptively innocent Volvo driver. A properly conceived cross-examination would destroy this cop. In fact, if I were the cop, I would be so embarrassed that I would find a reason not to appear, resulting in a dismissal.

The devil is in the details, though. Your entire defense will be a proper examination of the cop and to steadfastly assert your 5th Amendment right not to testify (thus avoiding having to admit that you were 5 mph over). In other words, with the right advocate, the government is going to have trouble proving this case, thanks to sloppy and/or lazy work on the part of the local constabulary.
posted by Hylas at 11:01 AM on November 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've seen people contest the complaint as sworn out against you by the officer as defective due to issues like this. Every one of them has been served with an amended complaint with the right information shortly thereafter. Metro-NY, non DMV tribunal counties.
posted by Brian Puccio at 11:04 AM on November 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


If you get a lawyer, you can probably get out of it. I was going 88 in a 70 as a stupid teenager and somehow ended up with "defective vehicle" and no points on my license, thanks to an attorney. The lawyer very well may end up costing you as much as the ticket would, though.
posted by something something at 11:06 AM on November 3, 2011


I once contested a parking ticket issued for a 2-door Focus parked on the east side of the street because I drove a 4-door Focus that was parked on the west side of the street (Buffalo, NY winter, so no street parking is kosher). I had to pay the fine.

(& I'm still bitter about it so for the sake of everyone who's been ticketed by sloppy cops, I hope you fight it and win)
posted by thewestinggame at 11:08 AM on November 3, 2011


Get a lawyer. Do not take legal advice here. I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:11 AM on November 3, 2011


Did you admit guilt to the officer when stopped? If yes, then pay it: you're screwed. If you did not admit your guilt, you could pay the bond and then try to fight it in court and you MIGHT have a better than average chance that you were mistakenly charged since a different car type is listed. I would definitely try it because you really have nothing to lose and the possibility of charges dropped/bond refunded to be gained.
posted by Eicats at 11:11 AM on November 3, 2011


p.s. if I was unclear, what I meant was that if you admitted "yes, sorry officer, I guess I was going a little fast" then even with the wrong car listed, all the officer has to do is tell the court you admitted guilt and that's that
posted by Eicats at 11:13 AM on November 3, 2011


Having seen a number of people trying to fight traffic tickets without representation, I can tell you that the odds of pulling this off without a lawyer, even with irregularities on the ticket, are pretty low.

So the answer to your question is "Maybe, but if you don't get a lawyer, probably not. But since it's going to cost you way more than $93 to win, you should probably just pay the ticket unless it's going to cost you your license or something."
posted by valkyryn at 11:17 AM on November 3, 2011 [3 favorites]


The suggestions that you hire a lawyer (Have any of you people *ever* hired a lawyer, do you know how much they charge?) to handle a $93 ticket, or that the process of showing up in traffic court is something like a murder case from Law and Order or something are just ridiculous.

This is what happens in traffic court:

The judge assumes your guilty because the cap says "that guy's guilty, I saw him do it." This is "beyond a reasonable doubt" to the judge in this sort of case.
Unless you do something to convince the judge otherwise, you get to pay a fine.

Nobody brings a lawyer. They cost a lot more than a speeding fine.

Mostly you listen to people request payment plans because they're unemployed, or make excuses for their failures to appear on previous dates. Sometimes people want to show proof of insurance or registration to the judge.

I highly doubt any of the people telling you to contest this have ever tried to dispute a traffic fine (or even sat in on a session of traffic court). I've tried several times. I've never succeeded. Sure, the judge might reduce your fine or charge you with something smaller instead to make you go away. They don't just dismiss everyone's cases on immaterial technicalities.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 11:25 AM on November 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


I have a friend who got a ticket for speeding and contested it by mail on the grounds that the officer mistranscribed one of the B's in his license plate as an 8 and listed the car as black when it was dark blue. This was in WA. I don't know if you can get out of it or not, but with the wrong model being listed, I would say it's worth a shot, particularly if you can afford the consequences if it doesn't work.
posted by KathrynT at 11:32 AM on November 3, 2011


Have any of you people *ever* hired a lawyer, do you know how much they charge?

At least some of the people who made that recommendation, myself included, are lawyers. But you'll note that my ultimate recommendation was to just pay the thing, because the lawyer is going to cost more than the ticket.

But if this were, say, the OP's last "strike" before having her license suspended, then it might totally be worth doing. As it is, it's probably just best to pay the $93 and forget about it, but there are definitely situations where that wouldn't be true.
posted by valkyryn at 11:34 AM on November 3, 2011


See if the court handling your ticket allows a trial by declaration, that will likely be your best option if they do. You call the courthouse, they send you the paperwork, you mail in a letter explaining your side of the story (Volvo not Volkswagen, going with the flow of traffic, whatever you happen to decide to write) and the officer does the same. Since there is no opportunity to ask any followup questions and the judge just decides in private, you're much more likely to prevail. If only because an officer who wrote a ticket for a speeding VW to a person behind the wheel of a Volvo is less likely to fill out the paperwork and you win by default...
posted by foodgeek at 11:42 AM on November 3, 2011


So, is it that you don't want to pay the ticket, or that you don't want the points or insurance implications?

The court and town want their money. So, if your concern is the insurance/points increase, then go and fight it, but expect to plead to some other offense that carries a similar fine, but no motor vehicle violation.

If you don't want to pay the ticket at all, well.. follow everyone's advice up above.
posted by rich at 11:47 AM on November 3, 2011


The correct cost to compare to the cost of hiring a lawyer is not the $93 fine, or even (maybe) $93 + $whatever in court costs. The correct cost to compare to lawyer's fees is the $93, plus any court costs, plus any effects this has on your insurance premiums over the next few years. No data, but it would not surprise me if the total cost of this ticket was $500--1000.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:56 AM on November 3, 2011


Is there an appeal process in writing, and does it cost anything? If not, might as well do it. I got a ticket in NY and ended up paying $10 more to appeal in writing -- it didn't work, but it was worth $10 to me to try.
posted by chickenmagazine at 1:24 PM on November 3, 2011


Aside from the incorrect vehicle, how did the officer ascertain that you were driving 5 miles over? Radar, Laser, Manual observation? Following you? There are defenses for every one of these. Most have to do with the calibration of the device. You can ask them to produce calibration records for Radar and Laser guns, and the officer's speedometer. Any discrepancy could be contested. 5 Mph over 55Mph is not a very large percentage. For example if the officer tracked you over 1/4 mile by following you you could ask how many cars did he pass while following you, what speed was he driving when he started to follow you, and you could conclude that over a short distance the 5 miles over could be attributed to the officer's acceleration. YMMV
posted by Gungho at 1:55 PM on November 3, 2011


Do you have access to a legal aid office or some other cheap/free source of legal advice? Lawyers who deal with traffic court all the time could tell you immediately what to do and if it's worth contesting the ticket. The other thing that might work in your favor is that sometimes when you contest a ticket, it gets dismissed if the issuing officer doesn't show up for the traffic court date (which happens more often than you might think). Also, in response to what I quoted above, sometimes these things get worked out on the phone in advance between a lawyer and the DA's office and never make it to traffic court. Personally, I would run it by a legal aid lawyer if you can, because I think the paperwork error here may be significant enough to get the ticket dismissed. [YMMV, IANAL, IANYL, IDEPALOTV, includes anecdotal evidence, etc.]
posted by aught at 2:18 PM on November 3, 2011


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