Plead Guilty or Not to Inane Traffic Ticket?

November 17, 2014 8:07 AM

So recently I was driving thru PA and a slushy rain started. Temps were in the 40s (F) and no one suspected slipperiness. Myself (and several others along that stretch) slid off the road. "Failure to drive within a single lane and or movement from lane was not made safely."

The officer apologized (several times) to me for the ticket and told me his CO would force him to ticket me after the fact even if he didn't. He basically told me everyone would be ticketed, even those who got in accidents and were injured.

It's obviously just an issue of revenue.

I slid off the right lane into the "berm." I guess "movement from lane was not made safely," but seriously, WTF?

I don't really want to go to PA to plead not guilty, but this riles me. It's pure greed. And $134.50.

Do I have any chance? What would you do?

posted by Shane to Law & Government (23 answers total)

IANAL, but I have received tickets in PA over my years driving from my home in MD to family in the Sharon, PA area.

If things are still the same as they used to be, your ticket in PA won't carry any points on your (OH?) licence. Your time is probably worth more than the amount of the ticket.

My advice is to grind your teeth, and write the check.
posted by terrapin at 8:19 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I got a failure to maintain safe speed under similar circumstances. When I asked the officer what a safe speed might have been, he said, "Stopped." I would plead not guilty by mail. Often the DA will contact you and you can work out a compromise all via mail and phone. I got mine reduced from about $150 to $50.

Did the officer see you slide off the road or did he assume it happened? Unless you made the statement that you slid off the road, you could just as easily have pulled over safely when you saw everyone else slip sliding away.

I agree that this is a money grab. There are hundreds and hundreds of traffic laws on the books. I can assure you that every time you drive your car, even if just going to the grocery store, you are in violation of some traffic ordinance. If they want to get you, they will.
posted by 724A at 8:19 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Decide if your time is worth 134 dollars. Also find out if this ticket is worth any points. If yes, then definitely go and plead it down to a no-point offence. This should be straightforward, show pu to court, talk to the prosecutor, plead guilty in front of the judge, pay your fine and leave. All this will take some time.

You can ask to have the ticket dismissed all together and this might work, but if I had to guess they'll argue that you should have slowed down to the conditions.
posted by pyro979 at 8:20 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

What would you do?

I would pay the ticket and, in the future, bear in mind that cold weather (regardless of exact air temp.) + rain = slipperiness, proceed with caution. I don't buy that the ticket is "just an issue of revenue" or "pure greed" ... your driving was poor enough to cause you to slide right off of the road, which seems fairly serious to me. (And I'm a person who speeds in nice weather - I am not a grandma driver here! It's just that IMO the ticketable offenses designed as money makers are those where safety is not a factor (most parking laws, etc.).)
posted by schroedingersgirl at 8:21 AM on November 17, 2014 [35 favorites]

I have successfully fought tickets in California and Florida, I've usually made the judges laugh and I've had stuff dismissed, no problem. The magistrates in PA have NO sense of humor.

I agree, the ticket is BS. If they have a way for you to plead not guilty remotely, look into doing that. But to return to PA in the hopes of fighting it? It's not worth the aggrivation.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:24 AM on November 17, 2014

Do I have any chance?

Yes. In instances like this, it is very common to be able to reduce the ticket penalty and/or get fewer/no points on your license. It's not common to get the ticket dismissed, because the facts of the case are not in question. If you claim you "pulled over safely", you would be lying, and no one here should be advocating lying to the police. Since you slid, you were not in control of your vehicle, and that's exactly what should be penalized by the police. Do you want the police not to stop/ticket people who can't control their cars?

What would you do?

Pay the ticket, drive slower in cold/wet weather, and get better traction tires for the rain. The ticket is not a technicality and it is not greed - you violated the law. You drove your vehicle in an unsafe manner. The fact that you didn't kill or injure anyone does not change that fact. This is a learning experience for you, and to be honest, it's a rather cheap learning experience. The alternative could have been a totaled car, and that costs a lot more than $134.50.
posted by saeculorum at 8:24 AM on November 17, 2014 [17 favorites]

I don't really want to go to PA to plead not guilty, but this riles me. It's pure greed. And $134.50.

I would call the prosecutor and see about making an arrangement to reduce the fine, but I would still pay it.

It's not greed. They expect drivers to operate their cars safely, and "slushy rain" means slippery conditions.

"I didn't mean to do that" isn't much of a defense if you kill or hurt someone, I don't see why it should be a defense to failure to keep your car on the road.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:25 AM on November 17, 2014 [15 favorites]

Sure, it's pure greed. But given that it is, you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting out of it unless you have, say, footage from a dashcam or overhead drone that clearly exonerates you somehow *and* you happen to land before an honest judge. Otherwise, even if you were totally innocent somehow, I would expect the officer to simply lie, and in all likelihood for the judge to not give the slightest damn. I mean, the officer has as much as told you that this is not an honest attempt at principled law enforcement.

Still, pleading not guilty either in person or (if allowed) by mail might mean paying less money or only paying the $134 for the fine instead of $134 and some points that cost you $1000 over the next couple-few years in higher insurance. The town or county almost certainly doesn't give a shit; they just want to get paid.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:26 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

What you should do depends entirely on how far you'd have to go and whether the $130 + potential points is worth it to you. If I were able to get there and back in a day, I'd fight it. I have no idea how safely you were driving, maybe you were driving in a way that wasn't safe, but a ticket for failure to drive in a single lane where your failure was entirely non-volitional? That's bullshit. The fact that you slid off the road doesn't mean you weren't driving safely. Accidents happen, even to people being careful, a fact that a lot of these responses are ignoring. It's entirely possible that you operated your vehicle legally and safely and still slid off the road.

The actual provision your charged under might matter here. The Pennsylvania code rules of the road are available online. If your ticket specifies the provision, you can check that against the code and see what you think.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:35 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's obviously just an issue of revenue.

Despite your indignation, this is a matter of safety and education. Will it make you drive more cautiously in slippery conditions? Particularly if you are 'not expecting them' (wtf? You have windows)? Does getting a ticket for something mean you may respect that issue in future? Hopefully it does. You slid off the road because you were driving too fast for the conditions. You were driving unsafely. You were in the wrong, and got a ticket for it. Why on earth do you think you don't deserve it?

The fact that you got a ticket for it, rather than just a scare or a crash and damage/injury, makes you either lucky or unlucky, depending on your perspective. Lucky because this may make you take your driving speeds more seriously than the minimising of your responsibility present throughout your question (nobody expected it, lots of other people crashed, so how could it be me doing something wrong, that sort of thing). 'Unlucky' seems to be your perspective because you are out a hundred bucks or so. Despite the fact that you could very easily be out several thousand if you'd hit something a bit less forgiving than a berm.

What would I do? I'd feel stupid for going too fast. I'd feel embarrassed that I could have taken someone else out with me and/or damaged my car. I'd be relieved I only got a fine and not hurt. I'd pay the fine and be pissed at myself for deserving it. Because I'd have been caught 100% deserving it.

If you'd been driving safely, you'd not have slid off the road. If you are unable to judge conditions accurately enough to be able to do that in future, either stop driving or get some education or reset your perspective on slippery roads somehow. If you don't have winter tyres, buy them and fit the now. They'll save you tickets (and possibly accidents) in the same scenario next time.
posted by Brockles at 8:35 AM on November 17, 2014 [38 favorites]

There's a chance you could get it reduced, as others above have said. However, in similar circumstances, I have opted to just pay in order to remove a source of stress and frustration from my life, rather than write in an excuse, wait to hear back, etc.
posted by metasarah at 8:43 AM on November 17, 2014

You may be aware of this, but some quick online poking also makes it seem like to set up a court date you still have to pay the fine plus $8.00, to be held at least until the case is resolved. That may have some bearing on how you feel, I know for me, if I have to pay the money anyway, my indignation would probably subside, at least if there were no points.

I'd also add that for all the people talking about how you were going too fast (without any actual information on how fast you were going), you haven't been charged with speeding or going faster than is safe or prudent. Your only charge is for not staying in your lane after sliding, which seems unreasonable to me. Cars make Metafilter crazy, though.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:58 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

If you drove off the road in bad weather, you weren't driving safely, period, and you could have killed someone had you not been lucky. Pay your fine.
posted by empath at 9:05 AM on November 17, 2014 [15 favorites]

I would say pay. Sounds like the conditions were hazardous, and it will cost you more time/money to fight the fine than to pay it. (Side note and soapbox: I was recently hit by a car and I don't think the driver is even going to have to pay a fine, ugh. Dangerous driving is scary, and the penalties for drivers aren't even that steep. If it were me, I'd just be counting myself and others on the road lucky that it wasn't worse.)
posted by ferret branca at 10:04 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't know the answer to this, but one thing to consider: if you were charged with something else that was more 'appropriate', could it be that charge would have been more severe than what you were charged with? It's not clear to me what else you could be charged with that wouldn't be equally or more harsh. I say this as someone who was in an accident and charged with an improper lane change. I disputed it in front of a magistrate and 'won', but the magistrate suggested to the officer that I be charged with a different statute.

I'm also not sure if the police officer was actually being forced by his CO to do write you up, or if he was just saying that to make it harder for you to argue with him. I think if I were a police officer I'd try and redirect people's anger away from me. Saying something like "Sorry buddy. This stinks, but my hands are tied!" would more likely get people angry at 'the system' instead of me. Notice how you're not very angry at the apologetic officer who actually wrote you up, but at his CO and how it must have been done solely for revenue?
posted by Green With You at 10:15 AM on November 17, 2014

If you slide off the road, yeah, you're not driving safely.

People who get into car accidents are routinely issued tickets. One doesn't invalidate the other, which makes perfect sense, because the whole point of moving violations is that you're not operating your vehicle safely.

This is what tickets are for. It sucks that it happened, but you did the thing and the thing is why we have tickets in the first place (reminding people to drive safely). Just pay the ticket and move on.

Also, most likely there is a law on the books in your jurisdiction that specifies that you must be driving safely for current conditions, not merely following the rules of the road in general. Such a law is going to make it really hard for you to plead not guilty unless you plan to argue that the skid didn't happen at all.
posted by Sara C. at 11:18 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Just to amplify one small point. The police officer already did you a favor by reducing the charge from what you actually did to just an "unsafe lane change." So count your blessings.
posted by JimN2TAW at 11:35 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's obviously just an issue of revenue.

It may be in part, but the fine is also supposed to act as a deterrent. Once, at a red light, I got a humongous ticket for flicking a cigarette butt out the window from the cop who was stopped behind me. Guess what I never, ever did again. You'll probably be a little more mindful of driving in slushy rain from now on, too.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:42 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

PA driver here. I've lost count of how many people I've seen lose control of their vehicles because they thought they could drive at or above the posted speed limit when it's raining/sleeting/snowing/whatever. Just pay the damn ticket and be grateful you didn't hurt yourself, your passengers, or somebody else and their passengers.
posted by starbreaker at 12:08 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

If you can contest by mail, I'd do it. I do think you're morally obligated to take this experience as a lesson and drive more slowly and carefully next time you find yourself caught in a slush-storm, but I don't think you're morally obligated to pay the fine to the state, much less to your insurance company. The process of contesting a ticket exists for a reason, and you have a right to use it if you want.

However, I wouldn't argue that I was doing nothing wrong. Instead, I would humbly state that it was an honest mistake, that I'm grateful I didn't do any real damage, and that I have learned my lesson and will be more careful in the future. I would explain to the judge that the ticket and the increased insurance rate would be a real hardship for me financially (which in my case would be perfectly true; you may not be able to say this) and ask if they would be willing to see their way clear to reducing the fine or at least changing the offense to something that wouldn't affect my insurance rates.

Judges have a lot more discretion in this sort of thing than police officers do, and will often find a way to be lenient if you can convince them that you deserve and/or need it and if you appear contrite. (Denying that you did anything wrong when according to the law you obviously did never works though, in my experience.) It doesn't work all the time, but it's worth a shot and I would give it a try if I could do it without having to travel to Pennsylvania.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:18 PM on November 17, 2014

The weather doesn't care about speed limit signs. The speed limit is an upper limit not a lower limit. The only person who can make the decision on how fast to drive is you and you decided incorrectly. If I was in the same circumstance I would pay the ticket, move on with my life, be thankful no one got seriously hurt and be more careful in the future.
posted by dgeiser13 at 2:04 PM on November 17, 2014

I got a ticket for failing to indicate while waiting to turn onto a highway from a lane that could only possibly go that way, leaving a small country town, late at night when the only occupants of the road for miles in either direction were me and the cop who booked me.

I paid it.

Now I'm utterly scrupulous about indicating whether I think I "need" to or not.

Pay up, let the fact of having paid up focus your attention on the way your driving needs to improve, and improve it. One day you'll avoid killing somebody as a result, and you'll be glad that's what you've done.
posted by flabdablet at 4:57 AM on November 18, 2014

This is a pretty common ticket here and cops automatically write it if they attend a scene where a car has left the regular roadway. It's cheap and easy for them because the law is written i such a way that if you were a) driving, and b) left the road, you are defacto guilty of the offense without any judgement call (which can be questioned in court) from the cop. When you contest it the judge asks you those two questions and as you truthfully answer yes she upholds the ticket.

I've received a pretty cheezy "driving too fast for conditions" ticket and it chapped me at the time but I came to realize that whether the law is fair is orthogonal to whether I was breaking it. You can't win fighting the latter and traffic court isn;t the proper venue to fight the former.
posted by Mitheral at 12:45 PM on November 18, 2014