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Have you gotten a speeding ticket in your life

Speeding ticket Ironic story... funny but sad (for me at least)

2K views 14 replies 12 participants last post by  vtrin 
#1 ·
:)So i installed my trubendz exhaust YESTERDAY.. It's very loud as I wanted to be yet sounds very nice. So I was driving it around to appreciate the sound but I got pulled over for speeding (42 in a 30mph zone). Here is the funny part. I was giving someone a ride and the person told me it's quite loud and that it's a target for cops. I explained that i never speed and drive very respectfully and people always tell me to at least drive speed limit and 3 hours later i get a ticket. The thing is, I'm driving this one road that is downhill literally everyday and not once did i ever have a cop behind me in about 8-9 years driving this road. (Just so happens to have a cop right when install this exhaust.) Also a month ago, i chuckled at a subaru sti that was driving and reving it up for a bout 20 yards only to be pulled over by a cop... i feel that this is all coming to haunt me!! Also... that phrase "be careful what you wish for" is really ringing a bell now.


To make the story even more sad for me. My drivers license was expired for three months, i couldn't find my insurance papers (turns out i didn't have the current one and it was at home!). So 550.00 for no drivers license, 550.00 for no insurance and 155.00 for speeding ticket. I had no front license plate (trying to get that japanese style license plate) and me and my loud mouth I said i was testing out my new exhaust i installed and the cop was like that's illegal (I was like what? apparently loud exhausts are illegal).. but he didn't cite me for both of them. Anyhow, i'm in washington state so i will have to do mitgation hearing since i want this lowered (1250.00 total cost ticket!) but i remember driving on shoulder awhile back and I had no insurance also (left it at home also.. i'm an idiot :doh: and the cop mentioned that if i show proof that i had insurance at the time it will be dropped but 25.00 processing will occur.. I don't know about license expiration but 3 months is quite long and I completely forgot (i hope i'm not the only one that forgets license renewals!)... So my question is the following.

I know it differs from state to state but...
1. How much do you think the judge will cut .. i do have insurance and drivers license (i got the renewal right after i got the ticket. :lol:
2. I know this will be on my driving record and it's actually my first speeding ticket in washington. (i got one ticket from driving across country at the boring state of idaho and not sure if that goes on my record or not). How long will this be on my record? I already used the deferment the state grants when i was driving on the shoulder.
3. I have an option of going in person or doing the hearing through mail. I really want to choose mail because i have all the documents and seem to explain the situation better in writing and i'm anxious i'll say the wrong thing, stutter, blank out, or miss crucial things i want to say.. BUT i feel that doing mail hearing i feel it's less effective then live presence... I don't want to get a lawyer since it's quite pricey...
4. How much will my insurance go up.. I have allstate full coverage.

I now have to harness my driving and be a law abiding citizen. . which is good ... I REALLY HOPE that i will learn from this and drive speed limit.... just kind of unfair that i see lot of drivers going over speed limit and the ones that stick out like a sore thumb get nabbed first :)
 
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#2 ·
1. The judge will definitely drop the no insurance down to $25 since you can prove you did have it at the time. I had the same thing happen once, I just hadn't bothered to put the newer papers in the car yet so the ones I did have were a week or so expired. Not a big deal at all.

Letting your license expire is a BIG DEAL... don't ever let it expire again! I don't think you'll be able to get that one dropped down all the way too, but he should at least cut it in half since you were on top of getting it renewed quickly.

As for the speeding ticket, he may knock a little bit off but expect to pay almost the whole thing. Your appearance and manners in court may play a big role in that one, depending on the specific judge. Dress smartly and answer his/her questions quickly, politely, clearly, and HONESTLY. Don't ever ramble or make excuses.

2. Speeding tickets will stay on your record for 3 years normally, but since this is your first in-state offense they may let you do traffic school, which avoids it being put on your public (read: what insurance companies see) record. Definitely ask about that option if they don't offer it up right away.

3. Absolutely go in person to your court date if you can make the time to. You'll get a lot more reductions for making the effort to appear... no matter what you write in by mail, you're not going to get much leeway.

4. If you're able to get traffic school for the speeding ticket, get the insurance thing cleared for just the administrative fee, and this is actually your first time getting caught with an expired license... it probably won't go up at all :)
 
#5 ·
i got a ticket for doin 24 over in a 50 and i went to court pled not guilty and got it dropped to unsafe driving. i ended up gettin zero points instead of 4, just that the unsafe driving ticket was $434. which was probably cheaper than paying for hte ticket and how much my insurance would have went up
 
#6 ·
I THINK i'll buy a radar not so i can go berserk or even speed on purpose but sometimes speed limit really is slow and i think most people go at least 5mph over... however i don't know if radars work well or not.. im sure technology has made them better then i knew them...
 
#7 ·
Boy, GL with that mess!!! Not sure how they work it in other states, but here in NYS drivers licenses expire on one's birthday, so its easy to remember to take a look (if you didn't get the mail renewal, which I have always recieved).
 
#8 ·
I just got ticketed on a road that I drive on all the time b/c I picked up a little too much speed downhill...and I have a stock exhaust. I've gotten pulled over 5 times in my 06 hatch versus only 4 in my old VW Passat from 2001-06, and I was 16-20 years old and a lot dumber when I had that car. What's crazy is I've never been pulled over or ticketed when I was making a concerted effort to speed. The only time I've gotten tickets is when I was crusing on the highway with not a lot of traffic or coasting downhill. :censored:
 
#10 ·
I never believe this worked, but my friend got a speeding ticket for 100MPH in his WRX in socal.

He paid $1000 bail, and did this thing called "trial by written declaration". (Do a google search)

The courts ruled in his favor since the cop didn't respond to his written declaration and he got his bail money back.

There's some law that you don't have to be present for your trial and you can do it in writing. If you search hard enough, you might even be able to find a format you can use for free. No i don't have the format because this never happened to me. I paid the one speeding ticket I got.

I was radar'd going 90mph to vegas in a black civic. I was very cooperative with the CHP and he reduced my ticket to show I was speeding at 80mph not 90mph.
 
#11 ·
some of these fines I'm seeing are crazy. Before I got my 3 I accidently ran a red light and hit someone, the fine ended up only being a hundred dollars.
 
#12 ·
Just a couple weeks ago I got a ticket for doing 40 in a 30 (yeah, I can't believe the cop bothered to pull me over, either). When he wrote up the ticket, he explained that he could write the ticket up one of two ways -- either under a state statute for speeding, or a city statute. He said he was writing it up under the city statute, which means the state would never find out about the ticket and thus it wouldn't go on my record. (In essence, it's an expensive parking ticket.) When I got home I did some more research and found out that when they write up the ticket under a city statute, the city doesn't have to share the money from the fine with the state. With cities getting less money from the state government, it's not surprising that they're writing tickets up this way now -- all they need to do is set up a speed trap and the fine money is all theirs.

So yeah, $152 for doing 40 in a 30 sucks, but it's way better than having the ticket go on my record.
 
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