License suspended for 6 months in Tri-Cities, Washington

[RedRum240]

Ok here is the story.

Driving back from Pasco (oldest part of the Tri-cities) which is basicly 3 cities combined into 1. 3 small cities well 4 if you count pasco. they consist of richland, west richland, kennewick, and pasco.

Im comming back from pasco after going to hastings (where all the street racer's meet to show off their cars and just chat and tell stories.. no racing really. just a little fun talk group)

Im on some road and im goign 61 mph. after seeing a sign that said freeway entrance. all these mini vans, and other cars are passing me they seem to be going 75 mph. so I decide to play it safe as if I get one more ticket my license will get suspended. then a old grandpa has to be atleast 85 years old passes me and gives me the finger.... ok wtf?

so I let him pass... speed up to about his speed and just travel about 200 feet behind him. 10 seconds after I speed up to what everybody else was going I see way up on the side of the hill. (there is a hill on the side of the road.) a white car. and just in time for my headlights to flash state patrol....

oh **** no here is the funny thing. I never saw any speed limit signs. other people were going faster than me. and he gave me a 523$ ticket for 78 in a 55

now I think that is wrong so I call the benton county department and they said it should have only been 223$. so not only am I going to challenge the ticket but I had no idea where I was I didnt know I was speeding because I saw no speedlimit signs. I took precaution at first to go under the speed limit then after the 60th car passes and ending with a old man givign me the finger I sped up to highway speed.. my dad thinks that I may be able to challenge the ticket and definatley get it knocked down to 200 dollars. my theory is however.

that how can the offier write a ticket for 300$ more than it is worth? that kind of upsets me because the guy was a d!ck. he said to me in the side of my car oh and this means your license is now suspended he then laughs and snickers to himself and then says o well what can you do?

I know for sure I can get the ticket reduced to 200$. but if he ****ed up on a ticket that bad my dad thinks I may be able to throw the ticket out of court due to his lack of knowledge for the law.

what do you think?

[Bruno240]

explain to the judge that you didnt know what the speed limit was and youwere playing it safe at first but so many ppl were passing you that it was unsafe for you to continue at that speed so you sped up to stay with traffic when the cop pulled u over.

[whiterps13]

just because you didnt see a speed limit sign doesnt mean there isnt a speed limit. my theory is that you will be held responsible for your actions, and you will pay more in court fees than you will actually paying the ticket.

[RedRum240]

did you even read the post? went 61 then sped up as about 60 cars were passing me... so I sped up as it was a 2 lane road and there was a line of cars behind me.

[S13hdg]

Have you ever seen a limit of over 75mph?

[Bruno240]

i know what he is saying, if you go 5 mph over the speed limit on some highways around me you are gonna cause a wreck bc everyone else is going 80 and passin you

just be like i was wrong for speeding but i felt that i was more of a threat to the welll being of myself and other by going slower and having everyone pass me than to keep up with the flow

[book-ends]

Hello,

Maybe you can just cry everybody a river about it. If it's true and the officer was a jerk, but you were speeding, oh well. Just because everyone else is going above the posted speed doesn't mean that you can too. In a perfect world, states would just raise the speed limit or GIVE EVERYONE A TICKET. You rolled the dice and got burned.

My question is this: How many other tickets have you gotten in the last year (or two) that would put you in this situation in the first place? Sounds like you need to re-evaluate your driving style.

Sorry if I sound like an as$, but I've been there myself. I used to speed everywhere and cut people off and then I got the dreaded "red" licsense for six months. That set me straight right away. Just driving to campus and back sucked and I was always scared to death that I would get pulled over even when following all the laws......

That whole experience really changed the way and I drive and now I'm not in a hurry and only drive aggressively on the track. I haven't gotten a ticket of any kind (that wasn't thrown out) for three years now.

[hybrid_flyer]

LOL sorry to hear about that. Now I dont feel so bad about getting a 100+ in a 65 zone, and NOT getting arrested on site. The kicker is I will probably be found innocent, which means no points and no fines.

[Ubernoober]

All the previous offenses to bring you to this point and it sounds like you STILL didn't learn anything. So this one isn't your fault either?What are we supposed to say? Beat it on a technicality so that next time you kill someone in an accident? I don't want to see you get screwed here and the officer was rather out of line, but 78 in a 55 on a two lane road. Where I live there is a road just like that, and they call it "death alley" for a damn good reason.

[PalmerWMD]

Just tell teh judge EXACTLY what happendd including the Officer snickering.

May get a lawyer, yes it costs money but it can really help and if your license is at risk..You should get it knowcked down possibly even thorwn out. 3 out of 4 folks that challenge a ticket get it dismissed.

Fred..

[Red coupe]

yeah that sucks and hopefully youll get out easy, but honestly man, did you think the speed limit was 80 on that two lane road?if you didnt then you knew you were speeding and chose to do it, two lanes means their was room for them to pass 78 miles and hour is pretty fast seing as though the speed limit is 65 on the freeway. I realy dont see how you could expect to be safe from a speeding ticket at almost 80 mph...

[nismofly]

Have you ever seen a limit of over 75mph?

yep, everywhere you go here in north dakota. but thats beside the point, roads here are straight for more than as far as you can see.

[gogg]

Quick Drivers Ed Lesson -

No speed limit signs means the speed limit is 55 mph.

[Florida240sx]

I just got a ticket In Va. Got on the road had no idea where the hell I was. 1000miles from home and 1st time out of the state with my car. I was lost didn't know what was goign on cars were flyign pass me flicking me off etc. Was on it for 10minutes never saw a speed limit sign once. was reading every sign trying to figur eout where I was. I was clcoked goign 82 in a 60 or 55 can't remember. State trooper he came walking about and ran his hand down the side of my car and was a jerk to me. I was suppose to go to court but i'm 1000miles away i have work and i'm in school. I wrote a letter explaining the situation. Ended up with $187 ticket. Been 8months since i've been stopped. Compared to getting 4 tickets in 6 months after driving for 11 months with a clean record. Sometimes you just screwed over and no matter what you were in the wrong, but IMO they should have some law clause that states if it is unknowing with proof, like I was out of state, you got a map, you ask directions etc that the ticket is not as harsh as an actual speeding ticket. Half the time oyu gt cops that give you a break anyways other times you get a cop that will give you a ticket that's completely unlawful like yours $300 over actual price.

[bcar240]

seems like you got a crappy deal here. I know exactly what you mean in those situations where everyone is going faster and your just keeping up, but technically (trust me, I know ) it is no legal excuse. Also, accusing the officer of bias (just in case you were thinking of it) because he pulled over your sporty car instead of a minivan is not typically a good idea and may make the judge mad (because you have no way to prove it.) However, if the officer caught you on radar/ladar and was on a hill you might have a little fighting room. There is a phenomon called cosine error, that is when the path of the radar beam is at large angle to the path of the car the reading is not very accurate. Also, there are a few problems with using radar on hills. Example: .This is more of a problem for radar units mounted to the patrol car than hand-held, but adding another dimension to the cop's job will do nothing but make the results less accurate. As for trying to dismiss the ticket because of the fee mistake, it might be kind of a long shot, the officer may simply claim he wrote the wrong digit and meant to put a 2 instead of a 5. A lawyer would definatly help, especially if you are on the verge of losing your liscense. The cost will probably be offset by the insurance jump you might NOT see, afterward. Lawyers also tend to know may local loopholes and occasionally personally know the judge or prosecutor and can cut deals. From what I hear about traffic court, bringing up small details usually doesn't do much good unless you can prove the officer was being careless and thus can't be trusted to have positively got all the important stuff right, like stopping the right car (the officer or judge can change the ticket in court, so a few mistakes might just be corrected instead of resulting in a dismissal.)

[Silvia2b]

I agree tickets suck! The police who write them seem to really get a lot of satisfaction from your being caught doing something worthy of their time to justify a traffic infraction. Although I have had some very professional cops flash the red and blues too. I guess my best advice is be alert, keep your scanning moving and eyes on the entire environment not just the road. Get a radar detector, stop your habitual traffic record from escalating any further. Sorry about your license. hopefully we'll see you on the road in 6 months. Oh and when you send in the ticket in to the courts, say you did not commit the infraction. go to court and tell you story, you have a 50/50 chance the judge will be sympathetic. good luck.

[Drift Machine]

First of all I feel bad for you for living in the tri-cities

Secondly in the state of Washington all state highways have a maximum speed limit of 55mph, you would have learned this when you took your driver education course. I don't think you were on a freeway since the lowest speed limit for a freeway in Washington is 60mph. As for the ticket being 300$ over what it should have actually been, my guess is that it was just a 'typo'. Either he was really trying to screw you and be a jerk, or he just made a mistake. But it sounds like this guy was really being a douchebag, because I've gone by police (they were going the opposite direction most of the time) doing 90 mph on US 97 coming back up from Oregon in with other people in front of me going the same speed.