Ticket!! >:0

[puckhead193]

Too weeks ago i was in Newton Mass getting Coldstone...yumm... and i got a ticket for "going through a red light" The light turn red as i was just finishing crossing the intersections. He claims i sped up, but i didn't. Since i'm from out of state the points don't go my license etc,. I just paid the fine cause it was only $20 he said he let me off with the by laws or something like that.... i think he just wanted to give a kid from NY driving a lexus a ticket to make him feel better
For those of you who know that area, it happened right in front of the starbucks in the town near coldstone.... I went to coldstone last night and i was very careful that place is littered with cops

 

[m-dogg]

I fought a ticket once. It was lowered from $200 to $150, but then it also got reported to my insurance company and my rates went up. Not worth it in the long run...

Since then I just please no contest. I pay the fine and geet a couple points on my record, but the insurance company doesn't find out about it...

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Too weeks ago i was in Newton Mass getting Coldstone...yumm... and i got a ticket for "going through a red light"...

Wow, 20 bucks is getting off easy - they hit you pretty hard for that around where I live.

 

[CorvusCamenarum]

Try this. It's got a lot of useful information in it.

http://www.geocities.com/speeding@sbcglobal.net/SPEEDING.html

 

[Gizmotoy]

I see that I'm a little late on this one, but I have a bit of experience with the court system here in Ohio. Granted, I was just sent to traffic court, which works differently, but...

The background is, I was literally going about 10 miles an hour and hit a guardrail. Why? Because there was 10 inches of snow on the ground (unplowed), and I was trying to make a 90 degree turn on a 45 degree decline. Anyway, the guy behind me couldnt stop either, and hit me. When we got the cars pulled off, and while the cop was standing there, we witnessed a further 5... yes, you read that right... FIVE cars do the exact same thing. Guess what? Tickets for all! No, no one ever bothered to call a plow to fix the conditions.

Anyway, cop didn't show up in court for us, but for some reasons the charges stood. Ended up having to plea to "Improper use of lights", some bullcrap charge without points. Those who didn't plea got "failure to control".

In any case, what I'm trying to say is it appears that in some cases you may get screwed even if the cop doesn't show up. On the other hand, I know that while you do get a "credit" for taking the traffic school, the insurance companies can still see it on your record and increase premiums accordingly. Heck, my premiums went up for the above accident even though as far as the insurance company knows I simply got rear-ended (paid for the minor front-end damage myself).

So I've begun rambling. Sorry to hear about the ticket, hope all goes well. Try to at least keep in under 20 over in the future

 

[Johnny Rico]

Insurance companies are thieving sacks of ****.

 

[Sun Baked]

I agree, serves you right.

Speed Kills! THINK!

I repeat, speed doesn't kill...

It's the sudden deceleration with other objects, that splat you over the vehicle's interior, that kills.

 

[alexstein]

I feel for you, man! Getting SpeedingTickets really sucks. I had some fun in 2004.....and right now... I'm paying for it. (got to be pretty familiar with court appearances and what's that Officer called you have to go visit?)

No more speeding for me (even though, sometimes it just itches.)

 

[2jaded2care]

I got my one and only speeding ticket years ago for going 84 (I think) on the freeway, 55 mph limit. Since then I don't think I've exceeded about 78 in a 65 mph. I don't like to be the fast one they're looking for, I prefer the relative safety of the pack. Plus with gas prices nowadays, I try to keep it to 65, if traffic will allow it safely.

Excessive speed does cut down on your reaction time. You may not do something stupid, but others can and do. (Ever had a pickup bedliner go up and over your car? I have.)

Plus, more speed = more force in an impact. Once years ago I got it to 95 or so -- it was too scary for me, that fast and five feet from the concrete barrier wall. Had I hit the wrong piece of debris, or had a spider drop from the visor into my lap, that would have been it.

Plus, I've noticed cars are expensive...

 

[mac-er]

Fight it. Cops (especially Highway Patrol) hate going to court. This is actually the best time to do it, being that your court date is so close to the holidays. The chances that the officer will be busy/preoccupied is even more likely.

I got clocked going 85 in a 65. Decided to fight it. Showed up at court, the officer wasn't there and I walked out a free man. No $250 fine. No points. It's worth a shot... Good luck!

Most officers have predetermined court days, especially in larger areas. So every ticket they write will be able to be in court that day.

How else did you think it works, or they'd be in court like everyday.

 

[SpaceMagic]

Please tell me you are joking. Even the terrible government we have in this country has been forced to admit that speed is not the primary cause of most accidents.

I'm not joking.

Other factors of course, like bad driving. However the law is there for a reason - and speed does kill take this scenario:

Driver coming up to a pedestrian crossing in a 30mph zone. Kid runs out. Driver has 23metres to STOP. Driver doing 45mph (as one said on this thread) it's 36 metres to STOP. What if the kid crossing is only 28 metres away? Speed kills.

A friend of my family lost her daughter to a van driver doing 65 on a country road. She came round the corner, and he didn't have time to stop. FORCE = MASS X ACCELERATION. The force he hit at would have been a lot less if he was driving at the recommended 40.

I see no reason to speed. It's usually a male macho thing and think people who "go wild" behind the wheel should have their lisence taken off them.

 

[mac-er]

Once I got pulled over for doing 95 in a 60, and the only form of identification I had at the time was my AAA card (I had just lost my drivers license to a forgetful bank drive-thru teller, and I don't know where my insurance was at the time.. luckily my vehicle registration was adhered to my windshield otherwise i wouldn't have had that either). Also I didn't want to get pulled over on the freeway so I drove several miles to an exit and got off. THAT pissed the cop off even more than no id/insurance. I was particularly unhappy about this because I had a lot of pot in the car at the time, as well as a baggy of Heroin and a sheet of lsd in my pocket (I was on my way to a party to make some $$). At least i wasn't tripping at that exact moment! For some really bizarre reason I got let off for all the traffic violations with several warnings and never got searched, so the narcotics got left alone and I made a couple of grand that night.

You must have been so proud of yourself.

 

[evoluzione]

I pay the fine and geet a couple points on my record, but the insurance company doesn't find out about it...

all very nice until you come to claim something, and all of a sudden your insurance company finds out you have more points...they'll cancel your policy and drop your coverage immediately, which could prove very, very costly.

 

[Daveway]

In my area, cops usually don't start pulling people over until they're over 10mph over the speed limit.
Most of the time I just travel with the general speed of traffic. On the interstate, the speed limit is 70mph, but most people do 80-85 and that speed becomes the general speed of everyone.

Cops can't pull over everyone.

I've never got a speed ticket but I did do about 120 in a 40. It was late at nite and in the swamps of LA so no one was around.

 

[EGT]

You must have been so proud of yourself.

Oh yes.

I hope you haven't been tripping while driving at any point in time ... you make it sound like you have, Johnny?

Little sympathy for those speeding let alone those speeding with a bunch of drugs on the passenger seat or in their stomach.

 

[173080]

I've done many foolish things on the road.

For one, I was seen by a cop doing 108mph on a 35mph road in my Bimmer dodging moderate traffic and all I got from him was a thumbs-up. Now that I think about it that was incredibly stupid.

I've also done powerslides and the craziest U-turns which happen to leave smoke from the tires affecting the visibility of other drivers in front of law enforcement and got away with it.

Earlier this week I nearly killed myself in four different ways in the span of four seconds:
1. I almost rear ended a line of parked cars at a stoplight at 140kmh which would have probably damaged all the cars stopped there and I would have totaled my car. I'm also pretty sure that an impact at 140kmh would have hurt me pretty badly if it didn't kill me.
2. In an effort to prevent that impact I nearly side-swiped another vehicle, I missed it by a few cm.
3. As I was changing lanes to prevent the impact I managed to change from the normal ground traffic lanes to a lane that goes over a bridge to bypass the intersection at the last possible minute. A fraction of a second later and I would have caught two wheels on the bridge and two off the bridge which would have flipped my car over and could have sent me to a painful airborne death.
4. When I finally got on that bridge I almost drove under an 18-wheeler but luckily I managed to slow down quickly enough.

Altough I haven't been caught or given a ticket the scare was enough, I've been driving like an old man over the past couple of days. Now I know why my parents were against the Bimmer as a first car, if one has the means to drive fast...

 

[w_parietti22]

No Soup for you!

lol... thats my favorite Seinfeld episode.

 

[Gizmotoy]

I'm not joking.

Other factors of course, like bad driving. However the law is there for a reason - and speed does kill take this scenario:

Yea, but nobody here was actually talking about speeding through resedential areas. Obviously, that's just a stupid thing to do.

Here in the US speed limits on the highways were enacted to save gasoline during the war. Since then, there have been multiple studies that have conclusively shown that raising the speed limit actually decreases the risk of accidents. The most telling of these occurred when we lifted the federal speed limit of 55, allowing the states to set their own, mostly higher, limits. Highway fatalities and accidents dropped. It's not the speed at which you are going, its the speed between the fastest car on the road and the slowest. Cars going 55 when the average speed is 70 are just as dangerous as those going 85.

Just because it seems like common sense doesn't necessarily make it true. I'll try to dig up those studies, I think I bookmarked them somewhere...

 

[robbieduncan]

Yea, but nobody here was actually talking about speeding through resedential areas. Obviously, that's just a stupid thing to do.

Here in the US speed limits on the highways were enacted to save gasoline during the war. Since then, there have been multiple studies that have conclusively shown that raising the speed limit actually decreases the risk of accidents. The most telling of these occurred when we lifted the federal speed limit of 55, allowing the states to set their own, mostly higher, limits. Highway fatalities and accidents dropped. It's not the speed at which you are going, its the speed between the fastest car on the road and the slowest. Cars going 55 when the average speed is 70 are just as dangerous as those going 85.

Just because it seems like common sense doesn't necessarily make it true. I'll try to dig up those studies, I think I bookmarked them somewhere...

Here in the UK the 70mph speed limit was placed on the motorways as a temporary limit to stop the use of the newly built M1 as a test track for racing cars! Unfortunately the limit has never been raised or altered since. I am all for 30mph limits in appropriate places (built up areas etc). I'm even in favour of 20mph limits outside schools, on small side streets and the like.

What I am not in favour of is the gross oversimplification of road safety into a single message: "Speed Kills". This has led to a vast number of people believing that as long as they are travelling at, or under the speed limit then they are safe, all other factors getting ignored. These are the people you see sitting 2 meters of your rear bumper at 65 mph in the pissing rain and fog. These are the people who smoke whilst driving. These are the people who use their mobile phones whilst driving, put on their makeup and eat their breakfast at the same time.

What we need is an actual focus on safety not speed. Lets remove all the speed cameras and have lots of police. They can judge when your speed in appropriate and turn a blind eye when you are doing 90 mph on an empty motorway in great conditions. They can also stop you for doing 60 mph n the same road in heavy snow.

Lets not forget that people should not be stepping out in front of moving cars either. There was a case of a person getting prosecuted in Scotland recently for causing a car crash as a pedestrian.

Lets also not forget that the speed limits in the UK were set when the average car had all round drum brakes, no ABS, no power steering, no traction control, no stability control etc. We could easily raise the limits in a lot of places.

Edit: In case this rant is taken as being against the quoted post it's not. It's meant to back up that answer!

 

[Sun Baked]

These are the people you see sitting 2 meters of your rear bumper at 65 mph in the pissing rain and fog. These are the people who smoke whilst driving. These are the people who use their mobile phones whilst driving, put on their makeup and eat their breakfast at the same time.

What we need is an actual focus on safety not speed. Lets remove all the speed cameras and have lots of police. They can judge when your speed in appropriate and turn a blind eye when you are doing 90 mph on an empty motorway in great conditions. They can also stop you for doing 60 mph n the same road in heavy snow.

Always fun to see people in SUVs speeding in bad weather, of course the majority of the vehicles sitting upside down after the bad weather are these same SUVs.

Of course this big wheel/low profile tire trend is turning cars into turtles these days also, those low rims are great for catching some pavement during slides.

If people concentrated on driving while driving and actually became aware of the fact that the safe limit falls in bad weather, life would be safer -- won't happen though.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm not a betting man, so I won't fight a ticket - I'll take my medicine and be done with it. And yes, I can do a remedial course and get a 2-point credit.

Good for you. Tickets (especially for such clear violations) should be a lesson learned. I'm always amazed by the number of people who say you try to avoid responsibility for breaking the law.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Highway cops have a huge hard-on for doing their job.

SuperTroopers I have never met.

Show me a highway trooper who doesnt act like a total high and mighty jackass, holding their chest out and acting like they are a principal in middle school. Makes me sick.

Enforcing the law -- the nerve of them!

 

[IJ Reilly]

I got my one and only speeding ticket years ago for going 84 (I think) on the freeway, 55 mph limit. Since then I don't think I've exceeded about 78 in a 65 mph. I don't like to be the fast one they're looking for, I prefer the relative safety of the pack. Plus with gas prices nowadays, I try to keep it to 65, if traffic will allow it safely.

Excessive speed does cut down on your reaction time. You may not do something stupid, but others can and do. (Ever had a pickup bedliner go up and over your car? I have.)

Plus, more speed = more force in an impact. Once years ago I got it to 95 or so -- it was too scary for me, that fast and five feet from the concrete barrier wall. Had I hit the wrong piece of debris, or had a spider drop from the visor into my lap, that would have been it.

Plus, I've noticed cars are expensive...

Exactly. Some people apparently think the laws -- including the laws of physics -- don't apply to them.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Here in the US speed limits on the highways were enacted to save gasoline during the war. Since then, there have been multiple studies that have conclusively shown that raising the speed limit actually decreases the risk of accidents. The most telling of these occurred when we lifted the federal speed limit of 55, allowing the states to set their own, mostly higher, limits. Highway fatalities and accidents dropped. It's not the speed at which you are going, its the speed between the fastest car on the road and the slowest. Cars going 55 when the average speed is 70 are just as dangerous as those going 85.

Just because it seems like common sense doesn't necessarily make it true. I'll try to dig up those studies, I think I bookmarked them somewhere...

Unless you can provide a source for this claim, I will have to assume it's a total fiction. It is a physical impossibility.

 

[robbieduncan]

Unless you can provide a source for this claim, I will have to assume it's a total fiction. It is a physical impossibility.

From this preliminary study: "The accident involvement rates on streets and highways in urban areas was highest for the slowest 5 percent of traffic, lowest for traffic in the 30-to-95-percentile range and increased for the fastest 5 percent of traffic. The relative involvement rate is a measure of the chance of being involved in an accident, and is a ratio of the percent of accidents in a given speed range to the percent of travel in the same speed range" The same document previous noted that most drivers were not within the limits so you can assume that those travelling a bit above the limit (in the 95th percentile) are safer than those travelling very slowly.

See Also:
Speed Cameras Increase Accidents
Fatality rates dropping with speed limit increases

Just because some facts don't agree with your beliefs doesn't make it a physical impossibility.