How to Beat a Traffic Ticket
People Breaking Driving Rules Look for an Escape
After a year on the job, the average traffic police officer has heard every excuse the inventive human mind can come up with – probably several times.
Warren Redlich, who writes a blog called “Albany Lawyer,” has collected some of his favourite defences offered by clients caught speeding:
- I was going downhill;
- I have oversized tires;
- I was late and my wife was waiting for me;
- It was a rental car (or someone else’s car) and I wasn’t familiar with it;
- My car can’t go that fast;
- I wasn’t familiar with the road; and,
- I’ve got really bad diarrhea and I’m rushing to the next rest area.
None of these justifications are going to work and drivers using them are going to hear that familiar phrase: “Tell it to the judge.”
Beat that ticket
There are ways to avoid fines and worse for traffic violations but they involve evidence not lame excuses.
Sheldon Zeiger has written a guide for those facing a hearing on tickets. A former Chicago city hearing officer, Zeiger has disposed of more than 100,000 parking ticket cases in his 15 years on the job. In his self-published book, “Stick it to Your Ticket,” he advises people to understand the law if they hope to win.
Reporting on the book, The Chicago Tribune (July 19, 2009) quotes Zeiger as saying: “If [motorists] are going to contest a ticket, the hearing officer has to believe your defence, not your excuse.” Was the sign missing or obscured? Was the [parking] meter broken or inoperable? That will get you out of the ticket.”
Tribune reporters William Lee and Sally Ho say they book is written with humour and contains a catalogue of those driver pleas to be cut some slack: “The doorman said it was OK to park here. I went to the store to get quarters. The doctor’s visit ran long. My wife was about to give birth. I rebuffed the advances of the officer so he ticketed me.”
Even Nuns Can’t Beat the Ticket
When Pope Benedict slipped and broke his wrist in July 2009, Sister Tavoletta felt compelled to rush to his aid. But, Sister Tavoletta was about 500 kilometres away in Turin.
She and two other nuns got into a Ford Fiesta. Later, reports The Daily Telegraph, they “were stopped by police for speeding at 120mph (190 kmh).” The Telegraph story (July 19, 2009) continues, “When stunned officers asked why they were speeding, Sister Tavoletta said: ‘We had heard how the Pope had fallen over and we were on our way to make sure he was OK.”
There’ll be no leniency for the flying nun. A spokesman for Turin’s police, said: “Hopefully Sister Tavoletta will be making sure she confesses her bad driving the next time she goes to confession. But in the meantime, she will have to pay the Euros 375 fine ($590).”
Foolproof Way to Beat Tickets
Police officers, magistrates, judges, and lawyers know there is one way to beat a traffic ticket. It works every time - obey the traffic code.
Feed the Meter to Avoid Ticket
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