Yup....I believe this is the very reason that up here in B.C., Photo Radar is no longer used. Period.
Courts ruled that the owner could not be held responsible for tickets sent to them in the mail (as owner of a car caught speeding by an unattended photo van) when the driver of the vehicle could not be identified in the photo ticket when the owner denied it was them.
It all got really rolling when public outcry pretty much proved the vans were being set up in 'dicey' locations for generation of income over speed enforcement. Some of the stories are epic.
Now you have to meet face to face with your accuser. No chicken**** photo radar tickets arriving in your mailbox when you lent your car to your stoner brother.

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Some of you guys are silly. You know the consequences of speeding. Yet you decide to do it, and when you get caught, you get mad at the officer for doing his job. Enforcing the law. Sometimes it sucks, on both sides.

Some of the advice in here is pretty good and some of it isn't so sound. Do not ignore this. As the others have said, a little mistake isn't always going to get the ticket thrown out. The last thing you want is a bench warrant and a suspended drivers license. Some departments give their officers assigned court dates and times through the year. If you keep rescheduling then it will more than likely be rescheduled on another one of the officers court dates. If it isn't, that officer will more than likely be issued a subpoena to be at court. That means that he technically has to go.

I would simply go to court and fight it yourself. Theres no sense in hiring a lawyer for a little traffic charge. Decide whatever your defense should be and roll with it. If you got a ticket in California, use that guide that someone posted. That is actually a really good defense in the way that law was written.

Almost by definition, people who drive 50 in a 35 are not good citizens. Man up. You got caught and the ticket, along with its associated costs, are supposed to be painful and ruin your day.

:icon17:

cops word vs yours in court, along with tons of identical information on the ticket matching you. You lose every single time. If you don't want to get tickets, follow the traffic laws. Otherwise live with the consequences.

I found out that in Indiana a couple "myths" about traffic court are not true. My teenage son got a ticket for running a red light. Somehow the officer wrote the ticket to me because the title was in my name. I thought, cool, the officer screwed up, this will get dismissed. I waste a morning trying to get the ticket dismissed. They won't budge, and I file not guilty and get a date with the judge. I waste another half day of work going to court. The officer is a no show. Again, I think I have a perfect situation to get this thrown out. Nope, the judge says the officer needs to be there to verify I wasn't the driver and gives the officer an out by rescheduling. So I waste another half day of work, go back to court and the officer tells the judge that he made a mistake and the ticket was removed from my record and they re-issued it to my son. Once it was corrected, my son paid the fine and didn't hassle with going to court.

So, if the officer doesn't show up, it doesn't get automatically dropped.
If the info on the ticket is completely incorrect, they can fix it as needed.

If you are guilty, you may be able to to defer the ticket. In Indiana, you can get the prosecutor to give you a deferment. You basically pay the fine plus a monthly fee for 6 months. If you don't get a ticket during the 6 months, the ticket is dropped. You don't get points and your insurance will not know. But, if you get any ticket during the 6 months, you loose the money you paid and have to deal with the original ticket all over again.

one time i got a reckless driving ticket going 0mph... yea 0 as in zero miles per hour. guess what i still had to pay $600 for a lawyer, $400 for the ticket and $100 for the defensive driving school.

unless they give you a blank ticket, you will have to pay for it. i have never seen a ticket get dismissed because something was written wrong on it.

every time i got a ticket i went to court and got it reduced so it doesn't go on my record and i get no points. more importantly the insurance doesn't find out.

Also traffic court is one of the most boring, aggravating, and staged courts of all time. They can postpone, delay, make you come back as many times as they want. Its not even worth going. The traffic court judge I was in front of over an expired meter, his name was Judge Steven Segal, I kid you not, and he was just as much a pompous jerk as the real one! He was on stage, and all the people at court were his audience, he only got to like 5 cases, and the other 25 people there had to come back another night, after sitting there for 4 hours until 11pm on a work night.

Radars and laser jammers.......... Haven't had a ticket in 8 years and trust me, I push the limit on a regular basis. If I don't wanna speed I drive my smart car, which is my DD, but when I get in my Nismo or SRT8 there's a strong chance I'm getting in the triples.

OP, a few things:

1. if the cop wrote incorrect info on your ticket, a good lawyer will question the competency of the leo.
2. provided the leo got you with a laser radar gun, you could check public records whether the device was properly calibrated, which again, a good lawyer would eat up.

I gotta ask; what exactly were you doing/not doing to receive a ticket for reckless driving, when your car wasn't even moving? A burnout?

Amen

no, i was driving 40 in a 25 zone coming into a turn that had pot holes in the road. i got as close to the double yellow line without crossing it, a cop was coming on the opposite end and turned around after me. i immediately pulled over cause i thought she got me going 15mph not a big deal. she comes up to the window and states "you could have lost control and hit me" and proceeds to write me a reckless driving ticket.


i could have won the lottery but didnt. wish i could go collect the 200 million jackpot with that statement :roflpuke2: :roflpuke2:

don't laugh man... i saw it happen although it was a pelaton of bike cops. about 6 of them somehow pulled over a car. the crazy part in the opposite direction another group of bike cops had someone else pulled over.

okay it was pretty funny :rofl2:

seeing a bimmer and a caddy being written up by a bike cop :tup:

1) Which is garbage because ANYONE can make a mistake. This is why I have a strong dislike for defense attorneys.

2) Most newer LIDARs (laser) calibrate themselves when you turn them on. Also on LIDARs, calibration is literally pushing a button and waiting 5 seconds. Radars are just as easy.