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Posts Tagged ‘law enforcement’

Avoiding Speeding Tickets Can Be Done With The Correct Approach

Friday, September 24th, 2010

The best method to avoid getting a speeding ticket is to not drive. But most people work so this wont be possible for the masses. If you don’t like the thought of riding the bus then read through the following tips so hopefully you can avoid your next speeding ticket.

1. Don’t go over the speed limit. This is the obvious one, but honestly if you want to avoid a speeding ticket don’t speed. If you must speed do it on the highway.

2. Prepare beforehand. The only way to avoid your next speeding ticket is to stay ahead of the game. The next time you get a chance, take a walk around your car and make sure everything is in working order. Things like your headlights, tail lights, blinkers and mirrors should all be in functioning condition.

3. Quality of your vehicle. Fix small issues like cracked windows and use some touch up paint if your car needs it. Keeping it clean and up to date will help you avoid the eyes of the law.

4. Stay alert. Don’t sleep and drive! Always maintain a good visible lookout of your surroundings. A police officer can be anywhere – not only in front of you. Beware of turns and curves in the road. These are magnets for speeding tickets. Approach bridges and underpasses with caution. Keep your seat in an upright position so you can see clearly and without difficulty.

5. Don’t be suspicious. If you drive a 1987 Olds Cutlass then don’t go driving in nicer neighborhoods as this will definitely spark a cops interest.

6. Don’t attract unnecessary attention. Everyone knows that driving a nice high performance car will always draw more attention than say a Ford Taurus will.

7. Watch for curves. Do not exceed the speed limit around curves. You never know who will be waiting to give you a speeding ticket.

8. Avoid the left lane. Most cops will admit to targeting the left lane of the highway when looking to give out speeding tickets. This lane is known as the ‘fast lane’ and motorists usually do more speeding in this lane than the other lanes.

9. Know your city. Does your town or city have photo radar enforcement? These are becoming more popular as a way to automatically give out speeding tickets. You may think you only see a regular SUV on the side of the road, when in fact it could be a photo radar unit.

10. Brake lights. This is a sure fire way to know if trouble is lurking up ahead. Whenever one is traveling on the highway they rarely will apply their brakes, unless someone cut in front of them or they are exiting the highway.

11. Be aware of what the police drive. A lot of the time you never know that the car you were just driving next to was an unmarked police cruiser until your pulled over and issued a speeding ticket. The unmarked cars are almost always the same as the marked cars, only they will be painted as the civilian version.

12. Know your speed traps. These are very prevalent everywhere, to find out the places in your area that police hand out a lot of speeding tickets check out Speedtrap.org for an exhaustive list for any city in the US.

Its impossible to avoid all speeding tickets during your driving life, but being aware of these tips can put the odds in your favor.

Want to find out more about speeding tickets? Then visit Timothy Williams’s site for information on how to avoid and beat speeding tickets if you or someone you know has received one.

Say Cheese, The Photo Radar Might Be Taking Your Picture!

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Conventional speed enforcement has its limitations. You can only pull over one vehicle at a time. This method is unproductive, slow and expensive from the government’s point of view.

So now technology has developed to the point where different ways have been cleverly created to give out tickets quicker and less expensively.

The old system of traffic enforcement simply wasn’t doing the job of making the kinds of money our government wants to make.

There are just too many factors: First, they have to hire the cop to pull you over. This also means the use of a police vehicle which also costs money. Next, the traffic stop itself is a dangerous situation for the officer and potentially other drivers or pedestrians. Third, after it’s all said and done, the driver may still end up driving away without a ticket (if the officer decides to just give a warning).

And maybe the final factor was that in the time it took for said police officer to pull you over and write the ticket dozens more drivers go speeding by! Money lost down the drain.

So the photo radar was introduced to take handing out tickets to a whole new level. They can do the job of many officers.

There’s no longer the need to actually pull people over anymore. With traffic cameras, speeding tickets are mailed directly to the home of the offender. Talk about service!

Since it was deployed photo radar has increased revenue for municipalities that employ it, maximized enforcement resources for other duties, and increased conviction rates in traffic court. Also drivers insurance rates went up.

Currently only 20 states or so use the photo radar for speeding detection, but it is on the rise.

The photo radar is growing in popularity simply because of the points stated previously.

Many cities are beginning to join the growing ranks of municipalities using photo radar because of the automaticity of its revenue generation.

Photo radar can give a financially troubled city an almost immediate injection of revenue.

Looking at it from the municipalities’ point of view it makes perfect sense. One photo radar can do the work of what would normally take a small army of real officers.

How does it work? Photo radar, as the name suggests, is a combination of a camera coupled with a radar gun. The two work together. The radar gun is preprogrammed to function at a particular speed.

For instance say the speed limit of a particular road is set at 45 mph, the photo radar can be set to activate if it detects a speed over 50 mph.

When a car passes the photo radar unit and is traveling faster than the predetermined cut off point it will snap a photo of your license plate. And so it goes 24/7, courtesy of big brother hundreds of people can be cited this way.

The following day, a few people will gather all of the pictures that were taken and begin to examine them.

What the examiners are looking for is the clarity of the picture and if the plate number can be read.

Once the legible pictures from the photo radar have been determined and the license plate numbers ran through the bureau of motor vehicles database, if the car is registered to say, a female, and there is a female driving the vehicle, BINGO, a speeding ticket will be on its way to the registered owners address.

This process is repeated until all the pictures from the photo radar have been gone through, until the next batch arrives. Please let this article be a warning for you to look out for photo radar enforcement!

Learn more about beating speeding tickets. Stop by Steven Swihart’s site where you can find out all about traffic violations and the best advice to getting them dismissed.

Your Guide On How To Fight Speeding Tickets

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Nobody likes to get speeding tickets. Hopefully, this article will give readers some insight on how to fight speeding tickets.

One thing you could do is file a discovery request with the prosecutor to acquire any documents relating to your case. These documents could include things such as the calibration records of the radar or speedometer of the car that clocked your speed. You would want to do this in advance of your traffic court date so you would have time to go through them for inaccuracies. But the possible downside of this is reminding the officer who gave you the ticket to show up in traffic court.

To fight speeding tickets remember that speed detecting devices such as laser detectors and radar can be subject to human error. And in a lot of instances police officers have neglected to provide proof of proper positioning of these instruments and thus cases have been dismissed.

Everybody has heard of cases of all kinds being dismissed because of a technicality. And this does happen. Certain things have to be done correctly for a speeding ticket to be valid. If for instance the officers badge number or signature is illegible you may a valid point to have your speeding ticket dismissed.

You want to keep brief your report of your side of the argument to the judge when you go to traffic court to fight speeding tickets. Remember that the judge has very limited time for each individual in traffic court. Use visual aids to help your argument such as a photo of an obscured sign by a tree or bush.

Officers rarely have a good reason for missing traffic court. If you go to court to fight speeding tickets and the officer isn’t there and the court asks for a continuance you should respectfully object. This is an example of winning your case by default and it happens more often than you might think.

Car insurance rates can be raised for a long time after having speeding ticket points go against your driving record. Obviously the best way to avoid having to fight speeding tickets in the first place is to not get one at all. But eventually there might come a day when you need to face traffic court head on. Do your research and come out a winner.

Looking to find the best information on how to fight speeding tickets? Then visit www.Speedingticketdefense.info to find the best advice on traffic court and how to have your ticket dismissed.

categories: speeding tickets,law,automobile insurance,driving,law enforcement,family

The Difference Between Moving Violations And Non Moving Violations

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

There are two main differences between traffic violations. Knowing which kind you have can be very important when determining how to handle your particular situation.

If you receive a minor citation that doesn’t result in points to your license you may be better off just paying it instead of fighting it in traffic court.

Traffic tickets fall under one of two categories: non-moving violations and moving violations. Non-moving violations typically involve parking your car illegally or minor ‘fix-it’ tickets. These violations are not as serious as their counter-parts (moving violations) and usually involve much smaller fines.

Also these don’t show up on your record, and your auto insurance wont get wind of them either.

Common non moving violations can include failure to use your seatbelt, improper registration, no license plate or lamps, improper parking, and a broken or non working taillight.

The fines for non moving violations are normally small, like around $50 or less. So its usually better, just from a hassle stand point, to pay these types of violations and not waste hours in traffic court.

However, if you feel you were unjustly ticketed for any reason, you should always make an attempt to try and resolve the matter in some way. For instance, a broken tail light ticket can usually be beat by showing a recent receipt that you have fixed the tail light.

On the other hand, a moving violation is any law broken by the automobile driver while the vehicle is in motion. This type of violation is distinguished by the term ‘motion’. While a non moving violation is charged against the vehicle, a moving violations are charged against the driver of a vehicle. While usually only classifies as infractions or misdemeanors, serious violations can be felonies.

In most places, moving violations involve fines which must be paid as well as punitive points assessed to the license of the driver. As a driver accumulates points, he or she may be required to attend defensive driving lessons, re-take his or her driving test or even surrender his or her license.

Here in the United States, citation fines are nominal dollar amounts, usually between $50 and $500. In some countries, however, they are proportional to the violator’s income and fines in excess of $100,000 can be assessed to wealthy individuals.

Common moving violations include: speeding (by far the most common violation) , running a stop sign or red traffic light, failure to yield to someone with the right of way, failing to maintain a single lane, not stopping for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, crossing the gore (striped area), failure to secure a load to a truck, driving in a car pool lane illegally, or driving too slow for road conditions, particularly in a left-hand lane

Some examples of serious moving violations are drunk driving, racing on a public road, road rage and vehicular homicide.

Traffic violations are also broken down into either civil or criminal. While they both have points and fines associated with them, only criminal violations can wind up you up in jail.

Sentences handed down in criminal violations are obligations to the state for acts committed. The term ‘state’ can be a city, town, state or federal government or any other kind of m municipality. These are moving violations to avoid at all costs, obviously.

Looking to find the best information on the internet about traffic tickets? Then visit www.Speedingticketdefense.info to find the best advice for beating your traffic ticket.

categories: speeding tickets,law,automobile insurance,driving,law enforcement,family

Check Out These Amazing Facts About Speeding Tickets

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Over 100,000 people a day receive a speeding ticket in this country. That’s over 36,500,000 speeding tickets per year.

One in every six drivers will be ticketed for speeding this year.

Average speeding tickets cost $150.

36,500,000 x 150.00 = $5,475,000,000 That’s almost 5 and a half BILLION dollars per year in speeding ticket fines alone.

$900 is the average increase a speeding ticket will cause your auto insurance premiums to increase over three years.

Multiply 900 by 36,500,000 and you get $3,285,000,000 (3.28 BILLION dollars) in extra insurance money the insurance industry makes in a single year just from speeding tickets.

Most people simply pay their speeding tickets instead of fighting it in traffic court. (over 95%!)

Of the 5% of people who do go to traffic court to contest their ticket, a large percentage will either have the charge reduced or the ticket dropped altogether.

In the US there are almost 200 million licensed drivers.

Immediate grounds for dismissal of a traffic ticket is the officer not showing up to traffic court. This happens 40% of the time.

The first city in the US to use the photo radar was Paradise Valley, AZ in 1987.

The first city to mandate the wearing of seat belts was Brooklyn Ohio in 1966.

Drivers aged 17-24 receive the majority of speeding tickets.

More males than females receive speeding citations.

More women fight their speeding tickets than men.

Seventeen year old drivers are more likely to be involved in an accident than any other age group.

In 1879 two men in Seattle Washington were ticketed for speeding horses.

The first automobile made by Henry Ford in 1894 only went forward.

In 1868 horse buggies and also pedestrians in London were the first to use the precursor to the modern day traffic lights.

Photo radar cameras in Washington D.C. since 1999 have issued almost 3 million tickets worth almost $200 million.

The wife of the Prime Minister of Canada has the first known filed speeding ticket on record. She was busted doing almost a tremendous 10 mph above the posted speed limit.

Out of all professions, doctors get the most speeding tickets.

In salary and benefits an average police officer will cost a city around $75,000 a year. He will also make the town an average of $150,000 in that same year. Cops are good investments.

The top 10 states for giving out speeding tickets are:

1. Ohio 2. Pennsylvania 3. New York 4. California 5. Texas 6. Georgia 7. Virginia 8. North Carolina 9. Massachusetts 10. Connecticut

Learn how to fight your speeding ticket in traffic court. Stop by Joe Eagen’s site where you can find a lot more advice to help you challenge your traffic violations successfully.

categories: speeding tickets,law,automobile insurance,driving,law enforcement,family

Fighting Your Traffic Ticket: Don’t Make These 5 Foolish Mistakes

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

There have been, over the years, some pretty pathetic defense strategies when it came to fighting a traffic ticket. Someone would read some information somewhere or use some advice from a relative or friend.

This article will outline five of the biggest mistakes you can make when battling your traffic ticket in court. Familiarize yourself with them and never use them in traffic court.

Mistake #1- Delaying the traffic court date

Most would advise you to get a continuance. The claim is the longer your can postpone the traffic court date, the bigger the chance the police officer wont show up. This makes no sense and isn’t a good strategy to fight a traffic ticket.

Delaying the court date will not improve your chance of having your traffic ticket dismissed.

The question I’ve always had was if you do put off your court date, what do you do when he still shows up?

Traffic officers get paid overtime to be in traffic court. They don’t bring them off their patrols to be there.

Mistake #2- Request the Prosecution’s Evidence Before Trial.

By law you do have a legal right to see everything the prosecution plans to convict you with. This process is called ‘discovery’ and can be useful in a murder trial. But this isn’t a murder trial and doing so can actually hurt your case.

If you file a motion for discovery this tells the prosecution that you intend to plan a defense. In almost every case the prosecutor will make sure his case is airtight so you have virtually no chance of winning.

Do yourself a favor and don’t even contact the court about anything related to your traffic ticket. You don’t want them to know your familiar with the proceedings of traffic court.

Mistake #3- Doing a lot of needless research

How many of you like to spend your free time at your local courthouse researching piles upon piles of law books? There’s absolutely no need to do this research. It’s time consuming and not to mention boring.

Although in some cases it may be wise to look up a certain law and see how it is worded, there really is no need to do it with all traffic ticket trials.

Mistake #4- Going after the police officers credibility

Going to traffic court with the sole purpose of making the police officer look like an idiot will backfire on you and any plan you had of getting your traffic ticket thrown out. Claiming things like, “the radar gun was faulty”, or “the officer clocked the wrong vehicle”, or “the officer singled you out”, or “the officer hasn’t had adequate training with the radar/laser gun” are all useless defenses.

Don’t ever go into traffic court with the idea you are going to challenge the police officers training on the use of the radar gun. This will only draw scrutiny from the judge, who will accept the officers testimony that he is properly trained on the use of the equipment.

Its just understood that the officer has the proper training on the speed detecting equipment he or she used to give you a traffic ticket. There’s no question about it. Say you do try this defense, where are you going to get the evidence the judge will ask for to support your claim?

Mistake #5- Going to traffic court unprepared

This is by far the biggest mistake people will make when fighting a traffic ticket. They go to court, thinking they’ve done their homework, when in reality everything they did leading up to the trial was in vain. They’re research was done the WRONG WAY and as a result, they lose their case before they even had a chance to defend themselves.

And then there are those who don’t do any research and think that they can tell there side of the story and the judge will have pity on them. Yeah right!

Its understandable that it can be nerve wracking showing up to traffic court. Just remember you aren’t on trial for your life, its just a traffic ticket. Traffic court is designed to be user friendly because of the volume of people going through there daily.

Avoid these five mistakes and you will have a better chance of winning your case in traffic court and getting your traffic ticket dismissed.

Looking to find the best information on traffic court? Then visit www.Paytrafficviolation.com to find the best advice on traffic violations and how to fight them.

categories: speeding tickets,law,automobile insurance,driving,law enforcement,family