A Quick One About Speeding Tickets

Almost everyone who drives has been pulled over for violating some law of the road, whether it be speeding, rolling through a stop sign, or any number of other infractions.  Sometimes there are suddenly just red lights in the rear view mirror, sometimes we see the officer as we breeze past, but the end result is the same:  An officer standing at the driver’s side window with a notepad/ticket book in one hand and a pen in the other.
I am not going to tell you how to avoid having the officer write a ticket, because the truth is, I am totally without any knowledge on that topic.  I suppose that crying might work, or flirting, or something.  I just take the ticket that I know is coming.  Especially in today’s world of slashed governmental budgets, when every nickel brought in is so desperately needed.  Instead, I am going to tell you the best way that I know to avoid having the ticket turn into a conviction.
For free!  Unbelievable.  I must be mad.  Maybe so, or maybe I am just trying to pass along some information that may help someone some day.  Maybe even multiple people.  There are a couple of really important things to do, one when you are stopped and the other when you are dealing with the actual ticket.
When you are pulled over, and the officer walks up to the car, don’t get out of the car, don’t start explaining what you were doing, don’t start arguing or convincing or whatever.  Just shut up.  Yes, that’s what I said.  Keep your mouth shut, and stay absolutely silent unless you have to respond to a direct question.  No, “Do you know why I stopped you?” is not a question that requires response.  Don’t be rude, and make eye contact, since you don’t want the officer to think you are hiding something.  When asked for license, registration and proof of insurance, get them out and pass them over.  No need to offer commentary, or opinion, or anything.  If you are going to get a warning, you’ll get that vibe soon enough.  Just don’t talk or make conversation at all.
Why, you ask?  Simple.  The less you say, the less that the officer will have upon which to base a recollection of you.  When in court, an officer is supposed to testify from memory.  Not from a ticket.  If the officer has no notes, all they have is a ticket, which provides only a few bits of information.  If you were only slightly over the speed limit, or didn’t come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign (“genuflecting,” my dad calls it), then you are in good shape, if the officer is honest.  If they don’t remember you, they don’t remember the stop, and they don’t remember why they stopped you other than the data on the ticket.  It is not foolproof, or even regularly successful, but it has worked.  I have seen it work.
The second thing to do is to allow as much time to pass as possible between the writing of the ticket and the court appearance.  You will get something from the court giving you notice by when you must pay the ticket or set it for a contested hearing.  In Marin, when you set it for a hearing, you have to post the fine, which the court returns if you win your case.  Different counties handle tickets in different ways.  I can tell you that the lines to talk to the traffic court clerk are generally horrific, so be ready for that.  Also, don’t wait until the last possible day in case something goes wrong.  Go in and set it for a hearing.  Yes, even if you have no defense.  You will not be punished for contesting the ticket.  If you are eligible for traffic school, you can get it when you are at the hearing, after you lose.  If you lose, that is.  Go in, waive time, and set it for a hearing as far off in the future as possible.
Then, eleven or twelve court days before the date of your traffic court trial date, go in and continue the date.  You are allowed to do that.  The eleven or twelve days are important, because you have to do it NO LATER than ten court days before the original date.  Any later and you are stuck with the original date.  Push it out, as far as you can.  If the clerk is nice, and gives you a range of dates, pick one right around a holiday and hope that the officer is on vacation.  Set it for a Friday if nothing else, or a Monday, to catch a possible 3-day weekend vacation.  Why all of this pushing and pushing of the date?  Again, it is to allow the natural deterioration of his or her memory.  By the time you sit at the defense table in front of the judge (or, more likely, the commissioner), hopefully the officer will have forgotten all about you.  Or better yet, they won’t even show up, knowing that they can’t testify about the stop and about what you did.
You may think that this all smacks of desperation, and to an extent it does.  All of what I describe above is intended to make the best of an almost impossible situation.  If you have a good, solid defense (something besides “I wasn’t speeding”), then your chances only increase.  Photos, measurements, witness statements, all are useful and good to have.
But sometimes, you have to use what’s available.