Traffic violation procedures

copperangler15 said:Look, I get that the lights are synchronized. But is a judge really going to waste time and money on expert testimony for this? And once they bring in some incompetent witness to testify, the court is just going to believe them. From what I've seen, the police act like they're above the law anyway. Third point: does it actually matter if they botched the location or messed up the street name on the ticket? Do I even have a fighting chance at getting this charge dropped?

You have a shot.
The cops hand out tickets whenever they catch you red-handed during a patrol, and honestly, everything they do follows standard procedure. That said, a judge can dismiss the whole thing if they can't actually prove you did what they claim. Just do your best to make sure they don't pin 🙂
on you.

Sandra Parker3 said:You have a shot.
The cops hand out tickets whenever they catch you red-handed during a patrol, and honestly, everything they do follows standard procedure. That said, a judge can dismiss the whole thing if they can't actually prove you did what they claim. Just do your best to make sure they don't pin 🙂
on you.

Ugh, that's easy for you to say. Just the thought of having to step foot in a courtroom sends me into a total panic.😲

copperangler15 said:Ugh, that's easy for you to say. Just the thought of having to step foot in a courtroom sends me into a total panic.😲

I feel the same way😲
I've only been through it once and I definitely cut some corners🙂

Sandra Parker3 said:I feel the same way😲
I've only been through it once and I definitely cut some corners🙂

What kind of situation did you run into?

Austin Perez98 said:My guy’s registration expired exactly 5 days ago and the cops pulled us over today.
The officer wrote him a ticket $1667, but he didn't get any actual receipt or paperwork—he didn't even sign anything.

Is that even legal under the law?!
Someone please weigh in if you actually know what's up!! 🙏 🙏

The same thing happened to me, except I was only four days past my expiration and I honestly had no idea. The police pulled me over, handed me a citation, and made me sign it because on paper, the registration was clearly expired. They issued me $167 fines that I didn't pay, and seven months later, I get a summons to appear in court. If I don't show up without a damn good reason, I'm looking at jail time, and I 😕. They offered me community service for ten working days or three days in jail, or I could just pay the fine. Since I read online that signing up for community service might not actually stop the process, I ended up just paying the $167 with a one-month extension. So now...

copperangler15 said:What kind of situation did you run into?

Anyway, getting back to the topic—maybe I can just breeze past this quickly: I might have slightly bent the truth while testifying in a divorce case, which would have resulted in a much longer sentence if I hadn't, and honestly, it wasn't in anyone's best interest anyway... so, basically, nobody was harmed.😎

I honestly don't see why everyone is getting so worked up about this, because if you actually sit down and look at the data—really look at it, not just the headlines—it becomes pretty obvious that we’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle entirely. It’s like when people argue about whether a specific tech giant like Microsoft is going to pivot their entire OS architecture overnight; sure, they might, but the underlying infrastructure doesn't just shift because of one bad quarter or a few loud voices on a forum. I was reading what Mark Sullivan62 was saying earlier, and while I get where he's coming from, I think he's missing the forest for the trees. He's focusing on these tiny, granular details that won't matter in six months, whereas we should be talking about the macro trends. And don't even get me started on the stuff Nick mentioned; it's just noise. Pure, unadulterated noise. We need to stop reacting to every single little hiccup like it's a national crisis and start thinking about the long game. It’s frustrating, really, watching everyone jump to conclusions without a shred of context. We aren't dealing with some local precinct issue handled by the Los Angeles Police Department where things are transparent and immediate; we are dealing with massive, sweeping shifts that take time to manifest. You can't rush the process, and you certainly can't force a conclusion just because you're impatient. kaže:
Oh, sure, it’s easy to sit there and say that, but just the mere thought of having to step foot in a courtroom gives me straight-up panic attacks. 😲

Look, it’s really not that big of a deal—you’ll get used to it before you know it.

I’m already heading off to get lost in some debates, honestly—it feels just like heading down to the local Starbucks to grab a coffee and settle in.

Of course, he usually ends up being the one getting blamed for every single fender bender or pile-up on the highway.

I've mostly figured out that the more you play the fool in court, the better off you actually end up.

I mean, look...

Who am I? Look, I was speeding, alright? But honestly, give me a break, people... I've never once...

Me? Going the wrong way? Now look here, Your Honor, I am telling you right now, there is absolutely no way in hell I would ever do such a thing! You’ve got nothing on me—what, do you have some kind of document? A photo? My signature? No, you don't... you haven't got a single shred of evidence! Seriously, listen to me, I'm telling you, I would never, ever do that.

Where exactly are we talking about? What street? I’ve seriously never heard of it, let alone set foot in that neighborhood...

Look, I’ll just lay it out for you plain and simple: the dumber you pretend to be, the better off you'll actually be. It’s a survival tactic, really.

So you're driving the wrong way down a one-way street and you still haven't signed the paperwork??????? 😲

Sandra Parker3 said:So you're driving the wrong way down a one-way street and you still haven't signed the paperwork??????? 😲

expert 😎

well, okay, fine, I did drive the wrong way, but I wouldn't exactly say I'm at fault here

see, they went ahead and switched the one-way signs from a four to a five overnight

it was five in the afternoon in a small suburb outside of Chicago, and people just didn't catch it right away; I hit it pretty hard, but ended up stuck in this tiny little side street

I couldn't go forward and I couldn't go backward—then the guys behind me started reversing and heading the wrong way too, because when you're stuck, you're stuck, and everyone just follows the pack, and honestly, I didn't have a choice, I had to move or else I'd be the one single guy blocking the entire street

of course, the cops were just following orders and pulled us all over, taking down our info and writing up some kind of block report, but they didn't even bother asking me to sign anything

fast forward a year later and I get a summons from the court; I remembered then that I hadn't signed a damn thing, so I played dumb, acting like I had absolutely no clue which street they were even talking about, and they tried to explain it to me, but I was just like, "Look, I drive this route every single day for work and it never once crossed my mind that I was going the wrong way, where on earth would you get that from, ma'am? Do you actually have something useful to say?"

nothing? well, tough luck, sorry, I'm in a hurry...

copperangler15, screenshot these two posts before Vojko deletes them... 🙂

Thanks, thanks, 😘
I honestly can't wrap my head around how some people actually pull this off. Take my friend, for example. He’s the type who always has his foot heavy on the pedal. We were driving through a coastal town in California—the kind of place where you know the local police hide behind bushes just waiting to catch someone with a handheld radar gun. He cruises right into a residential zone 60 miles/h, even though the limit is clearly 31 miles/h. I’m sitting there, suppressing a smirk because I think he’s finally getting caught, when I hear the officer start reciting the standard speeding penalties 😲. Then, my friend starts spinning this ridiculous web of excuses: "I'm unemployed," (lie), "I'm living on welfare $93," "This car was a gift from a sponsor for my amateur handball league," and "I lost my hearing in the war" (he has some hearing loss, sure, but he's claiming it's combat-related). I 😕 just stared at the cop, wondering if he was actually going to buy this nonsense. Instead, the officer visibly swallowed hard, handed back my friend's documents, and told him, "Just slow down, okay?"

People like that truly 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

Look, you didn't settle up when you were supposed to 😬

Look, you shouldn't be bowing down to these calendars/records; you should just toss them in the trash. It's because of stuff like this that innocent people end up getting punished and can't even defend themselves. Personally, I think there should be consequences for every single thing someone actually does.

My brother-in-law is a cop, but it never even crossed my mind to call him to save my license, kill a ticket, or mess with a report if I actually messed up—whether it was speeding, running a sign, whatever. But honestly? If they were pinning something on me unfairly or planting evidence, I’d reach out to him in a heartbeat. In those cases, it's better to wiggle out of it than try to go toe-to-toe with them, since they hold all the cards from the jump and you'll just walk right into their trap. About ten years ago, they claimed our family car blew past a traffic cop at an intersection without him seeing us. A total lie. They sent officers to our house, summoned my old man to court, the whole nine yards. But our car was sitting in the garage that day. Nobody was driving it except the two of us, and honestly, nobody was even driving through that part of town that entire week. They did the whole confrontation thing and whatnot, but we never found out how it ended—not a single notification. We heard through the grapevine that some officer saw a similar car with a similar plate and just scribbled ours down when he got the chance. It's terrifying.

copperangler15 said:Thanks, thanks, 😘
I honestly can't wrap my head around how some people actually pull this off. Take my friend, for example. He’s the type who always has his foot heavy on the pedal. We were driving through a coastal town in California—the kind of place where you know the local police hide behind bushes just waiting to catch someone with a handheld radar gun. He cruises right into a residential zone 60 miles/h, even though the limit is clearly 31 miles/h. I’m sitting there, suppressing a smirk because I think he’s finally getting caught, when I hear the officer start reciting the standard speeding penalties 😲. Then, my friend starts spinning this ridiculous web of excuses: "I'm unemployed," (lie), "I'm living on welfare $93," "This car was a gift from a sponsor for my amateur handball league," and "I lost my hearing in the war" (he has some hearing loss, sure, but he's claiming it's combat-related). I 😕 just stared at the cop, wondering if he was actually going to buy this nonsense. Instead, the officer visibly swallowed hard, handed back my friend's documents, and told him, "Just slow down, okay?"

People like that truly 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄
they’re gonna get a massive reality check when some smart-ass kid finally catches them red-handed, because let's be real, kids these days are way too sharp to actually bother following the rules... 🙄

if you're gonna go out of your way to hide a violation, then just be a badass and own the consequences when they come knocking.

copperangler15 said:Thanks, thanks, 😘
I honestly can't wrap my head around how some people actually pull this off. Take my friend, for example. He’s the type who always has his foot heavy on the pedal. We were driving through a coastal town in California—the kind of place where you know the local police hide behind bushes just waiting to catch someone with a handheld radar gun. He cruises right into a residential zone 60 miles/h, even though the limit is clearly 31 miles/h. I’m sitting there, suppressing a smirk because I think he’s finally getting caught, when I hear the officer start reciting the standard speeding penalties 😲. Then, my friend starts spinning this ridiculous web of excuses: "I'm unemployed," (lie), "I'm living on welfare $93," "This car was a gift from a sponsor for my amateur handball league," and "I lost my hearing in the war" (he has some hearing loss, sure, but he's claiming it's combat-related). I 😕 just stared at the cop, wondering if he was actually going to buy this nonsense. Instead, the officer visibly swallowed hard, handed back my friend's documents, and told him, "Just slow down, okay?"

People like that truly 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

Nobody’s actually mentioning the part of the story where he swallowed that lump in his throat.

So, I have a question for any lawyers or anyone with some "experience" here 😉

To avoid repeating the whole story, I’ve tried to draft an appeal. I’m hoping someone could help me with the specific details and the general format, because I’ve honestly never written anything like this before...

Thanks

FORMAL COMPLAINT/OFFICIAL GRIEVANCE TO THE CHIEF

Regarding citation number: xxx-xxxxx---xxxxxx-xx/07 dated 06/01/2007
Regarding the conduct of officer: Badge Number: XXXXX

Los Angeles Police Department, Dug Sello Police Department

I was driving toward a railroad crossing behind a car with local plates. I didn't notice the warning lights flashing.
Since the vehicle ahead of me had already crossed the tracks (which are over 30 feet long), I noticed the strobe lights from a police cruiser moving toward the crossing,
heading toward the city. After pulling up alongside the patrol car—not really knowing what was happening—the officer opened his window and told me
to pull off onto a side road. I did exactly what I was told and stepped out of my vehicle. The officer walked up to my car and asked for my registration and driver's license.

I handed over my documents, and the officer claimed my headlights weren't on, stating the fine was $100 (the lights were indeed off) and then added that I had
crossed the tracks while the warning lights were flashing, which carries a thousand-dollar fine.

In total shock, I told him I just hadn't seen the flashing warning signals. The officer basically told me he didn't care and sat back in his car, leaving me standing there on the road by my vehicle. Surprised by how dismissive this official was being, I politely tried to explain once more that at the moment I approached the crossing, I DID NOT see the lights on. I also mentioned that the crossing is quite long and difficult to navigate due to the potholes and multiple sets of tracks; maybe the lights triggered just as I was passing, but I couldn't see them, and even if I had, I certainly couldn't have performed any sudden maneuvers on the tracks themselves.

The officer was completely unyielding and refused to comment further. I’m not even sure if he was officially on duty, because there was a woman in civilian clothes sitting in the passenger seat with a purse on her lap, and the officer seemed to be chatting with her several times, so the officer's conduct seems pretty questionable to me. Once I got the citation, I looked it over and realized there wasn't actually a charge for the headlights being off (even though they were), so I guess the officer "forgave" me for that part? To be honest, I think that's a pretty disgraceful way for a public official to handle things in a country governed by the rule of law.

I was actually on my way to an interview at Google (you can verify this with the company) and because of this, I missed my meeting
with the owner. Since the officer didn't write me up for the headlights (again, I assume he let that slide), and given that whether the warning lights were actually on when I crossed those 30-plus feet of potholed track is highly debatable—and I am prepared to call
witnesses to testify to that—I believe I have suffered significant financial harm. I lost the chance to attend a job interview I traveled all the way from
Phoenix for, and this job is my livelihood, just as much as my driver's license is. Therefore, I am submitting this formal complaint regarding the citation and a grievance regarding the officer's conduct to the Chief....

What would you guys add or take out? Please help.

Thanks

Why doesn't the citation include a section for an appeal?
The kind where you don't even have to provide a formal explanation

Man, just get to the point already...

First off, did you actually sign that citation? Because if you didn't, then don't go whining about it now.

If you’re going to file an appeal, start by pointing out that the stop itself was totally improper. He doesn't have any right to be leaning into your window throwing comments at you; there are very specific protocols for how a vehicle is supposed to be pulled over.

Secondly, once he pulled you over like that, he basically created a traffic hazard, which put you in danger too.
Police officers actually have standing orders not to pull vehicles over during heavy rain because slippery roads make crashes way more likely, blah blah blah—so you certainly shouldn't be getting pulled over right on a railroad crossing with some guy shouting through your window.

And honestly, just skip all that nonsense about him forgiving the fine for the headlights being off...

In your appeal, state clearly that there were absolutely no warning lights flashing—don't say "maybe they were" or "maybe they weren't"... they were NOT flashing!

Complain about the rude attitude and whatever else.

Look, you'll probably just get a response saying everything was done strictly by the book and your appeal is baseless, but then the whole thing moves to municipal court. That's when you play the game: act a little clueless, stall for time, and come up with some story about how their reckless stopping right on those tracks put everyone at risk and blah blah blah...

Look, what’s there to explain? I’m just filing an appeal against citation number 🙂
.
As for complaining about how the officer handled things—you can't just dump everything into one pile. Those are apples and oranges—you have to file a separate complaint regarding officer conduct. Just save that part for when you actually get to write the 😁
.

Alright, thanks for the advice....

- I didn't sign anything.
- Yeah, the officer just pulled me over out of nowhere... flashing his lights while my window was only halfway down.
- I think I probably need to file a formal appeal and a complaint about the officer's conduct separately. Is there a lawyer in here who knows how to submit that properly?
- Do you guys really think I shouldn't include an explanation?