ive gotten a $125 ticket for a bulb burnt out in a taillight in february. pretty sweet huh? why not just tell me its out and tell me to go to autozone which i was 1 mile from? cops suck. we all need to drive aspires or corollas so they wont ever have anythign wrong to find since the cars arent capable of anything.

 

Not unsafe or excessive but it puts the lie to your statements that it's all for revenue generation.

 

Got a ticket for 65 in a 55 (had the cruise in the rental car set to 64) Lightly traveled 4-lane highway. One motorcycle cop in the median with a radar gun, waving speeders (almost everybody) into the parking lot of a closed convenience store where 6 cops were writing tickets, laughing and comparing ticket books. This was pure revenue generation as far as I am concerned.

 

gotta pay for the donuts.

87951

 

I got pulled over once in the middle of the night South of Market for a moving citation. This was under I-280 at midnight with no street lights and absolutely no traffic. Does anyone know that you are suppose to stop at any intersection with a rail line even if there is no stop sign in California!? It sucks considering it was pitch black and the paint on the road that say "Stop" was faded. I got a $150 ticket. My lawyer got the ticket dismissed even though my lawyer cost the same as the ticket. It really was just the principle.

 

Not really. Ac ouple things go into a ticket.
How did the guy conclude you were 10 over? did he clock you? are you sure?
if the cop is not out to give tickets, pulling someone over is a check in to the station saying you are doing so. A ticket is paperwork, and needs proof. Sometimes there isn't an accurate clock, sometimes he wants something to do, sometimes he wants to look at your car, sometimes he doesn't want to do paperwork. But someone tell me howmany 'warnings' they got from a bike cop? their only job is to bring in revinue for traffic tickets.

 

Real simple solution to avoid becoming part of the revinue stream......

DON'T BREAK THE LAW

Having said that, I've paid (and bitched) about my share of tickets. Such is life. If you really want to be disturbed, research all (and I mean all) the specific taxes applied in your county related to insurance, registration, gas, and property. Just to mention one, Georgia has a $10 printing fee for notices upon renewal. I'd like to know how it cost them $10 to have a computer auto print my renewal notice. (govt entities don't pay postage, so we know that is not an expense)

 

My friend used to have a 318 bimmer. Nice and red and covered in carbon fibre.
He's gotten pulled over doing 100+ more times than he can count. Has not gotten a ticket, and most cops have said, "Yeah, I would speed in this car too"

But the other week my dad was driving his 86 Toyota pickup home, we live down a few miles of dirt road. I was in the truck at the time. We pull off onto the dirt road, we get about 1/2 miles down and a cop throws on his lights. I KNOW for a FACT he was not doing over 35 probably more like 25-30. The cop tells him that he was doing 50+ (it is a SOFT dirt road, that truck couldnt even stay on the road at 50+). Then my father is informed it is illegal to go over 20 on an "unimproved" road. Writes him a ticket. My mom has told me he is going to fight the ticket, because it is a total load of crap. I think the ticket is $76... now tell me that makes any sense.

-Brett

 

Around here, 318 bimmers are dime a dozen and are considered mediocre if not low end to say the least. Everytime I got pulled over for going 100+, I got 2 point tickets and lost my license for a month on top of a $513 ticket and $675 ticket for each pf the 2 times. I have to say the tickets I have gotten in the past I deserved about 90 percent of the time. A couple were pretty bogus (not making a complete stop at a stop sign while on a BICYCLE and riding A BICYCLE near Redondo Beach pier at 5 mph instead of walking it at 6 AM when no one was around other than the cops next to the police station. I don't believe people going over 100 gets off 1 out of a 100 times so I am not sure what type of town you live in. Now if your dad is unjustly given a ticket, around here you have to be black driving in a white neighborhood (though you be hard pressed to find any dirt in L. A. not covered by concrete or asphalt let alone a dirt road). Its pretty screwed up but people get treated like a King here around L. A. often.

 

I want everything for nothing. I also don't want to pay income tax anymore.

 

My rule of thumb for northbound 55 out of STL is no more than 8mph over the limit. I have traveled that route 100 some odd times and no tickets.

 

Never gotten a speeding ticket!

Only time I got pulled over was for a "45 in a 30." I'm driving down rt308 heading into rhinebeck and decide to get some gas. The gas station is between the "fork" where rt308 heads into the town of rhinebeck and the road heads in to a neighborhood, with a town cop sitting off the side of the residental road- no more then 30ft from the gas station. By the time I pumped $10 (I know doesn't take that long these days) he blocks me in, throws on his lights and tells me I came in like a bat out of hell. I KNEW I was going less then 30 as I always follow the limit in my town and was pulling into a damn gas station. ...anyway after 10 minutes of his BS I ask him if he got it on the gun. He tells me he did, I said if we went to court would he have it?

his response: "SLOW DOWN I'm watching for you" mine was "thank you officer have a great day" and I got the dirtiest look ever...

Now, I respect LEOs quite a bit (my ex-dad is a trooper) and have the upmost respect for em, but in my experience local cops have something to prove.

 

Frankly, I think you're lucky to get a walk for $175. In my neck of the woods, that would cost about $400 if you're very lucky, and $800 plus any bump to your insurance if you're not. This assumes that you pay a lawyer $400 to fight your traffic ticket, which is the only way to have a shot at beating it in NY state in areas under DMV bureau jurisdiction. There is no plea bargaining in these areas (NYC, buffalo, rochester, and a couple of parts of long island) -- all cases are win or lose. One ticket for 70mph on a NYC freeway is a 6 pointer. This is $75 for the ticket + $100 per year in additional taxes for three years. No joke. You win with a lawyer (for $400) or you lose (for $400) and pay the $375 plus whatever the impact to your insurance is.

None of this is right, but be glad you live somewhere sane that allows you a way out for a somewhat reasonable price.

 

I agree that the $10 "printing fee" sounds like revenue-generating BS, but governmental agencies do have to pay postage.

They have to pay the same rates as everyone else, though they can sometimes take advantage of pre-sorted bulk rates... just like everyone else (theoretically) could (assuming you would bulk mail stuff).

Sucks about the tail light ticket. In MI, we have "fix-it" tickets... you get the ticket and have 10 days to fix it; show it to a police agency and the ticket is cleared (no fine). Fail to show it's fixed and it converts to a fine.

The first fix-it ticket I got on a headlight (while driving a friend's car), I politely informed the officer that the headlight on his cruiser was also out

 

Sounds like "traffic school" to me, minus the going to class for a wasted day to save a point on your driving record.



We have fix-it tickets here too. Last time I got one(crack in the windshield in my 320i) it was 30 days to have a cop right it off, then mail the written off ticket to them with a $10 processing fee.