<p>I told you what to do. You DO NOT want this ticket/points on your record. Seriously, YOU WILL NOT beat the cop. Trust me. Go in and find out ANY way you can have this taken off your record and just pay the fine (traffic school, staying out of trouble, 30 day suspension with privileges, etc). If you go in with your defense you are going to lose and make everyone there mad and they won’t do anything to help you.</p>
<p>I went to court to fight a speeding ticket this sumer and won. I think you can always give it a shot and there is little to lose. I don’t think most courts are going to get mad and not do anything to help you. Especially if you have a clean record, I think they may be willing to give you a break.</p>
<p>I admitted going the speed on the ticket but there were circumstances that made me do it. The officer had no memory of anything so the judge chose to believe my version of events.</p>
<p>I always thought Itasca was the worst Texas speed trap, but I guess I’m wrong.</p>
<p>[Texas’s</a> worst speed traps | Aren Cambre’s Blog](<a href=“http://arencambre.com/blog/2010/03/04/texass-worst-speed-traps/]Texas’s”>http://arencambre.com/blog/2010/03/04/texass-worst-speed-traps/)</p>
<p>I just got off the phone with the court an hour ago. I talked to the clerk and the officer made no amendments to the ticket. He has the court date listed at Sunday. They have traffic court on Friday only…VERY small town. The clerk wants me to write a letter to the judge and fax it in the morning and she said she would take it to him. She feels the judge will simply dismiss. Had I not confirmed the date and time today, I potentially could have driven 224 miles to court to find a closed courthouse. In my county, court is on Saturday so for the date to be Sunday didn’t seem that weird, but my husband told me to double check, and I did. The clerk said it would peeve the judge that something as simple as the appearance date was wrong. I also explained about the color and model too…she wanted the letter and a picture of my car. We’ll see where it goes.</p>
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<p>Just wondering why you are so certain about this. I live in Texas, where the OP received her ticket, and I’ve known many people who have managed to get out of speeding tickets due to errors on their tickets (and with far less sloppy documentation than the OP reports on hers) or the because the officer in question is unable to come to traffic court. Often it takes a lawyer, but not always.</p>
<p>The only thing I find surprising is that the OP would ever consider that traffic court would be held on a Sunday, no matter that it was listed as such on the ticket. </p>
<p>Anyway, sounds to me like the OP may well have dodged a bullet here. I do hope she slows down in the future, though. The next officer may be a perfectionist. :)</p>
<p>Well give it a try but I am just saying, if a prosecutor gets involved, you will be done. If you contest a ticket and the officer doesn’t show up that is another story all together. But they don’t have to show up at the 1st court hearing. If you say you are contesting the ticket, the officer will THEN amend the ticket (right now he has no clue anything is wrong with it), and show up to the next court date. If you do try this, be SWEET and NICE or they will get mad that you are trying to game the system. If you want to hire a lawyer, you most likely would have a different outcome (a dismissal). But that is costly so not really a viable option for many. Well however you decide to do it, good luck. :)</p>
<p>Also, are you an adult or juvenile? That may make a difference.</p>
<p>^^ Given the high cost of some tickets in some locations (communities/states are constantly jacking up the fines since it’s part of a revenue model for them) and the fairly low price of a ticket lawyer, it can be worth the cost of the lawyer to get the ticket either dismissed or reduced to something else. They can also sometimes save the client from having to make the two trips to the courthouse and in fact, never have to go to the courthouse. This can be quite handy if someone lives hundreds of miles away.</p>
<p>In this case it seems reasonable that it might get thrown out. I’ve heard some judges get irritated by sloppiness on the part of the ticket writer and will throw out the tickets if they’re sloppy. I guess it mostly comes down to the specific judge or convention in that particular court.</p>
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<p>I think it would be just as likely that the OP to underestimated her speed by 3 miles per hour as it is that the cop pulled over the wrong car completely.</p>
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<p>Who knows? I think the OP has a good chance of getting out of this due to the other errors on the ticket. In absence of that, as she states this is her first ticket, she should be eligible for deferred adjudication.</p>
<p>I had a ticket dismissed when the officer recorded my car as being black when it was dark blue. He was looking at my registration, but did not record information correctly. He said I was going 53 in a 35. Did he see 35 and read it as 53? That was my argument and the judge dismissed the ticket.</p>
<p>^^ Okay, but now you can tell us the truth - were you really going 53 in a 35? ;)</p>
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<p>Wrong make + wrong color => more likely wrong speed => wrong car.</p>
<p>Ever stand on the side of the road with cars whizzing by you at 80 MPH? What are you more worried about? Getting hit or getting the right car? One person on a cell phone or GPS or dealing with a noisy kid and you’re gone.</p>
<p>^^^could be, but the OP has admitted she was driving pretty darn close to the rate of speed listed by the cop. It’s not that much of a discrepancy.</p>
<p>All a moot point, as it seems the OP has probably prevailed in this scenario.</p>
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<p>Ha ha, I was wondering the same thing. :D</p>
<p>Just an update. I had a teleconference with the Judge today and the ticket was dismissed. All is well deep in the heart of Texas!</p>
<p>OK, let’s just say I was going with the flow of traffic! Yes, it is a possibility that I exceeded the speed limit. :)</p>
<p>Pretty handy that you are allowed to have teleconferences with judges in your state. In our state, you write a written explanation OR you appear OR you pay. No teleconferences.</p>
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<p>Congrats! So there are some rational people in Texas? :D</p>
<p>Impossible! If you contest the ticket they will throw you in jail!!!</p>
<p>The Op tells us this:
“I received my first speeding ticket ever and was a bit pi$$y about it…haha…because although, yes I was speeding, so was everyone else and in all honesty,…”</p>
<p>Does the OP really need to go any further, “in all honesty”? The Op admits the infraction, but wants any angle to grab at to get out of it, “in all honesty”. Really? How about trying an honest approach, such as - I got caught in a traffic violation, I’ll pay the fine-.
As in post 17, you admit you were speeding and you only disagree with the officer about a couple m.p.h. </p>
<p>Since you’ve asked, Op, I can explain what was meant by the line about having character(post 20) in this case. It often means having moral or ethical qualities. By that standard, a person that got caught caught speeding would admit to the infraction(though he might admit to the specific detail of going no more than 79) and then accept the consequences. In that example, he knows he is guilty of the infraction, so he faces the consequences. An example of not showing character, on this issue, would be grabbing at any straw possible to convince the court that he did not commit this infraction, when all along “in all honesty” the person knows they did commit the infraction.
What if a bank claims a robber stole $82k; can the admittedly guilty man rightfully get away with it if he shows he only stole $79k? Or if the perp is described as wearing brown gloves, but if it comes to light he was actually wearing black ones, does rightfully get away with it then?
Now, some may choose one course of action over another for many reasons, and one action does not define all of one’s character, but that is what is meant(post 17) by showing character.</p>
<p>I see now that advice on this is moot now, but in the future, I’d suggest the OP actually try “in all honesty.”</p>
<p>D did pay the fine when she accidentally ran a red light. She was very chastened and surprised (it was dark & she was unfamiliar with the area & lost). She had considered following the officers advice and writing to the judge but decided she was wrong and felt it was appropriate to pay accordingly. The officer felt bad and wanted to give her a warning but had already started writing the ticket. She felt it was a good thing to learn and was glad she didn’t get hurt or harm anyone else. Hopefully it won’t affect out insurance premiums.</p>
<p>Young with all due respect, there are ranges for infractions in the state of Texas. Going 10 miles over a posted speed limit carries a much more severe point total and fine. I was not going more than 10 miles over the speed limit and I was very clear with the judge that I believed that I was going between 76-78 miles per hour at the time and I would agree to a reduced speed violation. (My cruise control was set at 70 but I manually increased my speed to pass a slow moving vehicle) There were a group of cars that passed me that I feel confident would have been going in the 80-90 mile an hour range. I was HONEST with the judge. The judge simply said he has no tolerance for errors on tickets in his court. He appreciated my honesty, but he felt a dismissal was in order. So before YOU go passing judgement, maybe you should ask someone via PM or by asking for more details before go giving a undue lecture on ethics and morals.</p>