Posted on 02/20/2011 7:21:05 AM PST by Silentgypsy
If you've ever been pulled over for speeding, you know it feels like you're a gazelle that just got taken down by a lion.
And, while this recession, and the gaping budget holes that resulted, have turned most cities into a jungle for motorists, there are some cities that have far more speed traps than others. And automated traffic cams have only egged them on. Now, they can snag just as many motorists for speeding, if not more, with less manpower.
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.yahoo.com ...
For that one, I would have hired a lawyer and asked for a jury trial.
It seems like there has been an uptick in liberalism the last few years. I'm guessing it's because our job market has been better than most and we've received a lot of west coast libs. They just don't seem to be content until they remake their failed economy everywhere they go.
I was thinking Madison County Florida. Law enforcement issued close to 7,000 moving violations to motorists in Madison County. Oddly enough, only 2000 people live there.
Listing by state and city: http://www.speedtrap.org
The worst one I ever saw, I remember from my childhood. It was on the “beach road,” before I-40 was completed to Wilmington. Some little podunk town, Rose Hill maybe. The speed limit dropped suddenly from 55 to 25. The reduced speed was painted on a rock under a bush. The town’s finest laid in wait behind the bush. Nice scam while it lasted, I guess.
money? hire a lawyer? a luxury most of us cannot contemplate.
paid the ticket, went to traffic school, erased the infraction from the insurance bill
best i could do at the time.
Waldo, Florida! Hands down!
There's no shoulder and it only takes 5 seconds anyway. On the two lane roads on which I drive you really gain nothing by speeding as there are so many stop signs and traffic lights which inevitably force you to slam on the brakes later down the road anyway.
That's the situation in which I currently find myself. It is why I advocate the overly preventative approach. Personally I think your best bet if you do get a ticket and you cannot afford a lawyer is to pray that the cop doesn't show for the court date. The last time my wife got a speeding ticket, we got to watch all of the other traffic cases come before us. Even the people who brought lawyers didn't have much luck, they all were found guilty anyway. The cases involving speeding were pretty much open and shut. The cops either paced the defendants involved, or used radar guns with the proper certifications. They literally went through every excuse you could possibly hear in such cases and the judge had a quick and heavy response to all of them.
In Maryland, if the judge is nice to you, you might get the opportunity to take a traffic safety class to remove any assessed points from your record, assuming you "plead guilty with an explanation" at trial. This was the option we took with my wife's ticket, as it was cheaper than the insurance hit we would have taken. Of course, she was going 46 in a 30 in a residential area, we got very "lucky" indeed.
I have always had insurance. Last fall, for a six-week period I averaged 80-hour weeks and had 1 day off the entire six weeks. During that time, my renewal came in. I pay online, so I didn’t need it to pay the bill. I needed it to show that I was current. Well, I got stopped and could only find my outdated card. Tough! I got a ticket anyway. In Texas, police can look up on their car computers to verify insurance is current. I got stopped by a motorcycle copy. No computer to look it up.
Worst place in Texas that I know of is just east of Vernon, Texas, near the border of OK and TX. I was driving 95 in a 75.
Sealy, tx is such a bad speed trap that many of the people who live in the surrounding area refuse to go into town in order to shop.
“Customer service begins at the city limits.”
In our Parish (I live in Louisiana) my husband has gotten some speeding tickets over the years as well as a couple of my sons. He goes and talks to the D.A. and many times the D.A. will lower the fine and my husband has gotten community service most all the time. I do have to say sometimes the tickets were not deserved, and sometimes the issuing officer did not show up.
I know what you mean. We have the choice of going 12 miles east or 12 miles west to get to a store. We take the east every time to avoid that situation.
We were a couple of mph below the speed limit in the right lane but a huge truck was behind us approaching very rapidly. With no one in front on the left and no one behind, we just got over to the left to let the guy pass rather than drive up our tailfeathers. Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor.
That’s good to know—thanks.
Jury trials can be dicey if you’re an out-of-towner.
Wow! That’s on my bookmarks toolbar, thanks!
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