Kozancenko said he first wanted to read the ticket before signing.
I think the article summary on this thread is wrong. He could read it, but he apparently wasn't given time to read it first.
I don't sign things without reading them, either. He probably wasn't reading fast enough to suit the officer. But, there was no dashcam video to show what really happened.
As someone else has noted: all of the charges have been dropped. He should have never been ticketed in the first place: the officer misread the driver's logbook.
And the radio recordings are missing due to equipment failure, conveniently. It seems that missing recordings happen all to often in disputed cases...
I was made to sign a ticket with countless bogus charges once. The officer even told me it looked like I wasn’t wearing my contact lenses. I offered to take one out to show him. He relented.
A couple blocks away I was reviewing the ticket (to see when/where I needed to appear and just what I had been charged with (speeding 4-5 miles over the limit, unsafe lane change, and something else I KNOW he did not mention and that I was not guilty of like seat belt or something).
The ticket copy I had revealed the carbon information from several tickets he’d written to different drivers. I circled around and returned to the scene of the speed trap (three separate police cars writing evening rush hour tickets at the bottom of hill as quickly as they could).
He took a look at the mess of a ticket I had in my had. He told me it was my “lucky day” then demanded I hand over every piece of the paperwork I’d been given. He tore up what I’d handed him (but I did not see him tear up the original ticket). He told me to go on my way.
I waited a couple of weeks in fear/suspicion that the initial signed ticket would still be filed and that I would be found guilty of failure to appear in court over the ticket(s).
I started to read a ticket I got a few years ago, momentarily forcing the jack-boot...er, officer, to stand out in the sweltering Florida sun. He quickly advised me to read the one sentence that was in red, or I’d be going to jail.
Cops aren’t real big on people that prefer to not blindly sign whatever some government stooge puts in front of them. Good thing I didn’t bring my dog.