Rick and all you other commentators,
I think Jim Nazarian hit the ball on the head.
A few years ago, my car radio was on the blink so I started to
listen with a portable Walkman and headphones. This was in Montgomery
County, MD. I was pulled over and given a ticket?, maybe $40 or $50. (It
was a few years ago.) Anyway, I went to court to contest the ticket and
I learned that the law is not directly rationale or logical. It was
procedural (Sound familiar...Fla).
I argued that i) I heard the sirens of the cop car promptly and
pulled over before he even radio'd in that he was pulling over a car; and
ii) if I were a danger, than what about car phones? After all, I had 2
hands on the wheel.
The judge said only "Son. There is a law against headphones. There
is no law against car phones."
But he reduced the fine to the bare minimum, $15, which was court
fees.
Rick, I'd suggest that you do fight the ticket over the selective
nature of your ticket, but be polite. (Dare I say, wear a
tie????) Moreover, state the case that you
were going with the traffic, and the law enforcement officer (not cop)
perhaps exercised judgement based not on the flow of traffic, but
on license plates.
But frankly, don't expect anything positive from your efforts.
They may come, but that'll only be because the judge is rationale and you
cannot be guarenteed of that.
Bill
'76B
On Mon, 27 Nov 2000, James Nazarian
wrote:
> One defense that isn't a legal defense but a common sense issue is that you
>were following the speed of traffic as you would be more dangerous as the one
>slow car, then you would be as a car keeping up with traffic. Also, as
>mentioned by others, there is some defense in the fact that he chose you out
>of a highway full of speeding motorists, if you weren't going faster than
>traffic, you may get off on that selection. Both of these work but only with
>a sympathetic judge.
> On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 02:40:50PM -0800, Max Heim profoundly declared:
> > I don't know, the defense "everybody else was doing it" never seemed to
> > work with my mom, or with kindergarten teachers... <g>
> >
> > But seriously, that would make me mad, too. I just don't know if there is
> > anything that you can do about it. Good luck...
> >
> > Andrew B. Lundgren had this to say:
> >
> > >I don't know if you will get anywhere with it, but it sounds to me like
> > >you did not get equal treatment under the law. Why didn't he pull over
> > >all of your peers that were doing the same thing. You seem to hav been
> > >singled out for some reason.
> > >
> > >Probably need a lawyer to make that stick..
> > >
> > >Rick Ehlert wrote:
> > >
> > >> Boy, do I have a sob story for you guys!!
> >
> > >> ...And to top it all off, because the ticket was
> > >> written for 29 OVER!!!, I have to appear in court the week of Christmas!
> > >> Being such a cronic offender, this my third ticket in the last 11 years,
>I
> > >> need some advice? Looks like I'm going back to Indiana!!
> > >>
> > >> Just payin' another tax to drive the road,
> > >> Rick Ehlert
> > >> Milwaukee, Wi.
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Max Heim
> > '66 MGB GHN3L76149
> > If you're near Mountain View, CA,
> > it's the red one with the silver bootlid.
> >
>
> --
> James Nazarian
> 71 MGB roadster
> 71 MGBGT (the one that is supposed to be a v8)
> 01 Impreza 2.5RS
>
> "Given a conflict, Murphy's law supercedes Newton's."
> -Anon
>
> "Nothing good has ever been reported about the full rotation
> of a race car about either its pitch or roll axis."
> -Carroll Smith
>
Bill Saidel (856) 225-6336
Dept. of Biology (856) 225-6312 FAX
Science Building E-Mail: saidel@crab.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University
315 Penn Street
Camden, NJ 08102-1411
USA
For more information about my science, check
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~saidel/saidel.html
"Sacred cows make divine hamburgers."
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