So you get a speeding ticket…a fine…insurance rates will go up…points added to your drivers license.
What can you do in fighting a speeding ticket? You can go to traffic court and defend yourself or you can hire a legal attorney. In either case you will need to prepare yourself and or your legal attorney to successfully defend your case.
First you’ll need to find out whether your state's speeding laws involve "absolute" or "presumed" speed limits. In absolute speed limit states it is a cut and dry rule. Driving one mile above the posted speed limit means you have broken the law.
In presumed speed limit states, you're presumed to be breaking the law by going above the posted speed limit, and it's your job to prove you were going at a safe speed for road and traffic conditions.
It's easier of course to defend your speed in a presumed speed limit state, especially if you were driving just slightly over the posted speed limit.
Next in fighting a speeding ticket you are entitled entitled to do what's called "discovery" by getting copies of the officer's notes and maintenance records for any radar or laser equipment the officer used.
It's also good idea to go to traffic court ahead of your court date and observe trials similar to yours, so you understand the traffic trial process.
Alo in fighting a speeding ticket you should take photos of the intersection or stretch of road where you got the ticket at the same time of day you received the ticket (and under the same weather conditions if possible). Be sure to get photos of any obstructions in the line of sight between your vehicle and the police vehicle, such as moving traffic, power lines, signs, bends in the road and so forth.
You might consider making a diagram showing the roads and the locations of your car, the police car and anything that may obstruct the officer’s view.
Contact any witnesses identified in the police report, as well as witnesses who may have been passengers in the car.
Some general defenses in fighting a speeding ticket include:
You were going above the posted speed limit, but the road and weather conditions were good. This could work in a presumed speed limit state.
Going above the posted speed limit was a necessary in order to avoid serious injury in an emergency situation, such as to avoid a serious accident, or cope with sudden mechanical problems or sudden unanticipated illness.
In a state with presumed speed limits, you can try to demonstrate that you were driving at a safe speed by showing evidence of:
The road conditions at the time, such as dry pavement, clear visibility and so on
Your vehicle's being in good mechanical condition such as steering, tires, brakes and so forth
Light traffic conditions and they were also moving above the posted speed limit
Another area to explore in fighting a speeding ticket is the device or means that the police officer used to make his decision.
A radar system is one method used. It records how fast the vehicle with the most dominant reflective surface is going. It can however not measure distance or pick out one moving vehicle among several. The officer is left to make a discretionary call.
One of the best defenses against a radar unit is that the radar system picked up another vehicle or more reflective surface instead of your vehicle. Reflective or interfering surfaces can include:
Metal traffic or other types of signs (even neon signs)
This would be a time to show the photos you took of the area to show that the officer would have had to "shoot" the radar through an object between his vehicle and yours.
A time-consuming and less reliable defense is to try to prove that the radar system wasn't properly maintained and as not performing properly. To accomplish this, you will need to subpoena the maintenance records of the radar system, as well as the maintenance records of the tuning forks sometimes used for their calibration. You really shouldn’t attempt this approach without a legal attorney to represent you.
Another area to be explored would be to prove that the police officer wasn't properly trained and qualified to operate a radar system, and in fact operated the radar improperly. To do this you would have to:
Get the police department's admission that the officer wasn't trained up to the standards of other officers.
And the officer's own testimony on cross-examination that shows up his lack of knowledge on proper operation of the system
Another method police officers use to measure speed is a laser speed gun which can measure distance and calculate speed by comparing distance against a specific span of time. In fighting a speeding ticket, where this was used, it is more difficult because it's harder to claim the gun was measuring another object other than your vehicle.
Defenses for speeding tickets are complex and technical, so it almost always makes sense to hire a legal attorney to represent you properly.
