How To Beat A Speeding Ticket

Beating speeding tickets surely isn’t as easy as it seems. Just because you’re a pouty lipped, beautiful and young looking girl who can weep on demand or your dad is a “sergeant who could have your job” doesn’t always mean you’ll be operating with receptive audience. In fact these seductive trappings will often work against your targeted goal, not getting you your end result.

Furthermore, if you are an unaffiliated thirty something who feels unfairly singled out in a speed trap, there appears to be even less options for beating the speed ticket. However, a little ingenuity and keeping your head about you at marked moments can lead to ultimate success in beating this speeding ticket.
To start, one of the first keys to beating a speeding ticket is to not make a regular occurrence out of the episode. This is a newly enforced rule due to the computers cops drive around with.

This rule used to be the same or the direct opposite; if you had great practice in the being pulled over scenario and if you were experienced talking with cops, this used to be much to your advantage. Getting totally in your zone and breathing deeply, when the officer tapped on your window and you hustled to obligingly roll it down, “what seems to be the problem officer?” He’d maybe sneer at your act with a cold “license and registration,” or maybe his heart would open up, he’d see you in such earnest, wild disarray, fumbling with your glove box as you would, that he’d return with a gentle tap on the roof and a warning. Then he’d launch into his fatherly speech about “driving the speed limit” and feel completely validated in his knowledge that he’d saved another life and spared another traffic ticket.

Even if he was wrong.

But today, cops can know your whole deal before they even get out of their car. All they need to do is punch in your plate numbers and they’ve got your whole driving history up on the screen; who the primary driver of that vehicle is, how often they’ve been pulled over, and how many times they’ve been pulled over in other vehicles.

So even if your performance is worthy of the academy, the new rule on the new scene is to be pulled over as little as possible. However, it is of paramount importance to remember how to behave once you are pulled over.

You’ve got two options, in these instances, and they can both work, depending on the officer who’s pulled you over: Surprise or Combative.

Surprise often works if you’re merely a few miles an hour over the speed limit in beating a speeding ticket. If the officer sees no history of speeding and being pulled over, they will often let you off the hook with just a warning.

Being combative is where the self interest of the officer comes into play. If you’re completely belligerent, without seeming drunk or disturbance of the peace; but if you let the officer know that “this ticket won’t stand up” and “I’ll see you in court,” often the officer, who’d probably rather not be called into civil court all day on his or her day off either, may just let you off with a wink and a smile.

Beating speeding tickets is an age old art. In the modern day age of computers and pre-set bars of innocence or guilt, you need to be savvy as ever in getting out of the worst part about paying speeding tickets; increase in insurance premiums!

Here are some of the top tips for beating speeding tickets. Most never go through the process of trying to beat their speeding tickets. The truth is that its very possible to beat your speeding tickets. Guilty or innocent.

1. Ask Questions when the Officer is Giving You the Ticket – Don’t be belligerent or rude about this but try to get as much information as you can before the hearing. If the officer responds negatively don’t push any further. Questions to ask are how fast you were going, how he got your speed, where he was positioned and ask to see his certificate of calibration. Write this information down for later use. He does not have to answer these questions as that’s what the courts are for but its worth the effort so you can prepare your defense.

2. Do Not Immediately Pay the Fine – This can be treated as an admission of guilt and will result in insurance rate increases.

3. Delay the Hearing – Do this as much as you can as it works in your favor. Many cases are thrown out do to the lengthy passage of time between the ticket and the final court appearance. As well the officer may forget the the incident by the time you have the hearing and this will give you grounds to have the case dismissed. You can even schedule an out of town trip on the date of the court appearance in order to use that as an excuse to delay it again. This is all legal just watch your ethics.

4. In Court Conduct – Show up to the hearing dress in a suit if you have it. If not look as presentable as possible. Though this should have nothing to do with it the reality is it does. Be polite to everyone in the courtroom. The judge or the prosecutor will not have any grace if you are rude. Last be confident in yourself. The judge will use this in how serious he takes you and weighing what you say against what the officer says.

5. Ask for Radar Calibration Certificate – The officers radar must be calibrated periodically, from 30 days to 3 months. In some jurisdictions if he does not have this with him you have grounds to dismiss the case.

6. Site Necessity of Safety – This can be successful but it is a tricky one. If the average speed of the traffic around you was greater then the speed limit then you can argue that going at that speed was the safest course of action. The problem with this defense is that you admit that you were going over the speed limit and the officer can argue that under such circumstances the fastest cars are usually stopped. If you have no other recourse take this defense. I taking this defense be confident in your stance. That will make all of the difference in the world.

Speeding Tickets Q & A

Many people at one point in time will end up with a speeding ticket or citation. There are many questions that deal with how the speeding ticket might effect them and what steps to take to beat the speeding ticket or at least get the fines reduced.

How much is my speeding ticket going to cost?

From state to state costs for speeding tends to vary. The costs will also be different for how much over the speed limit you may have been going. Most places the fines are going to be somewhere around a hundred dollars. States like California have some of the highest rates near three hundred a ticket.

The other cost of a speeding ticket is that auto insurance rates can increase for up to three years because of the speeding.

How to turn a speeding ticket into jail time?

Obviously no one wants to do this. Some states can take you to jail for doubling the speed limit or if the officer thinks the speeding was reckless.

If you do choose to go to court and fight the ticket and do not show up, in some places your absence can lead to jail time or heavy fines.

How to fight a speeding in a school zone ticket

These tickets are extremely difficult to fight since people have an understanding to keep children safe on the roads near the schools.

Sometimes there are noble objections to these tickets. If you do get a school zone ticket, this is basically one of your only defenses. As soon as possible, better yet the day you get the ticket, go back to the school zone in the direction you were driving and check three things that you can document with photos.

Check if the sign was blocked by a tree or bush to show that you didn’t know it was a school zone.

Check if the lights indicating a school zone are not operational.

Check if the time you got the ticket was actually when the school zone was not in effect.

What are the tips to get speeding ticket dismissed?

-Learn your local laws. If you study these, you can build a defense based on the points in your jurisdictions laws for this violation.

-Ask honest questions about the method that the officer pulled you over. Sometimes officers have used ways of pulling someone over that aren’t allowed in that area.

-If it’s your first offense, ask for traffic school. This can get the ticket off your record and significantly reduce any fines.

-Challenge the certification of the radar gun or other tool the officer uses to pull you over. These in many places have to be recalibrate professionally every few months and the officer must sign off on it.