Seattle Speeding Ticket Defenses That Don't Work

Posted on 2009-09-30, 05:46, by Smalls, under Law.

Almost all of us have been pulled over for a speeding ticket at some point. And most of us have probably had to pay them. Well, because I got tired of paying them, I did something most people don't have the time, or patience, to do. I went to law school, earned my JD, passed the bar exam, and became a Seattle speeding ticket attorney. Now I routinely get speeding tickets dismissed for my clients and family members (particularly my wife). And I also routinely sit in court and hear people provide excuses time and time again that the judge will never go for. Read on to learn a little bit more about those.

Going to court, even to traffic court, for most people, is a big deal. They don't want to look like an idiot. They want to beat their speeding ticket. And they are scared out of their minds. For most people, their knowledge of the courtroom and criminal attorneys is limited to what they've seen on Law and Order, Boston Legal, or Murphy Brown, which, by the way, is far from reality. So, most people do what even I do when I am unsure of something – they Google it. The only problem is, in an area like this, where people are trying to sell you an answer to your problem, there is a lot of misinformation and flat out lies about what you should do to beat your Seattle speeding ticket. Below are a few of my favorite ones, and the reasons why they don't work.

You Cannot Beat a Speeding Ticket by Using the "Everybody Else was Doing it Defense."

I was in court the other day and saw this kid come up in front of court. He was probably in his early twenties. He had been cited for speeding in what, to be honest, was a pretty crappy move by the police officer. To summarize, the kid was going 65 in a 60, along with the rest of traffic, the cop pulled up next to him a couple of lanes over, and after a bit dropped back behind him and popped him for speeding. So the kid comes into court, goes up in front of the judge and says this, "I was going 65 your honor, but so was everyone else. It's not fair." You know what the judge said? "If everybody quit doing their homework would you quit too?" She then found he'd committed the speeding infraction, reduced his fine for showing up and giving it a go, and sent him on his way.

Moral of the story here? Speeding is a strict liability crime. What does this mean? It means if you are speeding, for whatever reason, you are guilty of committing the traffic infraction of speeding. You will never see a speeding ticket attorney in Seattle come up with this defense, because it doesn't work. Bottom line, if you are speeding, you are speeding. It doesn't matter why. So don't try to come up with a good excuse for it. It just won't work.

You Cannot Beat a Traffic Ticket Because the Officer Spelled Your Name Wrong

If you are cited for speeding, the officer is going to ask for your identification, your insurance, and your registration. In the course of things, he may misspell your name a bit, mess up the address, or otherwise create some clerical error. Bottom line, if the error is clerical in nature, it isn't going to save you from getting busted for that traffic citation. And going to the judge and telling them that yes, the officer did give you that ticket, and yes, your name is what it looks like on the ticket except for a minor misspelling, is only going to get you a committed finding on your traffic ticket.

That is not to say that some errors aren't enough to get your ticket dismissed. Those types of errors do exist. But the errors need to be so important that they create the failure of a specific duty to not make the error, as opposed to being a spelling error. For example, there are several boxes on the ticket that if left unchecked may result in the dismissal of your ticket. How are you going to know which is enough to beat the ticket and which isn't? You aren't. That is why you need to call a traffic ticket attorney if you really need to beat your ticket.

Suggesting the Cop Stopped the Wrong Car Will Not Get You Out of Your Seattle Speeding Ticket

This one takes a little creativity and a great memory of being pulled over for your Seattle speeding ticket, but it rarely if ever works. Why, you might ask? Because the judges have heard this excuse a million times, and if you think about it a little bit, it just doesn't add up. First of all, consider the fact that cops are trained to not only spot speeding vehicles, but keep an eye on them once they've been tagged for speeding. This means that unless you can show that there was an exact replica of your car in your vicinity going at a high rate of speed at the time you were pulled over, you are not going to be believed (and I'm talking about you needing pictures to verify this). Second, cops, though unruly and untrustworthy in many ways, for the most part don't care who you are when they are pulling you over. What I mean is, there is no personal vendetta here. They probably hate being on traffic duty as much as you hate getting pulled over. So subtly suggesting to the judge that the cop may have picked you out for some ulterior motive (unless there is one) is going to fall on deaf ears. And finally, judges hear excuses from people every day related to why they shouldn't be given a speeding ticket. And for the most part people are lying. Because of this, as a judge you can't help but get a little cold-hearted toward people when they come into court.

Bottom line, don't go into traffic court unless you have a legitimate defense (or want to get a deferral or ask for mitigation). The judge is going to see through it, the prosecutor, if there is one there, is going to see through it, and you are going to become the example in some Seattle speeding ticket attorney's article about what not to do if you get a Seattle speeding ticket.

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