Speeding and what to do if caught

By Kevin Karner

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration has observed a growing rate of traffic violations in recent year, since speeding is cited as a factor in approximately one-third of all crash-related fatalities.

In all honesty, a significant majority of people speed and some are unlucky enough to be caught and fined with approximately 125,000 other drivers each day.

Common as speeding offenses may be, there’s no sympathy and now is an especially bad time to get a ticket for any sort of moving violation. Even one speeding ticket can tarnish a good name in the eyes of an insurance company.

Many insurance companies try to maximize profits off of monthly payments, then adding finance charges on top of it. If the unfortunate someone who’s landed them self some speeding tickets in their early twenties, then this monthly premium may raise as much as forty dollars a month for the next four years.

This is all circumstantial to age, gender (women are statistically safer drivers), geography, vehicle type and past driving records.

But what if it was possible to skip all the hassle and maybe turn that ticket into a warning?
For starters, drivers may want to consider the following things before they even hit the road.

Spend $5 to request driving records from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s probably worth it to know what harm a moving violation would do.

Keep car legally drivable (i.e. fix that broken taillight, dirty license plate, cracked windshield).

In the event someone does get pulled over with one of these, it’s only going to worsen the fine.
Driving that green ‘98 Taurus is probably going to get less tickets then a brand new red sports car. Red cars can create an optical illusion that makes them appear to be going faster than they really are

Just a hunch, but that brazenly liberal/conservative bumper sticker on back? That one that’s just asking for some sort of provocation? The police generally don’t find those very endearing.

Think like a gazelle; everybody speeds a little, so just discretely drive fast. Stay with a pack and drivers are less likely to get noticed individually.

But let’s say that someone has actually gotten pulled over for speeding. Park in a safe spot off the road and put the hazard lights on, roll down the window and turn the radio off. It’s not a good idea to say that they were going 60 in a 45. That would be an admittance of guilt and would leave them at the mercy of the officer.

When asked for license and registration, tell him where they are before suddenly jerking to find it in a glove compartment. If a vehicle search is in order, don’t panic. If the officer asks permission to search the vehicle, they don’t have any probable cause. Politely refuse the search and request a warrant if they intend to do so.

Bear in mind that if the car is billowing reefer madness or there’s alcohol on their breath, they’ve already given them probable cause and there need not be any warrant. If pulled over by a highway patrol officer, the title of “trooper” is preferred; they are not ordinary traffic cops.

If there’s a mistake on the ticket like a misspelled name, wrong license plate number, wrong car model, etc., don’t correct the mistake. If the officer shows up to court with an inaccurate ticket, the case will be thrown out and the cop will look stupid.

If a ticket is unavoidable, don’t do anything out of the ordinary or crafty like asking about the calibration on the radar gun used. This basically sends up the red flag about trying to work the system which police don’t like very much; a nod and a smile are much more forgettable.

If the ticket is taken to court, the officer that wrote the ticket needs to make an appearance. If the trial is delayed, which can be easily done, the ticketing officer may very well forget or simply not care enough to go. If the officer doesn’t arrive, the presiding judge will most likely dismiss the case. After all, citizens do have a constitutional right to question their accuser in court, so if there’s no accuser to really prove guilt, the trial can’t proceed.

There are probably a hundred different sources available online that will give both obvious and ridiculous methods, but no matter what, a ticket or not is really just all up to chance in the end.

The best strategy is probably just to try to break the law as infrequently as possible, but if not, check out www.flexyourights.org for more information on legal rights when stopped by the law.