Email The Judge To Contest Your Speeding Ticket

from the sounds-smart dept

Someone I know was on vacation in South Carolina earlier this year and got a speeding ticket. According to the local law, she was then required to show up in court - even though she lived 3,000 miles away in California. She got around this by hiring (for about the price of the ticket itself) a lawyer who could represent her, instead. Clearly, such laws are designed to the benefit of local lawyers (and the local police coffers), but one judge in the Northwest is being a lot more reasonable about things. He's letting motorists charged with moving violations email him to explain the circumstances and plead their cases electronically. Once he understands the details, he's often willing to drop or lessen the charges. This, of course, is how things like traffic violations should be handled. There's no reason to make people show up in court, except under some specific circumstances. This policy frees up court time and makes for a much fairer system. Of course, unfortunately, those are two reasons why it's unlikely to catch on in many places.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Sep 2003 @ 4:50pm

    It'll never happen in California

    Here in California, speeding tickets are known as "wallet rape", basically because there are so many things setup to prevent you from contesting them, it's obvious that it's just to make money:

    you have to go to court twice (2 days pay)

    if it's you word against the cop, the cop *always* wins

    you're guilty until proven innocent

    there's no concept of "reasonable doubt"

    you cannot contest to a higher court

    you have to go to court where you were caught, not your local one

    if you appeal in writing the cop gets 6 weeks to file a report

    if you lose, you have to go to a court-appointed traffic school not a local/cheap one (if you get the option of traffic school)

    a certain [sounds like a lizard] insurance company actually sponsers speed cameras/radar

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Adam, 9 Sep 2003 @ 8:16am

    Odd..

    I don't know why you need to send E-mail. Several years ago I got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, and my court date coincided with a midterm. On my lawyer's (and father's) advice, I just wrote a nice letter to the judge and sent a check for the fine. He cut the the fine in half and they sent me a refund.

    I'm not sure how well this would work for actually contesting a ticket, but email is just another form of communication.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Fighter, 1 Nov 2006 @ 2:31pm

    Re: It'll never happen in California

    You can actually contest your California traffic ticket entirely by mail. You do not have to show up in court at all. Its under the (pursuant to CVC 40519(b)) or you can get info on www.ticketassassin.com.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.