In my rental Dodge Charger that the officer refured to as "fast" which was not a Hemi and not fast, I got a sppeding ticket. I am from Washington and want to know what will happen. I got it for 85 in a 70. I have a clean driving record at home, can I do traffic school online? He got me with Lindar, said i was going 94 but looked like 85 so wrote me for 85. How should I proced, I know we have lots of CA members so can I please have some advice. Thanks.

 

Well unfortunately i'm not from California, but I can give you an account of my own personal experience which might give you some pointers.

Basically I borrowed my dad's 08 MB ML320 CDI SUV to pick up my sister from the dentist since she went during our lunch hour at work, and I got on the freeway and was cruising along when i ended up in a lane between two trucks, with both trucks looking kind of shaky to me. What I didn't know was that the freeway section had changed from a 65mph limit to a 55mph limit and despite this everyone was still going 70mph.

So I gunned it to get out from both trucks and make my fast approaching exit. Needless to say I got caught by a cop. I got clocked apparently doing 85mph in a 55mph zone (criminal speeding in florida) even though i was doing 80mph max. Cop issued the ticket and said its mandatory court appearance. Being my first ticket ever, my dad decided that to play it safe we'd hire a traffic attorney for $200, just to make sure that we didn't get points since we never had this scenario before and just recently moved back from Europe.

It ended up being a $361 ticket I believe, with no points or traffic school. I still have a clean record to this day (Thank God!) and even though it ended up costing me a chunk of change, I don't really regret it as long as I didn't get any points.

Possibilities I believe are 3 points, traffic school, fine (in addition to these), or just a fine. If i'm missing something or have something wrong please feel free to chime in anyone.

It sucks dude so I know what you mean, but since you have a clean record and they do hundreds of these a day I doubt you'll get anything really bad. What the lawyer told me is that someone who did 130mph in a 55mph zone got a fine and a 6 month suspension, and someone who did 110 in a 65mph ended up with traffic school and an enormous fine, so I mean I doubt it would be such a big ticket.

My dad got clocked in North Carolina actually doing 85mph in a 70mph zone and the cop knocked it down to 14mph (84mph) to get him a $76 fine. Though apparently he got 3 points too. He's also much older than you though I imagine.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the reply, I talked to a nice cop today, told me to contest it, he said there is no way the cop knew which car he hit with lidar accross 4 lanes of traffic from a ditch

 

You can contest it but it'll still be your word vs the citing officers word. If you plan to contest the ticket you will have to goto court and appear infront of a judge to fight your case. If the officer is not present (which in most cases they are not) its sometimes a 100% win on your behalf IF no report of the citation was handed to the judge. If however the officer does show up and has the report made you'll have a tough time stating your case as they tend to side with the officer.

Though it may be true that the cops Lidar wouldn't be able to detect if it was 100% surely your vehicle speeding, the only way to prove that would be to hire a lawyer. Another point is that the Lidar is a short distance scanner (distance unknown) but its highly likely not to be able to scan across a span of 4 lanes.

85 in a 70 is 1 point and that point can be removed if you attend traffic school (8 hour class for 1 day) but you'll still have to pay the speeding fine of X amount of dollers and the court fee's (likely to be around $10-$50)

I've had the exact same ticket and won the case without a lawyer solely because the citing officer failed to appear to court and only had his report vs my word. The judge heard me out and just looked like he didn't even want to deal with it. Fine was waived, no point was given and all i had to pay was for the court fee. Now this is all by chance that the officer did not show up and I was well aware the risk of trying to fight the ticket had the officer shown up. Worse case goto traffic school and pay the fine (which will most likely be reduced) adn the court fee's and be on your way. Your also able to do traffic school online for about $45 which cuts the 8 hour class into a 1 hour at home test.

Hope that helps.

 

That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. That's the whole point of LIDAR, because it only targets ONE vehicle through the spotting scope. I own TWO LIDARS so I speak from first hand knowledge.

 

I lived in Palm Springs for 3 years. There are ALWAYS police traps on the 10 on the way into PS from LA and often on the 29 heading down the mountain from 29 Palms, Vegas and Lake Havasu. If you are reading this consider yourself warned. Also, note that if you get pulled over for speeding on federal land, you would have to go to court no matter what for a ticket like this. The fine is also very large. It happened to many of my friends racing off to Vegas for a weekend of debauchery.
You can just go to traffic school to get out of the points in CA. You can probably go to a class where you live. It may not be worth your time to go to court to try to get out of the ticket. I would just pay the fine and go to school.
Regards,

 

I heard about doing it online, can it really be done in an hour????!

I heard it really takes the 8 hours

 

You can take the online traffic school and knock that test out in less then 2 hours. Basically there is a list of certified/Authorized online traffic schools (about $45) which you can take and after you've completed it you can print your passing test score and mail it also the online site used will send a digital copy of you passing.

The first time I did the online traffic school, I completed it in about an hour. All your doing is reading and answering multiple choice questions. At the time when I took mine (5-6 years ago) I opened up the first page which was the reading portion and tabbed open the 2nd page which was multiple choice questions referring to the first page. So I pretty much just read and answered questions while looking at the first page to find my answers. Rinse and repeat for about 10 pages. It was literally that simple when I took it.

 

that sounds easy enough, hopefully someone will chime in an confirm its still that simple

 

Here's one of the links for online traffic school. http://onlinetrafficschool.com/

you can run a search for authorized online sites for traffic school and I'm sure you'll find a good list. You can also check with your insurance provider for a list of online traffic schools.

The process is simple. Select the State, County & court. Take the online class, pass the final test and you'll receive a certificate of completion which should also be automatically sent into the court system or insurance. However you should check with your insurance company to see if they are ok with online traffic school (most insurance companies are) but just incase.

Hope that helps. Good luck bud