I read a short article this morning on the Tampa Tribune website. It posed the question of whether “there is some sort of technique to getting out of traffic citations.”

It caught my eye because it hit on a point I’ve been trying to make for years. Everyone wants to know if “I can say this or do this or use this defense or if officers are like this or that”… These questions are with respect to both before and after a ticket is issued.

People want black/white solutions to their problems, but such solutions rarely exist. My answers are almost always “maybe, it depends, could be, etc.”… One officer pulls you over and is in a good mood and gives you a warning, another pulls you over 2 minutes after getting into a fight with his wife on the phone. One judge buys your story about why you were talking on a cell phone while another judge’s aunt was just hit by a driver who was talking on the phone two days prior to your hearing.

Bottom line is, when a person has the power to use discretion–as officers who pull you over do–it is impossible to set rules to how that discretion will be exercised. Different people see things differently. Thus, there never will be one “technique” that works all the time.

Related to this are all the “one size fits all” BS beating traffic ticket books and “secrets” and websites out there. The thought that there are universal solutions that don’t take into account different personalities, different jurisdictions within a state and even different laws and evidence as you go from state to state is absolutely ridiculous. Within NY alone there are 2 “types” of courts that are so different from each other it’s obvious universal solutions or tricks just don’t exist.

All this doesn’t mean how you are treated or whether you are successful before or after you are issued a ticket is completely random or out of your hands. Courtesy on the road increases your chances of getting a warning and and smart strategy based on the applicable local rules and procedures in court will increase your chances of success. However, don’t waste too much time searching for some “magic bullet”. It’s unlikely you’ll find it.

The original article written by Jessica Balanza can be found here: Do you have a foolproof way of avoiding speeding tickets?

Finland assesses speeding fines based partially on how fast you were charged with driving and partially on your income.

An heir to a northern European meatpacking empire was recently charged with doing 50mph in a 25mph zone. In New York, this would be a six point speed and all fines and surcharges–including the point-based DRP–would total approximately $500 or so. In Finland, he fine amount took into consideration the motorist’s $11.5 million income that year and was set at $200,000.

A number of Scandinavian countries, including Denmark and Norway, also levy fines according to income, according to a survey of the world’s highest speeding fines by AOL Autos.

Is it legal for a police officer to pull over a suspected drunk driver based solely on a caller’s tip?

The Supreme Court recently let stand a Virginia Supreme Court ruling that held a police officer can follow but cannot stop a suspected drunk driver’s car until the officer sees the driver do something suspicious, such as swerve in a lane.

Justice Roberts strongly dissented. “The effect of [this] rule will be to grant drunk drivers ‘one free swerve’ before they can be pulled over by the police,” Roberts said. “It will be difficult for an officer to explain to the family of a motorist killed by that swerve that the police had a tip that the driver of the other car was drunk, but that they were powerless to pull him over, even for a quick check.”

The Supreme Court’s action is not a formal ruling. Other states are not bound to follow the Virginia ruling. However, with that apparent support of the Supreme Court behind the Virginia ruling, it’s likely there will be more legal challenges in states that allow police stops based on anonymous tips.

Most state courts have upheld car searches based on a tip from a caller in situations where the vehicle matches the description given.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices turned down without comment an appeal from Virginia prosecutors, which was backed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Their argument was simple. More than 12,000 Americans die each year in alcohol-related crashes and drunk drivers need to be stopped and taken off the road as soon as possible.

For as long as there has been speed enforcement, there have been efforts by motorists to use whatever methods were available to avoid speeding tickets.

it probably started with simple conversation between neighbors and friends. “Bill, keep an eye out as you’re approaching exit 12 on the highway because this one officer always hides there…”.

Then headlight flashing became common among drivers in the mid 1960s when cars began to come with headlight beam selectors located on the steering column—typically activated by pulling the turn signal stalk—rather than the previous foot-operated switches. Once activation was moved to the signal stalk, drivers could momentarily activate their high beams regardless of whether their headlights were turned on or off. Drivers now had a readily available means to attempt communication with one another by flashing their headlamps.

Next came the radar detector in the 1970s. The first model–the “fuzzbuster”–was introduced as a result of the 1974 National Maximum Speed Law. This law was a provision of the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act and it prohibited speed limits higher than 55 mph. This cap was intended to reduce gasoline consumption in response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s.

Note that in 1987 the national speed limit was raised to 65 mph limits on certain roads and in 1995 the law was repealed altogether, returning the power of setting speed limits to the states. That lower speed limit of 55mph across the board never decreased consumption to the extent lawmakers thought it would.

However, the use of technology to avoid speeding tickets continues today. The “fuzzbuster” gave way to increasingly advanced radar and laser detectors and a game of cat and mouse radar enforcement and detection between enforcement officers and drivers was on.

Now GPS, readily available to motorists either via a navigation system or their cell phone, is in the mix.

Trapster is one such service which uses GPS based technology and enables your mobile phone or navigation device to alert you as you approach police “speed traps”.

I’ve been asked a few times whether it works. I can’t say too much because I’ve never personally tried it, but the GPS based process is simple enough and I’m sure it does exactly what the service claims to do. If person A presses a button on their device or calls a number when they are passing what they perceive to be a speed enforcement officer, other users of the service will get an alert as they approach that location.

Will that help people avoid speeding tickets? If a driver who otherwise is continually driving above the speed limit now slows down on occasion when an alert sounds, I imagine this person must be decreasing the odds of receiving a speeding ticket. In that respect, yes–it must help. Perhaps it is a tool worth incorporating, along with careful driving and keeping your eyes open, that can reduce the chances of getting a speeding ticket.

However, consider the following before employing technology like this:

• If widely used, the system will eventually be packed with every location anyone has every seen an officer actually enforcing speed OR responding to an accident OR taking a nap OR eating lunch…   My point is there is a danger in the long run that this device that cries “police” won’t be any more effective than the boy who cried “wolf” was at getting his message across.

• Where radar detectors forced enforcement to invent new technologies and improve the radar guns to negate the radar detection technology, all enforcement needs to do to thwart this type of early warning is vary the location of their enforcement.  Seems like a relatively easy fix to me.

• “Distracted driving” is currently, for good reason, a very hot national topic.  Do we need more distractions, alerts and things to look at while we are driving?

People want to avoid speeding tickets.  I get that–we’ve built a law firm based on the concept that no one wants to be issued a speeding ticket or convicted of a speeding violation.  At the end of the day, the rules for avoiding tickets really haven’t changed much since the earliest days of speed enforcement.  Drive safe and obey the rules of the road are first and foremost.  However, if you are tempted to break a rule here or there (such as speeding or rolling through a stop sign at an empty intersection or failing to use your signal), then you’ll need to keep your eyes open for enforcement officers.  If new technology can help you with that, go for it.  Just don’t forget that the best way to avoid a speeding ticket will always be driving within the posted speed limit.

Submitted by Scott Feifer