Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: texace on November 06, 2002, 09:10:45 PM
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Got my first ticket last night...over something menial. I was coming home from work at 10:30 or so, and when I'm coming home, a cop hits his lights behind me. Told me a ran a stop sign (which I didn't...I stopped completely at the intersection the cop WAS IN...and he followed me for at least 300 yards or more until he decided to flip his lights. Last few times I've seen stop sign violations...they stop them right there...not 300 yards down the road...)
Anyways...checks my lisence and asks where my glasses are (I have...or rather HAD an A restriction. In Texas, that means "with corrective lenses). I tell him that I wear contacts, and he asks to see them. I haven't worn my contacts in nine months, as my vision is close to 20/20 without em, but I show him anyways. He then accuses me of lying about them, as he gets real uppity and upset, so I admit that I do not have contacts.
He goes to his car and I wait...he then comes back to tell me he's giving me a "warning" for a sign I didn't run, and a ticket (!!!!!) for not wearing lenses I do not need. Since the resriction was on the lisence, I could not tell the officer I didn't need the lenses, or I'd get hit again for lying. Anyway...I call the courthouse to see the fine...
$130.00!!!!
I am going to try and get this dismissed, but I don't know. I've lost my mind, as my car failed inspection and it's a week past the date. I've got no money to get it fixed...
I might be away from AH for a while...but I hope not. I'm just real upset right now and I had to vent. I know a few of you here are worse off than I am...but I needed to vent cause no one is home right now...
Semp out...
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Only way I can see out would be to get your eyes checked again, and have a medical report from the optitrician(or however the hell it's spelled) that you have good vision... good enuff to operate a vehicle without corrective lenses.
Of course, that too costs money unless, perhaps, you are employed by someone with good medical insurance...
Other than that, I dunno... you can go in and try to BS the judge...
-SW
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Bummer tex.
"I tell him that I wear contacts, and he asks to see them. I haven't worn my contacts in nine months... so I admit that I do not have contacts."
Reminded me of something that happened to one of my Dad's friends...
He was pulled over by a cop. He asked why he was being pulled over, and the cop says "because you're not wearing your seatbelt" (the law here).
The guy says "Oh, I was indeed wearing my seatbelt, but I took it off when you pulled me over in order to reach over to the glovebox to get you my registration papers".
The cop says, "Oh really? Put your seatbelt back on".
The guy goes "Sure" and attempts to put his seatbelt back on. He can't.
That's when he realizises the the seatbelt was caught in the door and the buckle was dragging along the ground.
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Damn, I get so many tickets I'd forgotten how bad the first one felt.
I figure I've paid for a squad car by now, and a new coffee room at my auto insurance company.
Yesterday I commuted 67.5 miles in less than an hour, and that includes about 6 stop lights.
It sucks when it's a bogus ticket from a salamander cop, like yours. Make up for it by speeding vigorously for the rest of your life.
ra
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Lying to an officer, even about something "unimportant", isn't a smart thing to do and is a good way to talk yourself into a fine because that suggests you KNOW the rule and willfully disregarded it. Furthermore since you tried to lie about your non-existant contacts, few judges would take your word vs. the officer's about whether you made a full stop or not so you probably did good in that you only got 1 citation.
It's an expensive lesson.
Ra--
With your attitude it's no surprise that you get lots of tickets. Sooner or later you'll lose your license (of course you'll blame the police for that too).
J_A_B
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No no J_A_B, I did not lie about my contacts...I told him truthfully that I was not wearing them. He asked me, and I told him truthfully.
I am smart enough to know not to lie to a police officer...if I had, then the fine would have been worse.
He thought I was lying about them becuause I told him I had them...not that I had them IN. My contacts have been out of date for that nine months. Being of teenager mind...I decided that I would wait until my birthday and get the restriction removed...and I didn't make it. It was far safer to drive without glasses or contacts as they made my vision worse.
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Take it to court. You have BETTER than a 50% chance of not paying a dime if you go to court. Don't take my word on it, check out what studies have found. Its your moral obligation as a citizen to fight this ticket in court.
It may be an inconvience now, but when you look back in 10 years, you will be able to say "I'm sure glad I exercised my rights and didnt pay for that ticket (and all the other crap that goes along with getting a ticket)"
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How did you show him your contacts if you were not wearing them?
Anyways you are extremely lucky when it comes to cops if you are pissed about this, trust me. If you see Dave Chapelle's stand up act you may undestand why ;)
I would never dare to contradict a cop. All that is coming out of my mouth is "yes sir" "no sir" and hoping that my nads are left intact.
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You're going about it the wrong way. Go back to the "running of the stop sign". You say you didn't. If you can prove it or convince a judge/jury that you didn't, then the officer had no "probable cause", therefore, the glasses thing will be thrown out. Fruit of the poison tree, IIRC.
Otherwise, you're screwed. You're license states a restriction, which you were not complying with. It's your responsibility to prove to the DMV you no longer need a restriction. You're fine may be reduced, but I would be willing to bet the points (if there were any points hit) won't be.
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"bad cop! no donut!"
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Don't lie to cops unless you have a good reason or you have some time to kill and you like being around cops. They deal with all kinds of people and they get to be pretty good lie detectors. Once they know you are lying to them they are wondering why, and if something more is going on than whatever they pulled you over for. And they will try to find out what that is. Which will cost you time (if you are innocent) or your freedom (if you are guilty).
If you had told him that you didn't have corrective lenses on and that it was because you didn't need them anymore, he would have thought twice about writing a ticket for it, because if there's one thing they hate, it's going to court for a ticket and losing. But once you lie to them they tend to nail you for anything they can.
What you need to do is see an eye doctor and get cleared to drive without lenses. If you can document that then you will be able to get the judge to toss out the citation. If you can't document that, then you are guilty is charged.
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Originally posted by funkedup
Don't lie to cops unless you have a good reason or you have some time to kill and you like being around cops. They deal with all kinds of people and they get to be pretty good lie detectors. Once they know you are lying to them they are wondering why, and if something more is going on than whatever they pulled you over for. And they will try to find out what that is. Which will cost you time (if you are innocent) or your freedom (if you are guilty).
If you had told him that you didn't have corrective lenses on and that it was because you didn't need them anymore, he would have thought twice about writing a ticket for it, because if there's one thing they hate, it's going to court for a ticket and losing.
What you need to do is see an eye doctor and get cleared to drive without lenses. If you can document that then you will be able to get the judge to toss out the citation. If you can't document that, then you are guilty is charged.
What funked says makes sense. You may have to pay court costs which are minor to the Traffic notice. Go see the doc.
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Originally posted by funkedup
Don't lie to cops unless you have a good reason or you have some time to kill and you like being around cops.
yep :)
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unless you have a witness you can't prove you didn't run the stop sign. if you bring it up it will just make you look like you're the kind of guy who try's to weasle out of everything. take the warning and drop it.
as far as the glasses, just go to the eye dr. and get them checked. if you are within limits without them the judge will probably drop the whole thing or at least reduce most of it. if not you're guilty, stop whinning and pay the fine.
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This sort of reminds me of the time in college when several of my buddies and I pulled a sneak in on the girls college down the road a couple of miles.
We had an FTX going on that none of us soon to be graduated junior college guys needed to be on and we decided to pull our own Undercover Fornication Training Exercise (henceforth known as UFTX). So I put 5 or 6 guys in the hatch back of my CRX and we had probably 20-30 guys with girl friends who were locked up in there curfew enforced dorms on this weeknight when all the military college boys were days away from graduation.
Well to make this one short we decided to infiltrate from the graveyard about 300 meters away from the fence around the girls college campus. The drive-in gates were locked with security guards on them and of course they had the motion detector lights on the fence also.
Well as we are tactically crossing the road one of the guys gets caught by a cop car on patrol. (Keep in mind that we are all in full camo only with no face paint since that is not to attractive even to girlfriends.) This guy is the one that was carrying on of the several rappeling lines we were thinking that would be needed for the guys who were visiting girlfriends whose dorm rooms were on the 3rd floor or higher. He just froze like a damn manequin in the middle of the road and the cop pulls up and starts reading the guy his rights. He has no idea that just a few feet away are the rest of us trying not to laugh our collective tulips off.
So the rest of the infil for our "FTX" goes according to plan and the vast majority of us who were able to make it into dorms are attempting to exfil before daylight. At this point three other guys gets seen trying to exfil about 50 meters from a gate. They start running towards me and three of my riders as we are crossing the fence and headed toward the cars. At this point three cop cars come screaming into the area of the graveyard with lights and sirens flashing. Well me being the handsomehunk I was with the LOCAL car (wait I did not mention that I knew every damn cop in town since I lived there and the son of the police chief and I were good friends and I went to his house for dinner several times a month.). Well anyway me being a handsomehunk decides to try and make a run for it. We successfully get out of the graveyard and start heading back to school. I have to drive right down the main road into the school to let the other guys out so I can go home.
About this time we get pulled over by none other than the police chief. Imagine trying to lie to him about having truly been on the real FTX when he tells me that he saw me and my car drive out of the graveyard. Fortunately my Dad was in Saudi at the time and he only heard of this little stunt several months later when I had left to go to UAB for football.
So my advice is don't lie to the cops they really know the true score on 98% of the things that happen.
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Texace, I'll trade months with you dude- a 130.00 ticket in exchange for a two week visit from my reptilian mother in law is a fair exchange, IMO. Hell, the energy savings alone are worth it. We have to keep the house heated to 88 degrees Farenheit or she gets lethargic and can't catch her live mice.
I don't mind the house having to be at 88 degrees but she has to have the hot tub at 88 degrees also or she'll overheat and secrete this foul smelling stuff that causes the Hazardous Waste Disposal Team to show up. About the only good thing that happens when she visits is the neighborhood cat population takes a nose dive. I don't know if she eats them or if they realize the danger and migrate elsewhere, but personally I believe the old squeak is running at night and eating them. Whatever, after her visit I will have the hot tub sandblasted, sanitized and refinished.
She never bathes, preferring instead to scrape her old skin off every three months or so on a handy tree branch or a sharp rock. This is when she is at her most dangerous because her shedding skin will blind her so she strikes out at anything, and she has struck at and swallowed several of my slippers in the mistaken belief they were cats. We all tread lightly around her when she's shedding.
She smells like the dirt in a vampire's coffin- not to be insulting to dirt, mind you, or even vampires, but man o man she stinks like death warmed over and hisses whenever you get close to her when she's feeding so yeah, I'd trade months with just about anyone here. A 130.00 ticket pales in comparison to MY burden. Cry on, Texace- your whine falls on deaf ears over here.
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I hope your wife resembles more your father in law. :D
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are you a Marine Tex?
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Not sure fighting the ticket will be worth it. Most judges I talk to will side with the officer everytime unless you have solid proof in your favor. And if your state is like Indiana you will have to pay court cost on top of your ticket.
Here is what happened to me:
I was on my way to Bloomington down 446 with my wife and son to see a movie when we pass 4 County cops setting up a radar trap. We see the movie and on the way back I made sure I was below the speed limit when we got close to where the trap was.
There was a truck in front of me that obviously didn't know they were there cause he was flying down the road towards them. He finally saw them about 1/2 way across the bridge and slammed on his brakes but of course it was to late for him. My wife and I both said out loud that he was busted and I commented that I was glad I remembered they were there.
Well the truck in front of us was going so slow that we caught up to it right before he got to the police. The first cop was on the left side of the road and he was clocking cars while the others were on the right side ready to pull over whom ever he said was speeding.
Well this is were the story gets toejamty!
When the truck in front of me got past the car with the radar he turned left and sped away while we kept going straight. Next thing you know WE get pulled over for speeding!!! The cop said I was doing 59 in a 45! I asked him if he was sure it was me that was clocked and not the truck that turned off and he said he was sure. I asked him if HE clocked me and he said NO but it didn't matter their system is flawless! I tried to explain to him how his system was NOT flawless because they let the truck that WAS speeding get away.
Needless to say I got the ticket anyway!
I decided to fight the ticket since I knew I was right but when I was at my friends house a few days later his neighbor who is a judge came by and I asked him what I could do to get out of it and his response was "Nothing". He said unless I had witnesses other than the people in the car then he would always side with the cop. Also if I fight the ticket and lost I would be charged an extra $500 in court cost!!!!
I did manage to get into the Prosecutor's little extortion plan that allows you to pay more money to keep the ticket off your record as long as you don't get another ticket within 6 months.
Basically I was screwed!!
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Should have told him about your Grand dad being a real life VMF-323 Rattler and warned him to keep an eye open in his rear view mirror for any Corsairs! ;)
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Goto your secritary of states office or DMV PASS there eye test then take that to court with you.
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Go to court, cause if it is like california, if the cop does not show you are home free.
I feel for you texace.
My first car was a junker 68 GTO that you had to stick a pencil in the carb to get it to start, and it ran so rarely I drove it about 5 days a month.
I owed my parents 600 bucks for months paying a little at a time, to pay off the brake Job. I was making 4.25 an hour, and paying 193$ a month in insurance.
Things will get better.
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I know this has nothing to do with a ticket, but this month has been a bad month. First i was in a reck in my freinds truck. when he hit a tree at 50 mpr. Then two days later i blew the motor up in my 85 ford Bronco, on the way home form school. Now i am trying to fix a truck with a headache and no money.
Regards ComradII