Free Book - Beat The System: Proven Tips to Avoid and Fight Speeding Tickets
I do have to admit, speeding tickets can ruin your
day and your pocket book. I got one coming back from Jackson Hole
Wyoming from a snowboarding trip. Then my luck really went south. I was
heading to our cabin, on Lake Cascade, 3 months later and I got one
again. That really hurt. You see, this hurts because I was a police
officer for 6 years and now I am receiving what I used to give out.
So I understand but I know how to beat them.
But for all of you who visit my web, you may not know. I do not
have the time to write a book on how to avoid or beat them but I did
some research to forward to you. Yeah I found just what I would have
written. "Speeding
Ticket Fixer"
Click Here to receive your own FREE copy of "Beat the
System".
Proven Tips to Avoid and Fight
Speeding Tickets. I downloaded it then read it. The author knows his
stuff and you will not regret the read. A must have before you get the
ticket.
If you were unlucky enough to get a DUI, I have
located this site to help you out.
Click Here!
The free ebook download is filled with information
Strength-N-Speed will not make public on this site including:
Click
Here to order "Speeding Ticket Fixer" or receive a FREE copy of "Beat
the System".
Speeding Ticket
Fixer helps you avoid tickets and gives you some background on what to
do if you get pulled over for speeding. If you already have a
ticket and want to fight it (and we absolutely recommend fighting every
speeding ticket) Speeding Ticket Fixer prepares you with the legal strategies
you need to win. It's guaranteed.
Click Here
Last but not least I cannot
stand the polygraph. Being exposed to it in law enforcement I know how
it has failed and continues to be used.
Click Here!
to learn how to beat a polygraph.
"How do I find a good lawyer?" And "Is it going to
cost me an arm and a leg?"
Good questions. I recently found an answer that beats looking through
the Yellow Pages and hoping you don't get hosed.
If you are considering an attorney to help you fight your speeding
ticket, check out the web site below. They have lawyers in virtually
every state (not in New Hampshire right now) with lots of experience
fighting tickets.
http://www.BeatMySpeedingTicket.com/legalhelp
Hope this helps you,
It pays to avoid a ticket -- or fight one
The best advice is simply not to speed, at least not brazenly. But if
you get nailed, fight it -- because a $50 ticket can cost you thousands
once your insurer gets wind of it.
Now is a very bad time to have a lead foot.
States facing yawning budget gaps are finding new money by pinching
speeders more frequently -- and pinching them harder, too. Texas
lawmakers recently added $30 to fines for speeding tickets. California
has added a surcharge of between $7 and $20, depending on the severity
of the violation. And the Illinois Legislature is set to tag an
additional $4 to the cost of a minor speeding ticket.
True, four more bucks won’t change your life, but the fine is usually
the least of your worries. Even one speeding ticket can begin to turn
your name to mud in your insurer’s eyes. More than one can cost you
thousands of dollars in higher premiums.
Insurance companies say punishing speeders is well warranted: In one
study, California drivers with one speeding citation in a three-year
period had a crash rate 50% higher, on average, than those with no
infractions -- and the crash rate more than doubled for those who had
two or more tickets, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute, industry-sponsored research
groups.
A ticket from Johnny Law does seem to slow people down, at least for a
bit. A study of Ontario traffic statistics, published in the British
medical journal the Lancet, found that a conviction for a moving
violation cut the risk of a fatal crash in the following month by 35%.
The benefit evaporated by four months after the conviction. Assigning
penalty points to a driver’s license -- especially for speeding tickets
-- reduced the risk of fatal crashes more than convictions without
penalty points.Get Online Insurance Quotes
Keeping your nose clean
Still, as long as running late is an American pastime, people will
speed. And there are ways to protect yourself and your premiums. First,
reduce your likelihood of getting snagged by the speed gun in these
ways:
Know thyself. Spend $5 to request your driving
record from your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Is it
accurate? Could you face a suspension hearing if you get convicted for
one more violation? Then call your insurer. Find out what a slip-up
would mean to your rates.
Penny-wise = pound foolish. Police will
frequently key on an auto that has problems such as broken headlights,
taped-over taillights or a missing front license plate. Spend $3 to
replace a burned-out license plate bulb and you may save hundreds of
dollars later, says Matisyahu Wolfberg, a policeman-turned-traffic
defense attorney in New York.
Stay incognito, Part I. Driving an
arrest-me red sports car doesn’t guarantee you’ll get pulled over, but
it doesn’t help avoid police, say defense attorneys. Ditto -- albeit to
a lesser degree -- any expensive car. Consider a Camry over a Corvette
and you may save money in more than the showroom.
Stay incognito, Part II. Ignore the general
pace of traffic at your own peril. “You’re a pack animal; don’t stick
out of the pack,” says Casey Raskob, a Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., attorney
who focuses on traffic-related cases. Passing police cars is verboten.
Stay in the right lane when possible.
Keep your eyes peeled. Scan your rear-view
mirror often while driving. Look for possible spots far ahead where a
patrol car could hide. Also, watch how professional truckers drive, and
slow down when they do; they’ve got far more experience detecting
Smokey.
Don’t be sticker shocked. Pasting a Police
Benevolent Association sticker to the rear window isn’t a license to
speed. That jig is long up, says Raskob. Wisecracking bumper stickers --
“Bad Cop; No Donut” -- won’t endear you to The Man, either.
The traffic stop and its aftermath
You get pulled over anyway. Now what do you do?
Be polite. “Most of the time, the motorist
has very little chance. The officer has already has made up his mind,”
says Wolfberg, the former cop. “The only real chance the driver has is
to be nice.” Act peeved and a trooper may give you the full fine. Some
will also flag the citation with a notation, like “ND” -- a note to a
prosecutor or to himself (in some states, law-enforcement officers act
as prosecutors in traffic court) to give a loudmouth “no deal” in
court.
Don’t admit guilt. “The absolutely fatal
question is, ‘Do you know why I stopped you?’” says attorney Mark
Sutherland, co-author of the book “Traffic Ticket Defense.” Authorities
can use any admission of guilt against you when you contest the ticket
(see below). For other things to consider during a traffic stop, see
hints on the Web site of the National Motorists Association, a drivers’
rights group (see the link at left under Related Sites).
Once home, don’t immediately pay the ticket.
Simply paying the fine, an admission of guilt, could cost you
dearly in insurance rates. Doubt it? Let’s say you’re an experienced
driver in California with a single-car policy and a good driving record,
who is paying the average rates statewide for liability, collision and
comprehensive coverage, $765 annually. If you were a Prudential
Financial customer you’d get a 25% good-driver discount and pay only
$574. One speeding ticket would mean a roughly 27% increase from the
base premium, says Prudential’s Laurita Warner -- a $207 annual
increase, or $621 more over three years. (Surcharges usually last for
three years.)
Get a second minor conviction and your premium would rise an
additional 40%, and you’d also lose your good-driver discount, says
Warner. Suddenly, a premium that was $574 has ballooned to $1,071. After
the third conviction, expect to pay roughly 63% more than you originally
did, or $1,247. Over three years you would end up paying $2,020 more
than if you’d kept your nose clean, or much more than the fines
themselves. Clearly, getting pinched leaves a painful scar.
The pain can be even worse if you’re a teenager or young adult. “Getting
even one speeding ticket, much less two, can cause a dramatic spike in
your insurance rates -- sometimes doubling and even tripling those rates
-- and jeopardize your ability to get preferred insurance rates,” says
Karl Newman, president of the Washington Insurance Council, a consumer
education group funded by member insurance companies in Washington
State. “That could require you to purchase high-risk insurance.”
Luckily, you’ve got several initial options
once busted:
Ignoring the ticket isn’t one of them. “It
used to be if you obtained a ticket in New York, it didn’t get back to
New Jersey,” but that’s no longer true, says Raskob. Avoid a ticket and
a warrant may be issued for your arrest -- a warrant that appears even
on the computer system of your hometown cops.
Special state programs. Talk to your
state’s DMV or local traffic court to find out about ways to erase your
ticket. In Rhode Island, for example, if you haven’t had any
vehicle-related violations in three years and then receive a minor one
(for example, for exceeding the speed limit by less than 20 miles an
hour), you can ask that the ticket be dismissed. It usually is. In some
southern states, authorities will agree to defer judgment, if you don’t
get any more tickets for the next six months.
Traffic school. Often your best alternative
is to take a six- to eight-hour safety course for drivers. Policies vary
by state, but often a minor speeding conviction can be wiped from your
record and therefore go unseen by your employer or insurance company.
You’ll still have to pay the fine, plus an additional $50 to $80 in
tuition and other costs, and invest a Saturday. Some states such as
California let drivers take the course online. Traffic school has its
limits, however. In some states, it’s an option only once every 18 or 24
months. In others, those caught exceeding the speed limit by more than
15 to 20 mph may not be eligible, says David Brown, author of the book
“Beat Your Ticket.”
Should you go to court?
If the above options aren’t available, go to court. Court doesn’t have
to be a Perry Mason experience. Simply asking for your day in traffic
court can save you money. Count the ways:
Showing up is half the battle. Only about
3% of all tickets are contested, estimates Brown, which means even a few
people showing up to challenge a ticket can jam the system. “A lot of
times the courts will change the ticket for you, to encourage you not to
go to court” -- sometimes reducing a moving violation to a lesser charge
that your insurance company won’t penalize you for, says Eric Skrum,
spokesman for the National Motorists Association.
Cop no-shows. If you show up on your
assigned date, defense attorneys say that in 20% to 25% of cases the
ticket-writing officer won't. If the officer is required to show up
(jurisdictions have different rules), no appearance usually means the
ticket is thrown out. No-shows by police happen even more in summer,
when even they take vacations.
Errors matter (sometimes). While courts
will often excuse minor errors on a ticket -- a misspelled name, a
quibble over whether your Jag is ochre or orange -- if the officer cites
the wrong statute on the ticket, or grossly misidentifies the highway or
your make of car, you may to get your ticket dismissed, says Skrum. It’s
often best to keep mum about the gaffe until you go to court, however,
and reveal the mistake after the officer has recounted the wrong
information.
An 'A' for effort. If you do get all the
way to a magistrate or traffic commissioner, any reasonable objection
you have to the ticket is likely to at least reduce the amount of the
fine, and perhaps change it to an infraction that won’t hurt your rates.
“You’ve got to fight every ticket, because the only thing anyone will
ever know is what you reduced it to. The accusation will be lost in the
courthouse,” says Raskob.
The above, “soft” approach often works, but some people prefer to
aggressively contest the ticket, which they usually do with at least
some success. When Michael Pelletier, a 32-year-old computer systems
engineer in the Bay Area, got a ticket a few years ago, he rented the
nine-pound (!) legal defense kit from the National Motorists
Association. (The rental cost of the packet, which is tailored to the
requester’s state, is $50 per month, with a discount for NMA members.)
“The only thing I did was crank the legal crank,” says Pelletier. That
meant asking for continuances and requesting records -- proof of when
the officer’s radar gun was last calibrated and when the officer was
trained in its use -- in hopes of finding a flaw in the authorities’
case, or simply wearing them down until they offered a deal.
A pre-emptive strike
Battling in court can be time-consuming and complicated. Pelletier
estimates he invested nearly 50 hours in the year 2000 to fight his
ticket, which he received driving his motorcycle 47 miles an hour in a
25 mph zone. He got it dismissed seven months later based on an esoteric
legal definition of a “local street or road.”
In Pelletier’s eyes, the struggles are worthwhile despite the time
commitment. He has also helped his wife and brother keep three citations
from their records, and his insurance company recently upgraded him to a
“superior” driver, which means he will pay $70 less in the next six
months than he had been paying. And by keeping his driving record clean
he’s ensured that his next ticket -- if it sticks -- won’t hurt him so
much as it might have.
If you don’t have the time to do all of this research, consider hiring
an attorney who frequently deals with speeding tickets. Such an attorney
will know how to get the best deal for you and can often appear in court
for you, so you don’t have to take a day off to do so. Fees can vary
from $75 to $750, in part depending on whether they’re already
frequently in the courthouse dealing with such matters.
The free piece of advice they give, however, is the same: Confront your
speeding ticket, even if it’s your first, and do your darnedest to make
it disappear. After all, they add, you never know when you’ll get your
next one, with higher premiums close behind.
By Chris Solomon
