Fighting an out of state Colorado speeding ticket.

[dud]

For average speed yes. Trying to tell a judge you were within the speed limits while doing 600 miles in 6 hours requiring 2 fuel stops, not so much.

Look who's back ...

 

[momeNt]

Speeding kills more people every year than guns, drugs, and war combined.

Speeding tickets have been statistically proven to deter speeding, thus deter speeding deaths.

Pay the ticket and be deterred in the future.

 

[IronWing]

Closure?

 

[yhelothar]

Speeding kills more people every year than guns, drugs, and war combined.

Speeding tickets have been statistically proven to deter speeding, thus deter speeding deaths.

Pay the ticket and be deterred in the future.

According to a 2003 study, conducted by the Virginia Commonwealth University on behalf of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, driver distractions accounted for the main cause of accidents.

 

[NutBucket]

They were distracted which caused them to press the right pedal harder!

 

[dr150]

I got pulled over in CO supposedly doing 40 in a 35. I wasn't. Since I'm now back in CA, I effectively have no way to fight the ticket since I think CO does not allow contesting the ticket through the mail. I have to report to the court in the location where I got the ticket to plead my case. This basically allows CO to pull over any out of state vehicle with impunity and fine them since no one is going to be able to report to the court in CO to contest the ticket if they live far away....

40 in a 35? Cop was a jerk.

This type of mafia shit happened to me in a ultra-small town "speed trap" in Oregon (I must have been 1-3mph over the stated amount, and there was no MPH sign to top it off). Cop was a super arrogant, super fat "Boss Hog" type cop doing his "morning rounds".

I plead guilty on the ticket (since I can't contest it, as I'm in CA and just passing through that POS town for the weekend football game) and got a subsequently reduced tix from ~$180 to ~$115.....Fucking assholes!
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Note to OP. Just take it up the ass and plead "Guilty" to get that out-of-state tix reduced. You have no choice in the matter.

 

[gorcorps]

That's Colorado cops for ya.

My wife got stopped for 58 in a 55 back in the early 80's. She didn't have the CASH with her to pre-pay the fine of $100+ with the highway patrol officer who stopped her...so she took my wife to jail to wait for court. I was at work in the mountains, and since this was way before cell phones, I didn't find out until later...When she got to court, the judge was more reasonable...let her go on her own recognizance...and actually gave her 30 days to pay the fine...$45.00

Just another reason why I will drive around Colorado rather than drive one mile inside their borders.

Very location dependent in my experience. Growing up, Thornton cops were kind of dicks and especially dicks to young/new drivers. That's fine if they were doing something wrong but most of them were fined for "obstructed view" because they had something hanging from their rear-view mirror. Right next door to Thornton is Northglenn and those guys were fine. Westminster is fine too. Lumping an entire state's force together because of a single experience is so asinine it makes my head spin.

 

[ch33zw1z]

wtf, $150 for 40 in a 35? WTF!

 

[CrackRabbit]

Closure?

This is a FBB thread, you should expect more closure on something posted by Syringer.

 

[marvdmartian]

40 in a 35? Cop was a jerk.

Years ago, was leaving the Navy base on Treasure Island (middle of the San Francisco Bay, which can only be accessed by boat or via the Oakland-SF Bay Bridge), and got pulled over by one of the base rent-a-cops (Navy E-5).

When he told me he pulled me over for speeding, I looked at him strangely, since I knew I wasn't going that fast, then asked how fast he clocked me? His response? "I got you doing 29 in a 25 zone, on radar."

My response? "Slow day, huh??"

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Dang really? I've never even heard of pre paying a ticket on the spot. That is ridiculous.

I never heard of it either until I went to Europe. In Rome, bus drivers don't check for passes when you jump on so people would go on without paying all the time. Every beginning of the month, they have the the police come on and corner people and catch them without passes. It was 50 euros if paid up front. You dont have it? They'll walk you to the ATM to get it. If not they'll mail you the ticket and its 150 euro plus.

Same thing happened with the Paris metro. We didnt know that we had to save our metro stubs. Randomly the police decided to check one of the exits we were at. One of the girls in our group didnt have it. 50 euros up front, or 150 euros bill mailed through the consulate.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

I ended up just paying the ticket.

Even though I feel that I couldn't possibly have been breaking the speed limit, the reality of the situation is that:

1. I am required to physically go back and represent myself in their local court, or have someone go there and represent me. There is no trial via the mail. There is no mailing in supporting evidence. Nothing.

2. Hiring a lawyer for something as small as a $150 ticket that isn't even going to raise my auto insurance rates because I've been such a good driver isn't worth it, for me or the lawyer. He has bigger fish to fry, like guys with outrageous speeding tickets or DUIs.

3. Oh, and to make it seem even more like just an income generating scheme, they offer point reductions if you send in your ticket payment ASAP. No point reduction for something that actually concerns the driving, such as a reduction if you go to traffic school, but a reduction simply for sending in your payment (and pleading guilty) quickly.

So in conclusion, this little town and any place in Colorado can write tickets to out-of-staters or non-locals for basically anything, even if it's wrongfully written, as long as the ticket is of a low enough fine so that it makes either traveling back or hiring a lawyer uneconomical. This has everything to do with income and nothing to do with actual justice.

Gotta love our system of law. Sure, we have one. And we have a right to plead not guilty and to have a trial. But it's often so expensive to do so. So what's the use of such a system? Either way you're hosed, if not legally, then economically. Or both. And the lawyers and towns profit.

 

[BudAshes]

Is there any sort of website/app that tells you what towns to avoid that have shitty highway patrol/cops for traffic violations?

 

[alkemyst]

Is there any sort of website/app that tells you what towns to avoid that have shitty highway patrol/cops for traffic violations?

yes

 

[tcsenter]

I know someone who got stopped driving through Arkansas, ticketed and required to follow the cop to the court house. Had his "trial" by magistrate or JOTP, fined something like $150, asked how he would like to pay. He told them he'd pay by cash, if they'll ROR him to find the nearest ATM machine from his bank. They said no problem, his bank had a location/branch about 12 miles away. He just kept driving until he was across state lines, constantly looking in his rear-view mirror the whole way. That was like 18 years ago, he has never been back to Arkansas. lol

 

[jagec]

Dang, I'm lucky the speeding tickets in Montana are cheap. Under 10 mph is $20, 10-20 mph is $40, 20-30 mph is $70, and 31+ is $100.

Wow...my cousin told me a story about getting a ~$70 ticket for going 120 MPH in Montana (cop wrote him for 90 because he pulled over right away when he was *probably* in a position to run and get away with it), but I didn't believe it.

Speeding kills more people every year than guns, drugs, and war combined.

<citation needed>

 

[alkemyst]

Speeding kills more people every year than guns, drugs, and war combined.

Speeding tickets have been statistically proven to deter speeding, thus deter speeding deaths.

Pay the ticket and be deterred in the future.

They see me trollin' they hatin'?

 

[lupi]

I ended up just paying the ticket.

who would have thought that.

 

[Braznor]

 

[AustinInDallas]

Agreed, 5 over is EXPECTED down here, Cops will even do it. But if you do 7+ you're pushing it.

I feel safe at 10 over. 11 is were it gets iffy

unless its a school zone or something

 

[mizzou]

40 in a 35? Cop was a jerk.

usually if thats the case, I would think they let something else go like
- you have warrants
- you have no insurance
- you committed several other traffic violations


just a legit 40 in a 35 sounds excessive