The thing is. You have to create doubt in the judge's eyes. If you can create doubt, you can win. Keep in mind that the ticket is written for unreasonable and prudent speed. Your job is to prove that your speed was reasonable and prudent; his job is to prove that your speed was not reasonable and prudent. He will use evidence such as how many lanes were on the road and the time of day.

You can ask questions like when was the radar last calibrated or when his speedometer was last calibrated. Depending on his answer, you need to be ready to ask additional questions that might be able to show that your speed could be reasonable and prudent. Keep in mind you must be respectful of the judge and officer.

I got out of a photo radar ticket in Paradise Valley years ago. I was cited for doing 51 in a 40. The radar was calibrated daily. My only defense was to now prove that my speed was reasonable and prudent and to apply doubt to the possibility that the photo radar lacks the intelligence to determine that.

Here was my defense:

I did not deny it was me driving and I agreed that I was probably doing 51 MPH. What I did was a work of art. I spent hours researching photo radar. Back then it was capable of taking 240 of pics an hour. If you do the math it worked out to be 4 pictures a minute. If you divide that up evenly, it is one picture every 15 seconds. I said, "your honor, this is 15 seconds." and I started a stop watch. Do you know how long 15 seconds seems like in a silent court room? At the end of the 15 seconds, I said, "Now how many other vehicles when through that point at the same time?". Now is it possible that I could have been driving a speed reasonable and prudent at 5:00 PM going down Lincoln drive? In my defense, Yes or I would have been driving in and out of traffic. If you have ever driven Lincoln drive, you know that you drive the speed of every other car on the road or you will end up in an accident. The judge said, "Dismissed."

But you have to be ready to prove your side of the story. If you are not, either pay the fine or hope he does not show up for the second court date to defend himself pulling you over. But you have to have a strong defense and to put doubt into the judge's eyes.

You could use things like if the speedo or radar was not calibrated in a reasonable time, is it possible that it could be off by 2-5 MPH? Is it possible that your own car's was off by 2-5 MPH (this is very likely as ours are not calibrated). Now you can almost take off 10 MPH off your speed. Now it is not a criminal offence and you could have gone to driving school. But if you cannot get a solid defense, pay the fine and accept the consequences.

 

Good advice.

 

thank you. i am planning on having a stong defence, taking pics and junk. showing the distance i had to go from "50 and then gunned it to over 60" as the cop said.