I saw a cop near the Petro in Bordentown NJ watching cars/trucks as they came thru the toll booth with binoculars, and signaling those not wearing seatbelts to pull over for their "awards".
Seatbelt Tickets in Texas
Discussion in 'Trucker Legal Advice' started by stylicho, Jan 27, 2007.
Page 2 of 5
-
-
Trucking Jobs in 30 seconds
Every month 400 people find a job with the help of TruckersReport.
-
-
-
-
I would not say case closed, courts can pretty much do as they wish. I agree they are supposed to drop it after an officer does not show up but that's up to the judge to grant the state a extension.
-
For tickets like this, if you contest it, the officer is requested to be present, but not required, at the court date. Not sure how it is in every state, but in Texas, the officer gets paid to attend these court appearances on their days off.
If they don't show, there is nobody else there present on their behalf to request an extension. Generally, they are going to be there though because it is overtime -
Thanks NOW I know! -
If the case is set for trial and the officer fails to appear, the defendant would make the following motion: "Your Honor, I move to dismiss this case for failure to prosecute, or lack of prosecution". The Judge, as the referee, has a motion before him and will then ask the prosecution to respond. If the prosecution responds with a motion for continuance, the Judge now has both motions before him and must rule on both. The Judge will ask the prosecution if there is "good cause" for the continuance. Good cause is, for example, the officer is absent because he was ill, he was on vacation or administrative leave and not noticed of the trial date, or some other reasonable explanation containing some unforeseeable ground. If the Judge finds good cause the case will not be dismissed, if not, it will be dismissed.
If the jurisdiction is one that allows the officer to prosecute the case without the presence of the attorney for the city or the state, and the officer does not appear, the Judge does not have the discretion to continue the case, unless the officer had previously contacted the Judge and notified the Court of his non-appearance. Any time a Judge continues a case under the circumstances I just described in this paragraph, its because the defendant failed to make a motion to dismiss. -
You know, its been a while, but I did run across a driver's post somewhere out there in the big dub dub dub world that ran his video capture through his dash mounted cell/pda phone. He recorded his whole driving day. Said it was possible to do on the low quality setting and with a good size 1 gig card. So in any traffic situation in front of him he was covered. He'd erase the day if there was no incident and repeat the next day.
He also mentioned that he knew of drivers that mounted two additional camera's via Bluetooth that peeked back on driver side and passenger side. Whole set up he said was less than $500 bucks.
I'll post this in tech stuff too. It might bless some people into that stuff.
But for $500 of equipment and very little effort, you get a video record that will head off any potential career ending court case
Varmit -
Over in AU my older brother was a cop - one thing he said that has always stuck with me and I still do it to this day:
Put your belt on before you start your engine and don't remove it till you stop your engine. And that includes passengers front and rear as it's mandatory that all persons in the vehicle wear a belt - no exceptions.
Trucking Jobs in 30 seconds
Every month 400 people find a job with the help of TruckersReport.
Page 2 of 5