Advice from a cop on fighting tickets...

Wow , what a Super Trooper . . I guess attorneys were so intimidated by your record they refused to represent people ticketed by you .
All I can say is . I am offended by you thinking members will believe all that .

 

Exactly!
Last I understood its now very hard for a Lawyer even to get "any" cite reduced and keep it off a CDL.
Yes I'm referencing even the under 15mph over posted limit.

 

Your right I shouldn't have said not to fight them because you still maybe be able to get them dropped down or something or take traffic school if you have a clean MVR. Basically what I was trying to get at was if the officer was using Laser radar don't go into the court saying well it wasn't me and how do you know it was me cause traffic was heavy and there was lots of other cars on the road. I've have people come to court saying that and it just makes them look really dumb. However I never really had any problem with commercial vehicle drivers most of them just did what they were supposed to and I never had a reason to bother them and I can honestly say I never wrote anyone in a commercial vehicle a ticket, I gave the a good tongue lashing but trucking has always been apart of my family, so I knew writing them a ticket was only making it harder the way they make their living so why do it. Not all officers felt the same as I did but when most of us saw someone who had a CDL they got out of a lot of tickets because we all knew driving was how they made their living. It's one thing to write someone a ticket and it cost them a couple hundred bucks but we a knew that for CDL drivers it cost them a whole lot more and probably would've cost some of them their jobs. Not everybody is out to be a **** but some are. The best advise I can give anybody who get into any legal problems is get a lawyer and remember you get what you pay for.

 

I never said they didn't get amended down or that they didn't plead guilty and go to traffic school but like I said your not going win against a laser radar ticket because there is no denying it wasn't you and there is no denying what your speed was and as a matter of fact the defense attorneys located in my county won't fight a speeding ticket written by any officer who captured your speed by Laser radar. They would fight to get it amended but they got tired of the county attorneys officer bring in laser radar experts explaining how the laser radar system worked and since the radar was calibrated properly that there was no possible way that it wasn't violator's vehicle and that the radar didn't record the right speed.

Oh and as far as DUI's go I don't even usually have to talk about what all I observed I would just bring in the video and audio from my patrol car. If pictures are worth a thousand words videos are worth a million. I had never stopped one person who was arrested for DUI due to alcohol who didn't admit to having at least two beers. (Which you'll find it doesn't matter what people really drank it could have been whiskey 98% of the time they will always tell you they only had two beers). Then like I said all on camera they stumble or have to use the door as a prop to even get out of the car. I already discussed most of what's used to detect someone under the influence so I'm not getting back into that. Then a most of the time after you've arrested the person for DUI while searching their vehicle guess what you find some type of bottle or beer cans which just further builds or case. Or you find crushed pills, marijuana, prescription pills that are almost gone that were just filled the day before, and the list goes on and on. This might come as a bit of a shocker to you but most people who are arrested for DUI aren't your soccer mom's or you baseball dad's. Most of them I arrested for DUI I knew from taking calls at their houses for domestics or fights in progress, for shop lifting at a store, or I had busted them for selling drugs. But then again I wasn't a highway cop and I didn't work in the best part of the city during the day I worked at night downtown in the high crime activity area.

Meanwhile none of this crap really matters because let me say this again if you don't drink and drive and you don't break the law then you won't even have to worry about it. I know that's a hard concept for some people to grasp but if you just obey the law you won't have to worry about getting out of it.

 

Walk in your shoes? No thanks, it has little to nothing to do with saving lives. Its about money, its about generating revenue for the govt. You aren't out there just to save lives, if you were, it wouldn't be quite as easy for a defendant to "buy" their way out of a DUI. There would be a whole lot more mandatory jail time. Like everything else the govt gets involved with they always end up pushing it too far, and the focus always centers around money.

I could never get hot and bothered and brag about ruining the lives of 150 people. I just don't posses that much ego. You, however wear it like a badge of pride. I see it as sad that somebody made a mistake with alcohol, and will now pay a terrible price.

As a truck driver do you really think I have never seen death? I see it often enough, it sucks, and you cops don't have the market cornered on tragedy. What you do get is a few days paid leave to talk to a counselor "if" you request it. Truckers just get to go back to work... You aren't the only one who can tell sad stories, not by a long shot.

Oh, and if you don't think our society is two faced. Go watch the Superbowl with 4+ hours of beer commercials. The govt will tax all of it, and in certain states its only the govt that's allowed to sell it. In the mean time the cops will set up their check points, and hide in bushes just around the corner from bars. Guys like you will slap on the handcuffs, and deal out your misery.

Sorry, Ill have to save the hero label for another civil servant. In my book, you ain't it! If that's what you expected or were looking for on here, you ain't gonna get it from me!

 

The government and the system maybe all wrong by the way they handle it and it is all about the money but I'm here to tell you right now that most officers do actually give a rats *** about helping people and saving lives because no matter how many people I arrested or how many tickets I wrote none of that affected my pay. I no longer am a police officer because I couldn't handle that politics of it because of exactly what you expressed above. I think there should be mandatory jail time sentences for people who drive under the influence, I don't feel like getting caught for the first time should completely ruin you the way it does. But I didn't make the laws and I don't make the penalties. I just enforced law the best I could. I don't know how you see it as I ruined 150 lives I did not buy them the alcohol and I didn't put the keys in the hand and tell them to go drive they did all that on there own knowing the risk they were taking. It's called a risk for a reason sometimes you get caught sometimes you don't.

I know truck drivers see death or the side of the highway but you know what I saw death when I was deployed overseas too and it doesn't bother you that much because you don't know them you've never spoken to them and it's real easy to move it to the back of your mind and forget about it. But when your covered in their blood and you're the one that started CPR on them then it all becomes a little more real to you and like I said tell the little girl that's seven that her family is dead and that she'll never walk again. Seeing death and being involved in it are two different things. If you can walk out of that hospital and not feel like someone has just tore your heart out then your a stronger an then me.


Oh yea I never asked for anybodies thanks or praises or to be called a hero as a matter of fact I pretty much knew I would get just the opposite on this topic, but I posted it anyways. I still like how nobody has argued with saying that didn't know it was illegal to drink and drive. I know society is jacked up and advertises about liquor and beer and sex and everything else and then they look down on you when you give into societies pressures. I get it and I don't agree with it. Maybe I'm one a the few lucky ones that had it drilled into my head from about the age of seven you don't drink and drive. I guess I just assumed everybody was taught not to drink and drive, I mean let me know I'll change my view on things but something tells me everybody has heard that before. The choices people make in their life whether it was a one time mistake or not, can influence the rest of their life. And if you want to see that me taking people to jail for DUI is ruining their life then that's your God given right, but I saw it as keeping them and others on the road safe from that persons stupidity.

 

Exactly well put. Once again I'm not saying that all officer aren't just out to stick it to ya, but for the most part you did something wrong which is why you are talking to the cop. If you don't want to talk to a cop then don't break the law.

I'm starting to getting a feeling that there might be a few people on this thread have been popped for DUI and are just looking for a place to vent and to blame it on everybody but themselves well I sorry the only person you can blame for that mistake is yourself. Nobody put a gun to your head and made you drink and then told you to drive or else you choose to make that decision all on your own. Same with one else who drinks and drives therefore I will not ever feel sorry for taking those that were DUI to jail.

 

Quick question,and I would like a honest answer.........ever had a DWI-DUI???

 

I'm glad too see I'm not the only one picking up on this. LOL