First Ticket

PJ is right. Next time, in close quarters, hold your lane. Puts all responsibility on the 4. If he would have hit your drives, he wouldn't have died...it would have just punted him onto the shoulder. Hate to be a Hole, I know, but it sure beats getting tickets for being courteous, doesn't it?

Had an acquaintance pull a 16 wide through Monkey, full escort. A county was on the phone, stepping on to the bigroad, hit the side of the load. Another county came up and wrote the driver a ticket for not maintaining control of his vehicle. Driver refused to sign and got arrested. Made a phone call and lawyers up. Judge screams bloody murder at the counties, and the driver is released. Lawyer puts the non driving county, ticket writing county, and the supervising county in the crosshairs.
Two escorts as eyewitnesses were more than enough, but I would have called HP to have them send a car out as soon as that county started writing a ticket. And I would have still lawyered up.

 

That doesn't make any sense. From the middle of your trailer to your front suggests there was adequate lane remaining for them to execute the maneuver. You should have helped by lifting off the throttle.

You want everyone who wants in front of you, in front of you. It's virtually impossible for them to involve you in their crash from there... if you're "driving".

You should note traffic preparing to enter the highway from the tops of all entrance ramps from the preceding corresponding exit ramp, and be prepared for 30-50 vehicles to come down the ramp 1 vehicle-length apart, ~half of whom will drive over the gore point to gain a 0.15 second "advantage" over those still on the ramp.

It's among the differences in "professional" driving and how it is typically done.

.
That's unfortunate, your explanation might have worked with a regular cop.

 

Hi. First that does suck, but lesson learned. I'm not gonna go on about it. You'll know what to do next time. Shame it's gonna cost you so much to learn it. Second, I'm not a fan of the driver legal programs. They usually charge you money just to find a local attorney which you can do yourself for free using the internet and check real close to see if you are still gonna have to pay the attorney. But, again, it's already done and if you're satisfied with the service that's what counts anyway. If it's a wrong lane ticket and you have the legal representative you probably can keep it off your MVR but the LEO was dead wrong about it not appearing on your PSP (commonly called CSA Score). If it prints on the inspection, even as a warning with NO ticket, it goes against you and your company's CSA score in the Unsafe Driving BASIC. What you'll have to do is: if you beat the ticket get paperwork from the court showing it. Then you use DataQs and challenge the violation against your CSA score and submit the paperwork from the court as your evidence. Even if you plead guilty to a lesser charge you can STILL use DataQ's to try and challenge it since what you wound up pleading to isn't what the officer wrote and might not even be in the list of things that count in CSA. That one is a 50/50 shot as they may just change it to whatever you plead to; but you never know.

Also, if you do plead down; BE CAREFUL. Sometimes you may think your pleading down because of points or fines being less but the other effects on us drivers that drive for a living are bigger and you'd have been better off with the little higher fine and points of the original charge. The example I use is here in SC (which is actually a pretty truck friendly state). It is common practice for the LEO (not CMV Enforcement) to write a CDL holder a "Carless or Negligent Driving" ticket instead of a "Speeding < 10MPH over the limit" ticket because the fines and points are much less. They think they are doing the driver a favor and the driver thinks so too so they pay it. Well it's true the fines and points are less but when the insurance comes up for renewal and the company has to send in MVR's to get the quote the insurance carriers freak smooth out about the words Careless or Negligent Driving when they'd have been OK with the small speed if the rest of the MVR looked good. I had a carrier with a good rate - so I needed to get on with them, but they refused to cover that driver. I wound up having to have the adjustor call the court (thankfully it's a small town) and the court explained and they covered my driver but imagine if that had been a big city court and didn't remember my driver? Or a big company that the insurance rate was so much less that they had to let the driver go?

All I'm saying is be careful and look at the big picture if you get offered a plea deal. It may be a good deal or it may be better to go with the original charge. Best of luck to you and I know this is upsetting but in the long run it's a lesson learned and just a skinned knee in the grand scheme of things and you'll be just fine. A little lighter in the wallet but otherwise none the worse for the ware.

 

No matter what you should have stayed in your lane. The driver on your right can read the signs that the lane ends, never put your self at risk. I would save that ticket and the next time you get pulled over for not moving over you now have a reason for it.

Good luck!

 

Actually, failure to use a seatbelt is a CSA violation. 21 points.

 

Sounds like a office of the lwa just looking for a reason to pull you over, & give you a ticket. Being nice, curiosity, polite, kind, & friendly on the road gets one in trouble at times.

 

Recently i had another trucker bust up my mirror and then drive off, it was a construction zone, i had cars to the left and couldn't get over, he decided to just power through so i braked, he clipped my mirror and just sped off,

 

Several years ago while driving a feed truck I met an empty flat bed truck & he refused to slow down let me go across the bridge, I was loaded, & he took my drivers side mirror with him.

Sure is tough to drive without the mirror.