DRIVERS are speaking out against speeding fines they have received from a surprising source.
Several Utah residents said silver pickup trucks stopped them and claimed officers were filling a “quota” — the police department denied the allegations.
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“We are not increasing crime,” Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Chief Wyatt Bubak told the Salt Lake City-based Fox affiliate. KSTU.
“We’re just better documenting what’s going on.”
The police agency began asking officers to document a crime every 23 hours, according to the station.
Bubak called the system a “performance target.”
But drivers who received tickets from the agency feared the policy would replace the agency’s responsibilities for traffic violation tickets.
Other drivers have struggled with the ethics of road fines legislation.
“I’m 38 years old and I’ve never been stopped by a park ranger before,” Utah driver Mike Pellegrino told the station.
“I was completely stunned when he told me he stopped me for speeding.”
Pellegrino does not believe he was speeding. Still, he paid the ticket.
“To me, it looks exactly like a quota,” he added.
“It seems like they are afraid of not being needed. Maybe they feel like they have to go out and make things up to make it seem like they’re busier than they really are.”
Another driver, Russell Simper, said he thought his sporty yellow Ford Focus was stopped because he was young.
“I was driving home one night, with the cruise control on, and all of a sudden I saw police lights behind me,” Simper told the station.
“I was really confused. I had no idea they managed to stop you on the highway.”
Simper said he would fight the fine in court.
How to fight a speeding ticket
According to a legally reviewed post, there are five effective strategies for fighting a speeding ticket if it was issued improperly.
- If stopped and a ticket is issued, drivers can discuss or dispute the driver’s personal opinion. When issuing a speeding ticket, the police officer is required to write his opinion and come to an “objective” conclusion. If the fine was written based on this judgment, it can be challenged. An example would be if you were traveling at 75 mph in a 65 mph zone because other people were traveling at the same speed, you could argue that it would be more dangerous to travel at 65 mph.
- You can challenge the police officer’s presentation of evidence. If you’ve been ticketed for something like running a stop sign or making an illegal U-turn, you can’t contest it if a police officer saw you, but you can take things to court like eyewitness accounts, diagrams, or photos.
- Argue that the ticket was issued due to an “error of fact.” This is complicated, but a “mistake of fact” is a mistake made by a driver over a situation that was beyond their control, or if a driver legitimately did not know they were violating the law. For example, you were driving in two lanes because the lane markers were so worn out that you couldn’t see them.
- You could say the circumstances justified his direction. You could say you were speeding to pass a possibly drunk driver or avoiding an accident by quickly changing lanes. However, the argument will not work if there is evidence that you continued to speed after passing.
- Similar to the above, it could be argued that speeding was necessary to avoid harm. The key is to argue that if you weren’t speeding, you or someone else could have been injured.
- Consult a traffic lawyer if all else fails. Many have free consultations to decide whether or not there is a case.
Source: Find Law
The broadcaster reported that several drivers admitted they were speeding when they received the fines.
However, they did not realize that the agency could stop them.
According to the broadcaster, Division of Wildlife Resources cruisers are not equipped with speed monitoring devices.
Instead, officers measured speed by traveling behind drivers and looking at their cruisers’ odometers.
The speed capture solution does not maintain the same accuracy as a standard radar.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
