AN elderly man received multiple $75 fines for failing to pay multiple speeding tickets – he was never in the state where the fines came from.
After receiving a notice to appear in courthe is worried about being taken to prison.
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Joan and Randall Paulsen, an elderly couple living in Omaha, Nebraska, started speeding tickets in the mail to a car in Atlanta, Georgia in April.
What impressed her was that the license plate on her Hyundai Santa Fe matched the license plates in the Georgia photos.
The car in the photo was also a Hyundai, but her car was not a sports sedan.
“It’s the same number, but it’s not my car,” Joan told the NBC affiliate WOW.
Read more about speeding fines
The other intriguing fact was that the couple had never been to Georgia, let alone thousands of miles from home.
“I’ve never been to Atlanta, I drive to the grocery store,” she said.
They hoped that the third party issuing the speeding tickets would notice that the registered address and vehicle models did not match the license plates.
However, violations kept cropping up – followed by a $75 fee for failing to pay previous fines.
Randall is the registered owner of Joan’s SUV and was very concerned when he received a letter to appear in court with a court date.
He called and told court officials he wouldn’t come, but he’s worried it won’t be enough.
“He’s afraid they’re going to take him to prison because we didn’t show up in court, and I’m sure I’m not going to drive all the way to Atlanta, Georgia, and tell him I’m not guilty,” she said.
Randall is 81 years old and fears he will be handcuffed before he can prove he is innocent.
“I’m afraid they will send a legal document that will force Nebraska to arrest me and transfer me to Atlanta,” he said.
Joan noted that the car’s Atlanta license plate covers much of the state’s name, which could lead the seller to assume the car belonged to Randall in Nebraska.
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
She told the outlet that she tried calling several agencies and organizations for help, but faced several dead ends.
“When I talk to someone, I get nowhere,” she said.
“It makes me really angry. It makes me uncomfortable that I have to fight for something I didn’t do, and this has been happening since April.”
WOWT reporters contacted the Atlanta Municipal Court Administrator on the Paulsens’ behalf.
They told state authorities that the couple had never been to Georgia and asked that the case be looked into.
Shortly after they were contacted, a representative confirmed the matter was being investigated.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
