How To Fight A Speeding Ticket

There was a time once where, if the police wanted to give you a ticket, an actual human police officer would have to catch you in the act, turn on his red and blue lights and siren, and pull you over on the side of the road. The officer would sit in his car for what seemed like an eternity (perhaps radioing in your license plate to see if the car was stolen, or perhaps just enjoying the smell of fear) before sauntering up to your window in slow motion, shining a flashlight in your eyes, and then saying those three dreaded words in a gravely, unfriendly voice: “License and registration.”

Today, you get a speeding ticket in the mail. Okay, real speeding tickets still exist, but more and more often, tickets are a byproduct of a camera. These speed trap cameras are often located in school zones, and despite some creative legal challenges, they continue to terrorize our drivers with paper tickets in the mail. It beats getting pulled over, we guess.

Regardless of whether your speeding ticket was handed to you the old-fashioned way, straight from a cop's hand, or mailed to you as a surprise from the city of Secaucus, we already know what your first question is going to be: how do I beat this darn thing?

How To Fight A Radar Speeding Ticket

Radar speeding tickets are the oldest of old-fashioned. An officer uses a gun that bounces radio waves off of the moving vehicle and the gun captures the wavelength as it returns. Based on that, it gives a decently accurate reading of the vehicle speed. Lidar, which uses a laser in a similar manner, has become more widespread and is far more accurate - up to one-tenth of a mile per hour.

There are a few ways to beat a radar speeding ticket. The first is to attack the accuracy of the radar itself. In most states, the law requires that radar guns must be calibrated periodically. The officers themselves don't do the calibration, as they are not qualified. Instead, the police departments have a dedicated person who calibrates the guns and keeps records.

How to Fight a Speeding Ticket and Win

Depending on your state’s law, you may be able to subpoena the calibrator or, at a minimum, the records of calibration. For most states, the calibrator herself will not be required to show up in court, but the records are. In Washington, for example, the police must either submit a form to the court at least 30 days before the hearing attesting to the fact that the calibration has been done properly or have the person who performed the calibrations show up to the hearing.

A similar strategy involves a different kind of request for paperwork: A defendant can request discovery (a legal term for a copy of all evidence that the prosecution wants to use). Using Washington as an example again, this request must be submitted at least 14 days before the trial. If the prosecution fails to turn this evidence over at least seven days before trial, the evidence cannot be used. This gives the prosecutor a mere week, assuming you send the discovery request at the last second, to respond or she’ll have to prove a case with no evidence at all. While the timelines vary by state, the rules are pretty much the same everywhere: if the prosecutor doesn’t turn over evidence, it cannot be used.

A third strategy relies on technicalities regarding the initial ticket. In order to ensure that the ticket identifies the correct driver, a ticket typically must contain a long list of information about the driver and vehicle in order to be upheld in court, such as:

Now, this doesn't mean the officer has to be perfect or cannot misspell “Pontiac.” Minor mistakes are okay so long as it doesn't prejudice the defendant (make it significantly more difficult to defend the case). This is true whether you are ticketed in Washington, California, Wisconsin, or New York.

Your state may also have other rules regarding the filing of the ticket that can be used to toss it out. In Washington, the officer must file the ticket within 5 days - no tardiness is allowed or excused, though obviously the defendant or his attorney will have to notice this issue to point it out. 

What Works in Court and What Doesn't

We’ve covered a lot of winning strategies, but what about strategies that do not work? Hoping that the officer does not show up will almost certainly fail. Generally, officers are not required to show up unless they are subpoenaed (a formal request through the court), and when they are, they probably aren't too happy about it and won’t want to give a defendant a break by no-showing. Plus, most police departments will pay the officer overtime to show up to court. Not bad for what probably amounts to five minutes of testimony.

Other common strategies that fail: arguing that the officer overstated the amount by which you were speeding (duh, you just admitted guilt) or crying and flirting with the officer (okay, it probably won’t work).

One more note for all of you scofflaws who have excellent excuses for your speeding: excuses like “my wife was having a baby,” “I am a doctor and my patient was dying,” or “I really had to go to the bathroom” probably won't work in court to get you out of the ticket entirely. But, if no other defenses are available and you will likely be found guilty anyway, you do have the option of asking for mitigation (where you tell the judge your excuse and ask the judge to give you a break on the penalty). By doing so, you are admitting guilt and will still face most of the same consequences, including possibly raised insurance rates, paying a fine and if you have racked up enough traffic tickets in a short period of time, a possible license suspension.

Similarly, for those of you who aren't habitual offenders: Many states will give you a break on a first speeding offense. This could mean the court reducing the fine or taking the ticket off your record in exchange for a traffic safety course. In California, for many types of offenses, you can take a course every 18 months - successful completion means no ticket on your record. Washington law, as another example, permits drivers when contesting or asking for mitigation, to ask the court to defer findings on a moving violation once every seven years. Assuming you stay clean and don't get another ticket within that year, your record will be wiped clean and your insurance company will be none the wiser. 

How To Fight A Camera Speeding Ticket

Camera speeding tickets are the worst. You don't even get the excitement (terror?) of getting pulled over. Instead, you simply get a bill in the mail. Camera speeding tickets are actually rather boring, when you think about it.

The first question to ask when contesting a camera ticket is whether the ticket was issued for a proper reason. This defense is admittedly a long shot. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that state law may limit automated traffic enforcement citations to certain areas, such as red lights, railroad crossings, or speeding in school zones. Speed cameras on highways are extremely rare - only two states had taken that dramatic step as of 2009, and Arizona removed theirs shortly thereafter.

Cameras & Enforcement Zones - Speeding Ticket Nuances

Another requirement for these cameras is that the location where the camera is in use must be clearly marked by signs warning drivers about the camera speeding ticket enforcement zone. You would think that this is a pretty clear-cut requirement, but a few people have actually fought local cities over their signs, arguing that the signs were too wordy to comply with state and federal law, and have actually won.

While finding such a defense rooted in federal and state traffic regulations is rare, vandalism of street signs or obstructions caused by trees and construction is not. In short, you might want to drive back through the area (slowly this time) and make sure that the signs are posted and still working.

What to Do When a Speeding Ticket Arrives at Your Mailbox?

When you get a speeding ticket in the mail, examine it closely:

In some states, the ticket must be mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle within a fixed time frame. Again using Washington as an example, in that state, the ticket must be mailed within 14 days of the offense. If the 14th day falls on a weekend or holiday, the police get a break until the next business day.

Legal Differences Across Other States - Example

In Arizona, a possible but risky strategy might be to just ignore the ticket. A ticket must be served on you personally in Arizona, which is done when you mail back the waiver attached to the ticket. If you don’t mail it back, you are not yet served.

The city may then send a process server - whom you’ll have to avoid for 90 days. Successfully avoid the process server and the ticket will be dismissed.

Lastly, what if it wasn't you driving?

If you have lent your car to someone else, or it was stolen, you can submit a sworn statement under oath or testify in person that you were not operating the vehicle at the time of the offense and the speeding ticket will likely be dropped.

This is true in most states that have camera tickets, including California and Washington.

Washington has a particularly interesting wrinkle that guarantees the “it wasn’t me” defense can work: state law says that the cameras may only take pictures of the vehicle and license plate. The pictures cannot reveal the people inside the vehicle, so unless a real-life witness can identify the driver, the state has no way to prove the driver's identity once a registered owner swore that they were not driving.

Other states, such as Arizona, don’t have such a rule and will compare the face of the driver to the registered owner’s license, as well as those of anyone else registered at the same mailing address. (Think spouses and children.)

And although many of these traffic tickets will allow you to submit that sworn statement denying that you are a driver by filling out a form on the back of the speeding ticket, many cities include language demanding that you snitch on the actual driver.

Despite the dire warnings and scary threats, in most states you are not required by law to rat out the real driver who was operating your car at the time - you can just leave those fields blank. 

How To Fight A School Zone Speeding Ticket

In many school zones, camera enforcement is the norm, which means all of the above tips for speed cameras apply. In New York City, for instance, they have decided to expand their school zone camera program by adding 2,000 additional cameras over the next few years.

Cameras or no cameras, a big factor in fighting school zone speeding tickets is the signage. If you can show that there was no notice of the school zone (no signs), you may be able to argue your way out of a ticket.

Another trick will depend on the exact wording of your local law. Some laws provide for school zone enforcement times, such as 8:00am to 8:00pm. Others only apply the law when children are present. Outside of the time, or if children are not present, the school zone speed limit does not apply. This defense is applicable more often than you might think: a few years ago, a New York suburb tossed $2.4 million in traffic tickets because the speed cameras were operating when school was not in session.

The timing or presence of children ties into the signage requirement as well. Many signs will include flashing lights that will blink during times when the law is in effect - if the bulbs are malfunctioning, the ticket may be dropped.

What strategies don’t work?

We Have an Even Easier Way to Contest a Ticket

If you are at all like us, the preceding information was incredibly fascinating and not at all boring.

Most people are not like us. And digging through statutes, trying to determine if a ticket was properly filled out, or if a discovery trick, timing issue, or privacy law can apply to a single ticket is not worth the many hours it would take most people to defend themselves in court. And that’s before mentioning the cost of taking time off work to go to court, to find childcare, or even to pay for parking at the courthouse!

That's why we created Off The Record.

We make fighting a speeding ticket as simple as tapping a few buttons in an app or your browser - leaving the rest to the lawyers. Many of these defenses are time-sensitive or rely on technicalities, so don't wait to fight back.

Get started with us today and we’ll match you to a lawyer in your area who, like us, actually enjoys this stuff.