I got pulled over about a month ago for speeding.. i was on my way from fremont to san mateo to go eat with friends and a cop pulls me over on 101. he says he saw me going the other direction on marsh road and it took him 5 mins from marsh to whipple to catch me and thats how he calculated how fast i was going. btw this is around 1am in the morning.. late night hunger.

question is... is that considered as a "speed trap"? I'm thinking of fighting it prob by written declaration if it is a speed trap and that way of calculating speed is illegal in CA, i think. anyone know how i would go by written declaration?

 

I would fight it. You were going in an opposite direction which is very hard to estimate your speed unless he was using radar, and I think he would have said if he was.

plus there is the option that he lost track of you. He cannot be 100% positive you were the one that he saw speeding. I know its late at night, but I believe in california the officer has to pace you and not lose sight of you to make sure you are the one he paced/clocked IIRC

If I am wrong, someone right me

 

I heard somewhere that if they lose track of you for more than 30 seconds then they can't get you because they can't prove it was you.

not sure if there's any real truth to that though. sorry.

 

Its not a "speed trap." A "speed trap" would be an officer, lying in wait, completely out of sight and pulling people over. There is a very fine line between the ticket being a "speed trap" or justified. I would definitely fight it. You have nothing to lose by fighting the ticket. Do you have to go to court? Because if you do, just tell the judge that you were not speeding, and that the officer had admitted to you that he lost you for about 5 mins. Also, remember if the officer doesn't show you, you will should win. I'm not exactly sure how to write a "written declaration" works. I would go to the court house of the city you're in and ask. But if you do write something, then I would have a bunch of people proof read it and make sure that everything is correct. Hope this helps and good luck! Let us know how everything goes.

 

fight it. it's BS, I know the area very well and even at 1am there would still be some traffic. it is possible that it would take him that distance to catch up to you (at whipple). I think the 5 mins is irrelavent b/c he had to have waited for traffic to clear before making that U turn on Marsh b/c of the traffic from 84 (this alone will give you enough of a head start). then he had to deal with traffic on 101. what if you had less traffic when you merged on the 101. and whipple is about 1 1/4 miles from Marsh.

 

This is called a "speed tard". There's no way the ticket should hold up in court.

 

there were prob less than 5 cars i saw while i was on marsh and i had green lights most of the way.. he would have had to wait a while to make a u turn unless he just flipped it but i wasn't doing anything other than the only car going that direction after i passed willow.. there where only very few cars when i was on 101..

just wondering if anyone knows... how long does it take to get to whipple from marsh on 101 @ speed limit?

also he said i was going way over 100mph by his calculations and marked me down for goin 90mph with a violation for exceeding max speed 65mph VC-22349(A)

i honestly don't think i was going that fast since i hardly go over 100 in the first place but i'm not sure how fast i was going exactly since i wasn't looking..

do i have to go to the courthouse and tell them I want to request trial by written declaration if i want to fight it that way?

 

He marked you down 90, with the fakest of calculations. haha there is no way that ticket has a chance.

 

Even if you don't have to go to the courthouse, I would think that it would be better if you fight it in person. Just my opinion.

 

I think you should go to court and use plain and simple english, play stupid and innocent and say you were driving 70 on cruise controll, well something along the lines of a story like that, because if you start to say things like "speed trap" or "speed tard" lol they will prolly try to fight it with much more efort then normal, then say there were some 4 or 5 subarus down the street at BK or Mc D's and it may have not even been you he saw. just play the system and keep your eyebrows down. (lifted eyebrows are one of the most common ways in spotting a lie)

 

well, if you were on Marsh, then northbound 101 you wouldn't have passed Willow. On the 101 N it goes: willow, marsh, woodside, whipple (there is a CHP station right behind Whipple).

where did you get on the 101? and where was it that he said he saw you? b/c if he saw you on Marsh and you were coming from Dumbarton, then you were on Marsh for about 1/16 of a mile.

 

i came from dumbarton and stayed on the same street going straight on the same road on marsh then got on 101 northbound at the end of that street. the cop said he first saw me on that road and he was going the other direction then turned around. then he said from that entrance marsh>101 it took him 5 mins to get to me. i saw him in my rearview prob 1/4 mile before whipple then he turned all his lights on and stopped at the whipple exit.

 

umm... no... i'm not using fake excuses that sound like a lie
besides if i do trial by written declaration and lose, i can still appear in court in person to fight it.

 

My brother recently fought some crap ticket (his first ticket) by mail and won, I don't know the exact details, but it was pretty simple from what I've heard.

So, on the ticket he received, there was something that said he was going to be mailed a courtesy notice with the actual amount the ticket cost (wasn't listed on the ticket). That didn't really show up quickly, so he called the court-house listed on the ticket and the notice arrived a few days later. I believe the courtesy notice had something he could check to say he wanted to enter a plea by mail (obviously a plea of not-guilty). He then had to send that in, with the full amount of the ticket as "bail". All of that had to be in around a week before the court date listed on the ticket - around 1 month from getting the ticket.

Later, I think, he was mailed another form which allowed him to contest the ticket by mail via a "Trial by written declaration". I think he just wrote some small letter, his account of what happened, and sent that in with the form (not sure about the form, but I know he sent in a letter). A month or so later, he recieved a letter from the court saying that the ticket was dismissed and that his bail would [eventually] be returned.

That was it. I'm pretty sure your ticket would be easy to fight, considering the circumstances. It is difficult to judge the speed of something coming toward you, it is even more difficult to judge speed at night, and I doubt the cop had enough math skills to "estimate" your speed :-p .


If you want any more information, or for me to clarify anything, feel free to ask.