Adoption 101: The Legal Fundamentals

Three Real Ways to Fight a Speeding Ticket

10 January 2017

Brayden Miles

Nobody is perfect, and probably everyone who drives a car has occasionally gone over the speed limit, even if only on accident. Sometimes, however, a speeding ticket may seem unfair or even capricious—especially if there were people traveling faster than you on the road. If you think that you want to fight the speeding ticket rather than pay the fine, take the points on your license, and have your insurance hiked up for the next year or two, here are some things to consider.

You may be able to challenge the accuracy of the device used to measure your speed.

Some jurisdictions are tougher on speeding than others. While many areas will let someone slide if they are going a couple miles over the posted maximum, other areas will pass out tickets to anyone going even just a single mile per hour over the limit.

The best way to dispute this sort of ticket is to attack the tool that the officer used to gauge your speed. Radar guns work by directing a radio signal toward a vehicle and then calculating the speed of the vehicle by the changes in the returning radar signal that bounces back. Other jurisdictions use laser technology instead of radar guns, but they operate on much the same principle.

However, those sorts of devices are prone to error. They're sensitive pieces of equipment that have to be calibrated constantly. Your attorney may be able to challenge the accuracy of the device based on how recently it was calibrated—especially if it has been longer than the recommended amount of time suggested by the device's manufacturer.

You may be able to offer your own evidence of your speed.

Do you drive with a GPS device on your car? Some people only pull out their GPS systems when they are heading someplace unfamiliar while other people just leave them on all the time. If your device happened to be in operation while you were driving, it could save you from a speeding ticket.

If your GPS device shows that you were going substantially slower than the officer claims, it may be possible to convince the judge that the officer's radar gun either was in error or picked up a different driver and made the officer mistakenly think that you were the errant driver.

You may be able to convince the judge that your speed was appropriate under the circumstances.

Were you actually going fairly slowly compared to the people around you on the road? Resist the urge to make a comment to the officer like, "What? Am I the only one you could catch?" and take that argument into court instead. 

If you can show that drivers on that section of the road at that time of the day routinely drive faster than the posted speed limit, you may be able to get the judge to agree that you were simply trying to keep time with the drivers around and stay in the flow of traffic. If you had gone any slower, you might have actually created a situation that would have endangered you or others.

Fighting a speeding ticket isn't impossible, but it never hurts to have an attorney on your side. Consider contacting a firm that works with speeding-ticket cases, such as Campbell Law Group PLLC, as soon as possible.

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