# The law



## Skyring (Sep 17, 2015)

It's always touching to see people paying up for on the spot fines. Good on you. You people are paying for lots of goodies for the rest of us.

But it's a game, and you've got to know the rules.

For a start, it's not a "pay the fine or go to court" thing. Usually paying the fine is a cheaper and more convenient option than going to court, along with the stress, the hiring a lawyer, taking time off work and so on. So a lot of people do that.

Especially if they know they were speeding/went through a stop sign/were Ubering etc. A fair cop, they think.

No it's not. Well, not always.

You only have a few interactions with a cop in a driving career. Unless you're an absolutely hopeless driver and get pulled over at the drop of a hat. But most people drive in such a fashion that they are pretty well legal most of the time and in any case have a certain eye for getting themselves and their car home in one piece.

When you get pulled over, you'll remember the incident and the details. It'll stick in your mind and you'll likely chew over it because you had that money earmarked for something useful, like the mortgage or a new flatty, and now it will go to pad some pollie's pension.

But cops are pulling people over frequently. It's their job. They don't remember the details that well, and after a week or so, you're just another face in the crowd. I don't remember all the passengers I pick up, even if I go back and look at the trip report, I'll be lucky after a week if I can remember if they were male or female, sat in the front or the back.

When pulled over, accept it. Don't be a smart-arse, don't make a fuss, don't do anything to stand out. Not so much with cabs, but with Ubers, they may have pulled you over just to breath-test you. Something trivial, but if they can smell your breath, get a close look at you, they'll have an idea if you are on something.

If you are, then good on the cops. Get the drunks off the roads.

If not, and it's some silly little thing, they'll likely warn you not to be a galoot and set you free. If you act up, then they'll want to prove that they are more important than you are, and they'll write you up for rolling through a stop sign or whatever.

So don't be a jerk. Humour them. Be nice. Be contrite.

If they give you a ticket, accept it. But don't drive off immediately. Make a note of the circumstances, the location, the time, the weather, traffic, pedestrians, whatever. Usually you can do this while they are strutting around your car recording details and trying to work out how to spell their name on the ticket.

When you get a chance, look at the ticket. Really look at it. Cops are as lazy as the rest of us. They know that most people pay up and make no trouble. A surprising number of times they will leave out vital information, like the exact location, which corner of an intersection it was, the posted speed limit. Something like a tick in the box of "Failure to obey traffic sign" is gold.

You generally have a month to pay the fine, opt to fight it in court, or to ask for it to be dismissed. Wait the month.

A few days before the deadline, send in a letter asking for the fine to be dismissed. Base your reason around whatever mistakes the cops have made and your own research has uncovered. But don't give the game away. Don't give away the details.

After a month, the incident will have faded from the memory of the cop writing the ticket. They won't remember much, and if they do, they won't be sure if it was you or someone else doing something similar a week earlier. They might have some notes, they might have some camera record, and maybe your goose is cooked at this point, but maybe not.

The original ticket will be hauled out and examined. Any mistakes, any shortcuts will be discovered, and if you have made it clear that you know the facts and they don't, you've got a good chance of getting away with a warning. Say you went back and took measurements and photographs, you've checked the street name, whatever.

I once blew straight through a stop sign in full view of a copper, who stopped me. I knew that I wasn't on a gazetted road at all, just an airport carpark being used as a temporary way into the cabyard during roadworks. The stop sign had been put up by airport management at the approach to a perimeter gate. There was no cross traffic there unless the gate was open, and it was closed, so I ignored the sign.

Heaven knows how many of my brother cabbies did the same thing and got fined, but I got off. Because I knew the facts.

Another time I was pushing an amber light a little too closely. About two AM on a very quiet night, but there was a patrol car waiting for the green on the cross street and they pulled me over and wrote me a ticket. I knew I hadn't gone through on the red, but they reckoned I had. I didn't argue. 

The ticket just gave the name of the main street and not the intersection. I waited my month, said that I'd gone back and measured that particular intersection, timed the light cycles and was quite sure the cops had made a mistake. As there were several intersections with lights on that road and the cops had obviously forgotten which one it was, that was dismissed.

Another time I got pinged going 80 in a 60 zone at Exit 66 on the Gold Coast Motorway. My GPS was showing the old speed limit of 80, but it had recently been changed and of course the rozzers were waiting for muggins like me.

Trouble was, all they wrote on the ticket was Exit 66, and this particular exit happens to sprawl over a square kilometre or so, and the cops hadn't even bothered to write down northbound or southbound, I leveraged the discrepancy. Because some parts of the exit ramps were 80km/h, especially the one on the far side. They also hadn't bothered to specify the speed limit at that point.

I had reasonable doubt right there and I knew it. Took me about six months to clear that one, with a lot of back and forth at 28 days each time, but I got off with a warning.

Other times, well, they got me dead to rights, they made no mistakes, I'd done the wrong thing and I paid up.

But I always check that ticket very carefully. Cops might be big on bluster, but they hate paperwork, and they take as many shortcuts as they think they can get away with.

Just like normal people.


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## WollyDriver (Apr 8, 2016)

I was waiting for the advertisement for some solicitor that could solve all your traffic worries, but it just didn't happen.
Btw all very good points, thanks for the write up.


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