Hello to everyone ,
Got my self a nice ticket the other day on my family new leased Mazda 3 .
Police officer told me that I was passing on the right .When I did go to the right lane originally to make right turn on intersection and then changed my mind right before it . ( Had my kids in a car they like longer drives , but then I realized it was time for them to go to sleep soon , it was getting too late ) .
So police officer reasoning was that I did a very dangerous thing , I was honestly very confused at the time he stopped me , because I was going speed limit and didn’t try to purposely pass anyone I was just merging back to the highway since right lane was ending . So it took me until next day watching the footage to realize what passing he was talking about .
On top of it , he gave me a ticket for suspended license ( it’s not ) then to made me pull my window down in the middle of highway going highway speed and tell it’s my registration ( I have no cars registered under me currently ) but he send me a ticket for suspended license anyway .
Here is a video of both things :
So would you say , did a purposely pass everyone and put everyone at great risk by doing so or safely merged back to highway ?
You were in the right lane coming up to a light. The light changed, and then you merged in accordance with the lane markings. Nothing about your driving seems dangerous to me and I’d be shocked if the cop even showed up in court to fight this. Seems like he was probably fishing for some reason or another.
You properly switched to right lane from the middle.
You significantly slowed down in the anticipation of the red light.
You only resumed to increase speed after the light turned green.
And changed lane after “lane end” sign was passed with clearly showing your turn signals.
Yes true , but my intention was not to pass originally, everyone was already stopped at the light when I changed my mind of making a right turn , what was I supposed to do?
slow down to a speed way below the speed limit and try to let everyone pass ?
That would been way more dangerous in this case .
I mean I have a full recoding , but he was trying to check my tint and asking me indirect questions about me drinking , because I told him we where coming from my parents house , he was asking if had a" nice family dinner ".
He didn’t expect me having kids in the car, so he "gave me a break " lol
I mean tinted ( legally ) grey Mazda 3 hatchback turbo drove by , he probably thought I was a teenager "racer ", not a family guy .
Just hoping this video will be enough to drop the ticket , I don’t have enough money for a lawyer currently .
i am not familiar with what the requirements for submitting evidence is once you go to local court. However, once you do plead not guilty, try to go to the court early & talk to the prosecutor.
I would still consider consulting a lawyer, just to get a sense of what is involved & may be they can work something out with you just so you know you are covered.
First, mail in the ticket and check “Not Guilty”.
If your license is not expired, that is an easy one and should help your case be thrown out. Don’t even bring up the registration since that is not what you were cited for. I would also suggest obtaining a copy of your driving record, especially if it is clean. Your case here lies on the premise that the officer is not making good judgement calls especially if he is citing you for a false crime and then let you drive away with 2 kids in the car.
As for the video, I would make sure you have multiple ways of presenting it (DVD, USB, youtube, etc). Traffic court is a lot less formal from my experience and judges want the facts quick and to the point. The prosecutor might meet with your beforehand to discuss a plea bargain. They reduce the charges down to non-moving violations to keep your record clean and still collect revenue. Your choice whether to accept it or not.
I think the cop implied that he switched to the right lane only to pass the cars waiting for green light in his lane and then sped to cut them off by going back.
Yes indeed , from his point of view I could see it ,that what makes it not so easy of a cause , technically even with my video I can still be charged with passing on the right . I’ll honest if I was planning to pass I would’ve changed lanes way later , I didn’t really paid close attention to amount of oncoming traffic or anyone else is in the right lane they where far enough .
Well sure, that’s what he implied, but obviously he had no choice but to merge back, and he only passed as he approached the light while other vehicles were stopped, so of course he went past them.
I would be shocked if the OP were to fight this and the cop even showed up to court.
The only thing that I see that’s even remotely dangerous is the cop trying to talk to you while you’re driving. If this is your local town, you can contact your mayor or your city council member about this. You don’t have to file a complaint, but just contacting someone in the office to help sort this out. You can even reach out to your congressman.
Totally do that, see how far you’ll make it afterwards while your license plate number is taped to every dashboard of every cruiser in a county.
to the OP, why does it sound like the cop is saying it’s not your license and the registration is for an old car? Did you give him wrong papers, but then I don’t understand why you weren’t handcuffed. It seems there is a bit more to this than the video shows.
That is the part that doesn’t make sense to me too. Cops give warnings/tickets for registration but driving on a suspended/expired license is a big deal, especially with kids in the car. The cop could be held liable if OP drove off knowing he has an invalid license and caused an accident.
I will post a full video of a stop later if anyone will be interested , my registration status was suspended at the time of stopping , he confused it with suspended license ( that’s why he came up to me on highway afterwords ) , I don’t have any cars under my name currently ( car registration is on my wife ) , and haven’t been stopped in a long while so had no idea , apparently back on 2019 dmv didn’t file that I returned my plates( I resolved it the next day ) . However I just renewed my license two weeks before the stop , so I knew and know for a fact it’s not suspended and even got a paper from dmv that it was never suspended .
And he gave me a" break " since I lived close by.
I suspect an expired reg. Here in Cali, all current driver and vehicle info is available to the officer when he runs his 28s (reg check) and 29s (arrest records) before he’s even pulled you over. Consequently, even though they know your license, veh. reg, and insurance is current, they can still cite since you are supposed to provide current proof of such on demand. Most cops are chill and won’t cite for just that, however.
Car that I was stopped in had proper registration , it’s just says that my registration is suspended , but since I have no cars under my name it’s just means I can’t register a car , I can still drive legally.
