Speeding tickets are all frustration and no fun. But, after the ticket is given, and we are deciding what to do about it, many of us tend to think of methods that are thought to be common and effective, yet, in actuality quite useless. Andrew Flusche, a Virginia traffic attorney has pointed out 3 common beliefs that are simply not true.

The officer will not show up in court: While I myself have gotten out of a ticket because of this, I guess it was just pure luck that my officer did not show up. Apparently, it is part of the officer’s job to show up in court and defend his citations. How unfortunate…

You can go at the speed of surrounding traffic: My thinking to back this idea is that, if there are so many people speeding, why is the police going after me? To combat this, I usually go slow enough to let someone else stay right behind me. I doubt that the police officer will go through the trouble of skipping one speeding driver to catch the next one. In court, the “I was going with the flow of traffic” simply doesn’t work.

You can easily argue radar technicalities: I honestly have not heard of this one until reading Flusche’s article. I guess people argue about radar inaccuracies very often, and just as often lose. According to Andrew Flusche, “As a layperson, you can’t just go into court, talk about radar technology, and allege that the officer’s radar gun was inaccurate due to interference or frequency problems. I’ve seen defendants do this, and the judge almost laughs them out of the courtroom.”

So, the next time you get a speeding ticket, keep in mind not to use these tactics in court, and you might just end up saving a penny or two.

The full article can be found here.

-Frank