Grrrr... hubby got a ticket

[catnapper]

Its something we can fight too--- he forgot to get the car inspected. So we had an appointment for TODAY. And sure enough, he got stopped TODAY and got a $105 ticket. I even had the dealership call hubby's cell while the cop was there to tell the cop we had an appintment... the cop STILL gave him a ticket.

When we dropped the car off, the dealership asked for the envelope. We wondered, "what envelope?" Apparently, the cop should have given us an envelope for the delaership to fill out and send in. We are supposed to have 7 days from being stopped to get an inspection. NOoooo... this arrogant cop gave us a ticket. Even if we take the time to go to court to fight it, we'll STILL have a fee to pay for court cost (plus a day wasted to spend waiting at court )

How can we fight this? Call City Hall? (I'm not joking here! We don't have the money to pay even one dollar in fees) Call the police station and complain to the cheif? What?

[popcornbird]

Go to court. Its your best bet. Hopefully they can dismiss the ticket and charge you just $10 or so in fees. You won't have to pay the ticket if its cleared. Cops can be SUCH jerks at times. I know from my dad's recent experience with a cop/ticket. In fact, he FINALLY got it cleared by going to court yesterday, and only had to pay $10 to the court instead of the $500 ticket.

What happened was, about 2-3 months ago, my dad and I were driving home from a friend's house at night. A cop stopped us and said our registration stickers weren't updated. (The car was registered...dad just forgot to put the 2005 sticker, so 2004 was still up there. My dad showed Mr. Cop his vehicle registration proof, and it WAS updated. My dad told him we'd go and get a new sticker from the DMV the next day (which we did), but stupid cop still marked it as a violation...EVEN THOUGH we showed him proof of the vehicle's registration.

THEN, he goes to the front of the car and says, "Sir, you don't have a front license plate." Of course we would've had a front license plate if there were a place to put it. Not our fault that Toyota decided to make their new SUV front bumpers' *new style* fancy and plate-less. We didn't have a place to put a plate.

He marked those two very fixable things as violations, and comes and asks for my dad's license. When my dad gave it, it turned out that it was two days expired. YIKES! Apparently, we had a LOT of things going on that week, and my dad had forgotten his license was expiring. He marked down a third violation for that, and told my dad he can't drive home, and if there were no other licensed driver in the car, he would tow the car away. THANK GOD I was with my dad. The thing was, I didn't have my license with me. Didn't bring it cause I wasn't driving. The cop asked for my name and birthdate, and verified that I had a license. Once he saw that I did, he told my dad to have me drive home. That was my first time driving the SUV btw. My dad never let me drive it but he HAD to in this situation. Boy was I happy. Now I drive it all the time.

Anyway, after that incidence, here's what happened. I drove my dad to the DMV the next working day, and he immediately got his license renewed, and got the 2005 stickers. Then we drove to the Toyota dealer and had them 'drill in' a license holder on the front bumper. We put the license on, and went back to the DMV. Showed them we corrected everything. They said everything should be clear but we should go to court anyway, just to be on the safe side.

The next week, my dad went to court and got everything cleared. All was well...until last week, when the ticket STILL came in the mail and asked for $500 for those 3, already fixed unintentional 'violations'. My dad was SO upset. Yesterday, he went to the court again and found that they updated his record AFTER sending the ticket. They cleared things up again, and dismissed the ticket. He had to pay $10 in court fees, but nothing else. FINALLY that's over, and cleared, thank God.

The cop was a JERK. To treat someone who has had a California license for 30 years with a completely clear record with such disrespect was really disgusting. Even the court apologized for his behavior. We wouldn't have known what to do if it wasn't for our WONDERFUL neighbor (she's a lawyer), who despite her current hard pregnancy, still did all she could to guide us in the right direction. She, by the way, told us that most cops wouldn't mark a two day expired license as an offense because things happen, and 2 days is really nothing. The DMV has no problem renewing your license if its just 2 days expired. The stupid cop had a major problem...trying to find every mistake he possibly could. All is clear now, and we just had to pay $10, but it was a hassle, and would've been worse had my dad NOT gone to court. I would say your best bet is to go to court. That would probably cost you the least, money-wise.

[catnapper]

Wow, your dad had a terrible experience!

We think that this cop was short on his ticketing quota! Quotas around here are due on the 15th of the month... guess what today is? Yup, the 15th. So he was probably hard pressed to write a few tickets.

What irks hubby most is remember back a month or so ago opne of his students punched him? well they called the cops and one was supposed to come to school to take a statement and file the charges. Well, nobody's come yet. So here he is with one very serious claim and they don't take action. But they do with our registration (which by the way WAS renewed) we just made a stupid mistake and missed inspecting it at Christmas time.

[davidpizzica]

Kim, I too have those lovely P.A. inspection stickers! A few yearsago I actually put one over on a cop. I was going down the road to eat at the local Eat & Park. As son as I was getting out of the car, I hear "let me see your license and registration" I got out of the car and he told me that I had an expired stickers. We walked over to see them again and he looked and saw they were up to date! (I had the ones with the slash through the number). He had misread the number! BTW, this was a local cop not a state cop. This was the first time that I ever heard a cop apologize to someone! Boy, was I lucky!

[kt_luvs_kitties]

My husband got an inspection sticker ticket not too long ago, and he went to the courthouse, with the proof that he got the inspection done, and the DA dropped it at no cost. So I would try taking the ticket, and the receipt for the inspection to the local DA at the courthouse and try to get them to drop it.They just took the ticket and said not the worry about it, that it would be dropped. Hope this helps, Katie

[catnapper]

Thanks, that does help. Hopefully they will just drop the charges for me too! I hadn't expected that outcome!

[NoahsMommy]

What is the inspection for? Its a seperate sticker from the registration?

I'm sorry he got a ticket and you had to deal with such a jerky cop.

Around here, it would be considered a "fix it" ticket. You'd fix it and then get another police officer to sign off the portion on the back of the ticket and mail it in.

[moosmom]

Go to court, stand in line and speak to the prosecuting attorney. Show him proof that you had an appointment to have the car inspected. The PA should know the laws and how you have 7 days from the date you're stopped to get it inspected. Chances are it'll be dropped and there won't be any court costs.

[catnapper]

Yes, you have to have the car registered and then inspected. And inspections are not cheap!! It $50 just to have the emmissions checked (and pretty much only the old cars fail that... any new car passes with flying colors! Just a way to get money if you ask me ) Plus they check brakes, lights, windshield wipers, tires, etc. Yesterday's inspection cost us $135, but we also had the oil changed.

[davidpizzica]

Originally posted by catnapper
Yes, you have to have the car registered and then inspected. And inspections are not cheap!! It $50 just to have the emmissions checked (and pretty much only the old cars fail that... any new car passes with flying colors! Just a way to get money if you ask me ) Plus they check brakes, lights, windshield wipers, tires, etc. Yesterday's inspection cost us $135, but we also had the oil changed.

Amen, Kim! I worry about getting my 11 year old Olds every year. Pennsylvania is very good about sticking it to te little guy!