My little run in with the law happened last month; my court date is next week.
I'm driving down the interstate at about 9:30 one morning and suddenly all of the cars in front of me start hitting the brakes. Assuming there was a wreck, I hit my flashers and followed suit. I can't see anything in front of me other than the back of the vehicle that I'm directly behind, but we're moving about 30 MPH. At this point we're all in the right hand lane, and I finally see a police car in the left lane up ahead. We start slowing down and I see this guy in a reflective yellow raincoat - who turned out to be the police officer - a few car lengths in front of me start walking over to our line of cars. Everybody slows down some more and he waves us over to the shoulder of the road (he's now standing the right hand lane). When the car directly in front of me draws near him, he puts out a hand as if telling him to stop. The guy slows down to a crawl and then the police officer, who I didn't know was even an officer at the time, waves him through and then turns his back on me. So I thought he just wanted the line to go slowly and I follow the car past him.
A little further ahead there are two tow trucks, and I see that they were trying to turn around in the road and head back the way they came. After I passed they began turning around and I see in my mirror that the police officer was standing directly in front of the truck that was behind me in line, not letting him past. I was thinking "Damn, was I supposed to stop?" but didn't really worry about it since the tow trucks got turned around and everyone was going on their merry way. Thirty seconds later I'm back to cruising at 70 MPH, and I see Trooper Hardcock roaring along behind me, blue lights flashing. He gets right behind me, and I let out a long stream of expletives and pull over on the shoulder. When we're stopped this guy comes huffing up to my window and begins speaking aggressively loud at me like angry troopers are wont to do. I try explaining to him that I didn't understand what he wanted me to do until after I had already past him. He goes back to his car to start running my shit through the database. At that point I obviously released this guy was going to book me for not following his orders, and I'm fairly incredulous.
Anyway, at the end of all this - regardless of my attempts to explain my behavior to him - I get a citation written up as "Failure to obey traffic instructions." He sticks his clipboard in my face and tells me to sign the bottom (at which point I feel the need to make him clarify what I'm actually signing). He tells me my court date and that I'll just have to go to driving school. He does not tell me what time court is or how much the ticket and court cost will be.
Now guys, I swear upon my mother's future grave that I did not realize that officer was telling me to stop. What am I supposed to think when he waves the car in front of me through and then turns his back to me? His instructions were so unclear and ambiguous! I really don't want to pay for, or attend, traffic school for this bullshit. I know that getting a case dismissed via a "your word against his" argument is an steep uphill battle, but if there's any chance I can get the judge to waive this I'm going to try. And if I do have a chance, how do I best go about disputing it?
Another Q: By signing the ticket, I agreed to appear in court on that date, if not a warrant blah blah blah. However can I not simply mail in the ticket payment?
I'm driving down the interstate at about 9:30 one morning and suddenly all of the cars in front of me start hitting the brakes. Assuming there was a wreck, I hit my flashers and followed suit. I can't see anything in front of me other than the back of the vehicle that I'm directly behind, but we're moving about 30 MPH. At this point we're all in the right hand lane, and I finally see a police car in the left lane up ahead. We start slowing down and I see this guy in a reflective yellow raincoat - who turned out to be the police officer - a few car lengths in front of me start walking over to our line of cars. Everybody slows down some more and he waves us over to the shoulder of the road (he's now standing the right hand lane). When the car directly in front of me draws near him, he puts out a hand as if telling him to stop. The guy slows down to a crawl and then the police officer, who I didn't know was even an officer at the time, waves him through and then turns his back on me. So I thought he just wanted the line to go slowly and I follow the car past him.
A little further ahead there are two tow trucks, and I see that they were trying to turn around in the road and head back the way they came. After I passed they began turning around and I see in my mirror that the police officer was standing directly in front of the truck that was behind me in line, not letting him past. I was thinking "Damn, was I supposed to stop?" but didn't really worry about it since the tow trucks got turned around and everyone was going on their merry way. Thirty seconds later I'm back to cruising at 70 MPH, and I see Trooper Hardcock roaring along behind me, blue lights flashing. He gets right behind me, and I let out a long stream of expletives and pull over on the shoulder. When we're stopped this guy comes huffing up to my window and begins speaking aggressively loud at me like angry troopers are wont to do. I try explaining to him that I didn't understand what he wanted me to do until after I had already past him. He goes back to his car to start running my shit through the database. At that point I obviously released this guy was going to book me for not following his orders, and I'm fairly incredulous.
Anyway, at the end of all this - regardless of my attempts to explain my behavior to him - I get a citation written up as "Failure to obey traffic instructions." He sticks his clipboard in my face and tells me to sign the bottom (at which point I feel the need to make him clarify what I'm actually signing). He tells me my court date and that I'll just have to go to driving school. He does not tell me what time court is or how much the ticket and court cost will be.
Now guys, I swear upon my mother's future grave that I did not realize that officer was telling me to stop. What am I supposed to think when he waves the car in front of me through and then turns his back to me? His instructions were so unclear and ambiguous! I really don't want to pay for, or attend, traffic school for this bullshit. I know that getting a case dismissed via a "your word against his" argument is an steep uphill battle, but if there's any chance I can get the judge to waive this I'm going to try. And if I do have a chance, how do I best go about disputing it?
Another Q: By signing the ticket, I agreed to appear in court on that date, if not a warrant blah blah blah. However can I not simply mail in the ticket payment?
