Fuck the Man
I fucking hate cops.
All you need to do is look at speeding tickets to get a reminder of what cock-sucking, revenue-generating, gigantic pieces of shit they are. To get a glimpse of how much the overall system is out to fuck you in the ass, just know that auto insurance companies like to regularly “donate” expensive radar equipment to police departments, “in the name of safety”.
Give me a fucking break.
Let’s throw in generous kick backs from traffic schools and this racketeering business rakes in billions upon billions, hand over fist every year. They have perfected the whole ticketing to traffic school system to a goddamn T.
The take away here is that they could give TWO FUCKS about you or your safety, but the CHP-in cahoots with the legal system, have a complete HARD ON for your money.
It’s all bullshit really and they leverage FEAR to perpetuate this fraudulent cash cow. I’m not going to expand on how studies have shown speeding and wreck less driving are not mutually exclusive, or how corrupt the legal system is, you can read up more on that yourself; I will however, try to shed some light on what options you have if you want to fight these MOTHERFUCKERS.
Legal Definition of Not Guilty
In legal terms, Not Guilty, does not mean that you didn’t do it. It means that they can’t, within a reasonable doubt, prove that you DID DO IT.
Why do I bother clarifying this at all? If you don’t have the conviction within yourself to go all the way, then you might as well stop right now and opt for traffic school…bitch. I think the main thing to remember is that the legal system is completely full of shit, and you should have no reservation in fighting the man, because they sure as shit are doing their damndest to fuck you to oblivion and take every last penny from your hard earned paycheck.
Primer
People will often say, that you can get out of a ticket by pointing out clerical errors when the CHP writes the ticket. I have read that this is few and far between, as the judge will always take the word of the PIG over yours, and as long as they can establish most of the identification, it becomes highly irrelevant if they forgot a letter in your street name.
In my personal experience, the dumbass CHP wrote the date of the ticket that didn’t even exist for that particular year. Unfortunately for me, someone double-checked this asshole’s work, and promptly sent a Notice of Correction. So in sum, and in my opinion, finding clerical errors is not really worth your time.
Now, on to the good shit.
How to Fight the Man
The key to fighting a speeding ticket is to first, SHUT THE FUCK UP when the PIG pulls you over. Make yourself completely unmemorable, and for the love of god, do not admit guilt in any shape or form. But at the same time you should start taking in details about the stop, like-what exit you took, the color of your shirt, the area in general, etc, etc.
Once you get your ticket, you’ll notice a date at the bottom of the ticket. This is your court date to declare either your innocence, guilt, or nolo contendre. You will also need to post bail at that time (which you can find on the web site, on that date). We’ll get into that in a little bit.
Some people wait for the courtesy letter to come before making any move, thinking that it might provide direction, or that it may contain paperwork of some kind to further the process. I personally, never got one, and you most likely will never get one either, largely because the court system is full of apathetic, unmotivated, underpaid, bitter pieces of shit. So, it is in your best interest to forget the courtesy letter altogether and move on.
Trial by Declaration
At this point you may be experiencing a certain level of anxiety/freak out, and that’s natural. It’s all a part of the shtick.
They use “official” looking paperwork, legal-ese, and all manners of intimidation to make you feel worse than the time your mom caught you beating off to two girls one cup. Just know that it’s all part of the fucking circus, and their ultimate goal is to get you to give willfully up your money. FUCK THAT SHIT.
So what’s a motherfucker supposed to do?
If you live in LA, then your first step is to hit the LA Superior Court’s web site. Follow the links on their web site to look up tickets based on your license number of ticket/citation id.
If you check in two weeks of your stop, you should see the info end up in their system. At this point there’re probably four options (dollar amount are for going 80 in a 65 zone, CVC22349):
1. Appearance Date Extension – The extension date will be MM/DD/YYYY
2. Trial by Declaration – The amount due is $212.00. The extension date will be MM/DD/YYYY
3. Traffic School Payment – The amount due is $276.00 plus e-Public access fee of $10.00 will be added to this amount. The traffic school due date will be MM/DD/YYYY
4. Full Payment – The amount due is $212.00 plus e-Public access fee of $10.00 will be added to this amount.
5. Court Date Reservation – Select a time preference below.
As you peruse through the prices mapped to each option, you’ll notice that, pleading guilty (full payment) is one of the cheaper options. In my opinion it is your worst option, period. You end up with a point, which will probably jack up your rates if the insurance company runs a check, the city make money and the insurance companies end skimming a little off of the top, and you didn’t even get to throw one punch.
Why does traffic school end up being the most expensive route? For one, they know that most people don’t want to hassle of fighting the ticket given that no one has the time with the daily bullshit, and the fact that most people are largely inexperienced with dealing with the court systems, it’s like shooting fish in a fucking barrel. With over 95% of people opting for a quick exit via traffic school its no wonder they try to take a little bit extra off the top.
So what you got?
By process of elimination, the best option so far would be Extension. The extension was originally intended to give people time to gather their bail money, which will give you an extra 60 days before you have to come up with any money or commit to any course of action.
What this also essentially does is put more time between the moment you were stopped and the next time you have to make another move in the whole process. If you happened to be stopped by officer fuck head, who botches up tickets on a regular basis, then you’ve just given this son of a bitch 60 days to write up dozens more inaccurate tickets, forget about you and the paperwork for your ticket, and make his recollection of the events even that much more hazy.
So, let’s say you got your ticket in the beginning of October. If you waited until 5 days or so before the original bail date, which is 30 days (~November/December), before you hit the extension option on the court web site, then you’ve effectively delayed any sort of meaningful action to advance the case on anyone’s part until about February at the earliest. At this point nothing has really happened on either side, but you’re slowly gaining momentum by distancing yourself from the pigs memory. Try to remember what you had for breakfast last Tuesday, much less what you had for breakfast fucking four months ago. Layer on some acid you had that one weekend in Vegas and you can’t remember SHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEIT.
As February approaches, your extension is coming to an end. At this point, if you felt like it, you can still hypothetically opt for traffic school, plead guilty, or as we recommend go for the trial by declaration. If you plead guilty, then you can go straight to hell. Likewise if you pick traffic school, you can go smoke a dick.
The sweetest option by far is Trial by Declaration. Why?
For one, Trial by Declaration can be handled entirely through mail, so you never have to show to the court. Furthermore, they probably assigned the summons location in least accessible and shady ass location. I was summoned to downtown at 8am.
What you say? You want me to drive my ass on the 10 East from the West Side during morning rush hour? GO GET FUCKED.
Here’s where it gets even better. Trial by Declaration has a clause that states that you can request another in person trial, if for any reason you’re dissatisfied with the verdict from the Trial by Declaration. That means two bites at the apple instead of one. This is called Trial de Novo. If it even gets to that point, you can still request Traffic School, but let’s save that ace for now.
Now, as you approach the end of the extension, you will want to have your bail money ready to go (In my case for allegedly going 80 in a 65 zone, it was $212).
This is where you’ll need to put in some elbow grease. We all know how incompetent and motivated legal clerks are in the LA Supreme Court. In all transactions we need to assume that will absolutely fuck up any and all paper work. So print every fucking confirmation page, and when mailing in forms, make it certified with return receipt.
So after your extension is almost up, submit your intent to fight the ticket via TBD and pay the bail online. You can pay by credit card. They give you a confirmation number when you do, save this shit. At this point you will get a new date to submit your TBD. This date will more than likely be about a month or two from your extension date, so in our example, lets call it April.
The Forms
You will need to fill out the tr-205 form which you can get off of the web site or through a Google search. Fill out the basic info in it (i.e. Addresses, citation number, etc, etc). A few points when you do:
1. Do not admit any guilt
2. You can put “I’m not guilty” and call it a day. If the pig doesn’t respond, you win anyway, and you have not incriminated yourself. It has been said that many have won by just writing those three magic words.
3. Do not fucking admit any guilt… like this shit: “I wasn’t going 80 like the officer had me clocked at, I was going around 70.” If you were stopped for CVC 22349, then you just lost, because any speed over 65 mph, is deemed guilty….FUCK
For reference, here’s what I ended up turning in:
Pursuant to California Vehicle Code (CVC) 40902, I respectfully submit this Trial By Written Declaration to the Court.
I stand by my plea of Not Guilty to the charge of CVC 22349(a).
As required, I have paid the bail payment of $212 through the LA Superior Court web site (enclosed is the print out of the online transaction receipt – Exhibit 2). The receipt number is 69696969696969. Please refund $212 in the event that the court finds me not guilty.
As the citation shows (Exhibit 1), Officer DoucheBag (Badge ID #:123POS123) did not reference the method in which he measured the speed of the vehicle on October 15, 2010 (which is the date as noted by Exhibit 4, and not as noted on October 12, 2010 in the citation as illustrated in Exhibit 2). Consequently, I respectfully request to see documentation before and after the date of my citation that the LIDAR/Radar unit, VASCAR unit, or speedometer/odometer used by Officer DoucheBag (Badge ID #:123POS123) was calibrated properly and therefore accurate.
If the court finds me guilty, I request a Trial de Novo, and an option to attend traffic school level one and have the fine reduced.
Additionally, please send me the “Decision and Notice of Decision” (TR-215) by mail.
Print this out, print out an evidence you want, and label them appropriately and call them out in the TR-205 form.
Get ready to send this to the Traffic Clerk in the Traffic Division at the assigned court via certified mail, and return receipt.
Do this as close to the due date for TBD as possible. I would say about a week ahead. Once they have it, they will then send a request for the officer’s statement.
Lots of things can happen during this time. The officer might get shot while patrolling Inglewood, get transferred, lose paperwork and notes, the judge might actually rule in your favor (however, unlikely), or the pig might just plain forget to respond. With increasing workloads, there’s a decent change they might not respond. To put it into perspective, cops get overtime to show up to court for traffic stops. They get no extra cash for filling out bullshit paperwork on their own time. You do the math.
If things go your way, about 2 months later, you should get a ruling in the mail, and if you are declared not guilty, a refund check with the amount you paid for bail. Congratulations, someone say something about hookers?
Let’s say it didn’t turn out the way you wanted. Remember Trial de Novo? Send in the tr-220 form (again you can find via simple Google Search). Just slap in the CVC you were allegedly in violation of, in my case it was the Maximum speed limit law 22349, and fill in the rest. Send it in certified, return receipt ASAP. You have 20 days from the ruling to get that request in.
You will get a new date to show up in court. At this point you can request the pig’s trial by declaration from the clerk as it is public information, and see what he ended up saying. There is another chance that the son of a bitch might not show as this is now closing in on an year since the stop. If not you can finally request traffic school, and still avoid the point.
You might think this is a lot of work, and I wouldn’t disagree with you. But if you think about how much work they put in ( from the dirty pig, to the colluding judges, and greedy insurance companies) trying to fuck you out of your money, I think it’s worth your time to give them some shit. If not for anything else, to know that they can’t take your money without a fight, as you are wasting the precious time of dozens of people, as they process your trial by declaration, and thus not making it worth their time to take your money. Or put another way, it is our FUCKING CIVIC DUTY TO FIGHT THE MAN.
DISCLAIMER: This article is no way, shape, or form legal advice. In fact, its a fucking shoot from a dude who is disgusted with pseudo-authority type figures trying to prey on regular citizens through ignorance and intimidation.
I give credit to where credit is due. Here are some of the few resources that I ran into while doing my own research:
http://forums.clubrsx.com/showthread.php?t=672535
http://www.worldlawdirect.com/article/903/fighting-speeding-ticket.html
http://blog.motorists.org/traffic-tickets-are-big-business/
http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/09/18/todays-headlines-392/
http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87617&page=2
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091107171014AAQpqVC
http://www.helpigotaticket.com/declar/request.html
