You Can’t Fight City Hall. A friend of mine told me a tale of her day in Traffic Court trying to defend herself from a bogus, trumped-up citation that she had received about one year earlier.
Your Day in Court: Approach, and you Shall be Heard. A few weeks ago at the school where my son attends I happened to chat with one of the custodial/teachers from the school. We were talking about several topics and eventually, the topic of travel and driving came up. I must have stroked a nerve for she because suddenly she had a lot of things to tell me about driving…
She told me that she was due in Traffic court later that day to fight a moving infraction citation she had received not far from the school for an alleged incident that occurred just about a year prior. A parked police car that she said was plainly visible to her as she was approaching a 4-way stop had ticketed her for failing to come to a complete, full stop. ‘Failure to obey a traffic device,’ or ‘running a STOP sign’ was the actual charge, to be specific.
She said that this ticket was bogus and disputable, she HAD fully and intentionally stopped because she seen this parked police car trolling for violators to ticket. She was being extra cautious exactly because this parked patrol car so so prominently visible. This intersection has a four-way stop with STOP signs on poles, no traffic lights and no pedestrians. Not that this makes any difference, -a STOP sign is a STOP regardless of location or the presence or absence of pedestrians.
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Having seen the parked police car from some distance, she said that she was quite sure of having come to a full and complete stop and tried to explain this to the officer. ‘Tell it to the judge’ is about the only remark that she got back. The ticketing officer cited her for the alleged offense. She was going to fight it in Traffic Court as the fine was going to be $150.00 and 3-points on her Driver’s License if she plead no contest (that is, you do not disagree and accept responsibility.)
All Rise for the Honorable Judge Meaney…
Long story short, just over one year later she got her day in court. She realized once she got into court that this was going to be a long day. There were some 15 other traffic court plaintiffs there defending their immaculate driving skills against this officer whom according to my friend ‘…had rested well the night before and had probably came to court early that day’ for what would turn out to be an all-day affair of watching plaintiffs unequivocally lose to the decision of the judge.
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She realized some time later that her parking meter was running low and asked to be excused to go feed the meter. A demeaning and penetrating glance over the rim of the court officer’s glasses met her seemingly spurious request but she was permitted to go flip the meter for more time.
Turns out her case was tried last, some 6 hours after she had gotten there. This was probably a punitive act for her having to be excused to go deal with the parking meter. She had more-or-less decided at this juncture that she had lost the case already and the judge and ticketing officer seemed to acknowledge this as mea culpa and she pled-out on no contest, and threw herself at the mercy of the court.
She was telling me all of this and she was livid and mad as hell!
Had She WON. -She was NOT going to be taken to jail and they were going to let her LIVE, -but $40.00 poorer and with just 2-demerit marks on her Driver’s License.
This goes to show that you can’t fight City Hall.
