We generally allow 10 over but I rarely see a ticket for less than 15 over the posted speed limit. Also, a lot of the tickets are written in the late hours, when most people are asleep. If I had a nickel for everytime someone told me, the road conditions were clear so why shouldnt I drive 51 in a 25, I would have quite a few nickels.

Our community does not have quotas. And believe it or not officers do many other things than write tickets. Prisoner transports, investigations, etc. Those “Target enforcement areas” are there because enough people in the community have complained about people whizzing through their residental district and double the posted speed limit.

What is true, most cops won’t write tickets in bad weather, rain or bitter cold and snow, feggitaboutit, they have more traffic accidents to deal with in those times usually tho.

Every officer here documents that they calibrate their equiment every single time they take the car out. They do not leave the parking lot without calibrating the radar and noting the time.

Other misconceptions:

1. That the city gets all that money from the ticket. Not true, a good portion of it goes to state and county. Of a fine, less than 30% of it actually goes to the city.

2. That speed limits are set to create speed traps. Actually, the state sets the speed limits. They build the roadway and set speed limits according to assumed liability. Its 25 over a bridge because if that bridge freezes, or is wet due to rain, you will lose control at a higher speed.

Also, don’t lie to the officer about how many violations you have had. Even tho points drop off after 3 years, the officer can see your driving history for the last 10-15 years, and serious violations (accidents, suspensions, ovi/dui) stay on the record permanently. I have seen 35 year olds with 26 tickets, 9 suspensions and 14 accidents try to tell me that they havent had a ticket in 10 years. Whatever.

Some things I have learned that you can be ticketed for in most municipalities that I never realized:

Leaving your car running with the keys in it while you run in a store, Flashing your lights to warn oncoming traffic of a police car ahead, driving too slow, Just to name a few.

Seems just in the short time I have been doing this, the biggest complaint is that the posted speed limit is unfair, especially 25 mph zones. Life is unfair, but the law is the law. If you choose to speed, tickets are the cost of doing business.

However, I do recommend that anyone who gets a ticket come to court and ask for reduced charges and/or no points. Most Judges/magistrates will grant it upon request – no attorney needed.

But on the flip side, you call the cops because you see some people rummaging around in a car and the alarm is going off, there’s two cop cars there in less than 2 minutes. In my city if someone’s breaking into your house and you’re home the response time is at least 5 minutes and you get one cop, two if it’s a slow night. Now if the person who is breaking into your house is trying to hide because they just robbed a donut shop, you’ll have the SWAT team there in 2 minutes (seriously, this was in the news a few months ago). But I digress…

Sure, I drive below the speed limit and I drive by the book so much that it irritates everyone around me when I visit that other city, but I really enjoy being able to walk down the street without being in constant fear of someone showing me a gun and taking my wallet. I guess $200-$300 tickets for doing 27 in a 25 is the price they pay in that town for being so safe… Oh, and their congressperson is always getting them extra federal funding for traffic enforcement. Your tax dollars at work!

You can find out if his radar gun was properly serviced by requesting the information from your local police station. If he decided to slack (as many officers do) and he didn’t do proper maintance on his equipment then the judge will throw the ticket out. There’s a very real chance that you wern’t even speeding at all.

http://www.trafficticketsecrets.com

Currently they have a free report you can read. I didn’t, but someone here might want to.

http://biz.yahoo.com/brn/070330/21532.html?.v=1

http://lifehacker.com/software/cars/how-to-beat-a-speeding-ticket-254217.php

Good luck!

1) Can’t you take a defensive driving course to keep this course off your record? You’ll still have to pay for the ticket, but you won’t have to worry about your insurance rates going up. (Or is that something that varies by state? If not, I recommend that you don’t take the online ones because you have to keep getting up and checking things on your car I guess to prove that you’re taking your own course, and I recommend that you don’t take the comedy ones unless you have a source that says it’s actually funny–the other courses spend less time trying to be funny and more time comparing each other’s stories, which is fun–and if you take the kind where you get free pizza, note that you might be limited to two pieces.)

2) If your insurance rates do go up, you should call your insurance agent and explain the situation. That person will probably be just as shocked at your getting a ticket for going only 6 mph over the limit as so many of your commenters and may be able to give you a break. Plus, straight empty road, trying to drive at an even more reasonable speed–you’re just not the kind of customer they have to be worrying about.

Oh and by the by, the guy who wrote about timing the lights, someone should ask him how many red light T Bone accidents he has seen in his travels?

Having said that, I too would have been surprised and annoyed to get pulled over for speeding with the car set on cruise control. Live and learn I guess.

The Economics of a ticket are much broader than just the few comments you made, but they do offer you a few opportunities and alternatives.

First, you know that you might have an insurance bump. I do not know what you pay now, but I have been advised that the average “bump” will cost between 700 and 1K in a three year period. But, for a safe assumption, lets assume that your insurance will go up 100 dollars per year.

So, now you are in the hole, 375 dollars. I make less than 25 dollars an hour, so spending 15 hours to try and get this case dismissed would be a positive for me. And often times it can be done. These tactics are based on a purely economical standpoint, and hold no regards to morality as pertains to a belief that since the law was broken, a price must be paid.

First, I always recommend you pull up your state statutes on speeding. These can often be found easily.
In my state, Texas, the Statutes are thus:

§ 545.351. MAXIMUM SPEED REQUIREMENT.
(a) An operator may not drive at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the circumstances then existing.
(b) An operator:
(1) may not drive a vehicle at a speed greater than is
reasonable and prudent under the conditions and having regard for
actual and potential hazards then existing; and….(cont.)

§ 545.352. PRIMA FACIE SPEED LIMITS. (a) A speed in excess of the limits established by Subsection (b) or under another provision of this subchapter is prima facie evidence that the speed is not reasonable and prudent and that the speed is unlawful.

What these mean, together, is that there is no speed limit in Texas. As long as you drive in a “reasonable and prudent” manner and can prove so with some inspection, then you did not break the law. A letter to the DA with this information, as well as weather and road reports, may very well get a case dropped.

You state may or may not have similar provisions.

If they do not, you still have other options:
1. File an Informal Discovery Request – This can get officers notes, traffic reports, radar information, maint. records, etc. Send it to the police officer, the city police department, the city attorney, and the district attorney.
2. Write the district attorney with information you have gathered, and request the charges be dropped.
3. Delay the court case, if possible. And try to get it on another day. Police offers usually try and set all their cases on the same day each week. So, if it says Tuesday, try to get a Thursday. If the officer does not show, you are good.
4. Ask for a Trial Jury if the case is not dismissed. You can often convince a jury of 12 that you were being reasonable.
5. Get a lawyer. Sometimes paying 250 is better than paying 375.

Hope this helps.

Despite this, I got pulled over once when a hummer-style truck behind me flashed the high beams to speed up. I drove at limit+5 and I was the one the cop pulled over. No ticket for me though, as I explained what had happened. Hopefully the cop went out looking for the truck instead.

A friend of a friend is a cop and told us their motto: “9 you’re fine, 10 you’re mine.” But 6? Come on.

A speeding ticket for going 6 over! What a joke! As you and numerous poster’s mentioned, it will be costly in the long rung to simply “take responsibility for the consequences” as martha put it. It’s better to fight it and attempt to get it reduced in severity so you can avoid the hit to your insurance. Don’t let a $75 setback mushroom into one costing hundreds if not thousands over the long term.

Where I live, the cops don’t look twice unless you are doing more than 20 over. That is, unless it is speeding enforcement da…I mean speed-trap day:

Just an example of how insidious cops can be. On speed-trap day during the morning rush, I’ve seen a dozen highway patrol cars lined up on a tollway on-ramp. Their “buddy” is tagging speeders a couple miles up and calling the plates and descriptions over the radio to his friends on the on-ramp. One-by-one they take off down the ramp and pull people over a mile or two up. They then proceed to return to the on-ramp and line up a again. This repeats for a couple hours.

Still think they’re not just filling quotas?

Anyway, I went down to the courthouse to pay it; I wasn’t going to fight. The clerk informed me of the “deferral program”. If I paid the stated fine + $20, it would get deferred and as long as I didn’t get another ticket in 12 months (IIRC), it would disappear and my insurance company would never know.

I never checked to see if it disappeared, but my insurance never went up.

It’s definitely worth a phone call to check that out.