Traffic ticket correction?

Question

i received a traffic ticket tonight. the police officer had forgotten to write to location of the violation on the ticket. i signed and attempted to drive away and he walked out of his car and asked for the ticket back so he can correct this mistake. i refused. under what california vehicle code, or law pertaining allows him to correct the violation after

i had signed the ticket. im under the personal assumption that i can fight this ineptness in court and get the ticket dismissed.

Answer 1

I think it is funny yet sad how so many people are on yahoo answers to try and get out of citations that they admit to committing.

1) An officer saw you commit a violation and gave you a citation.

2) The officer made a simple clerical error and attempted to fix it.  You refused to hand it back.

3) On the officer's copy of the citation, which includes a copy that goes to courts, there is a section for comments, where the officer will write down everything that happened, including your refusal to hand the citation back.

4) On the court copy of the citation the location will be correct.  Your copy is worthless for court-it's your copy.

5) Feel free to fight the ticket in court.  The judge and the prosecutor will get more experience, the officer wil get paid overtime, and hopefully any other violations that the officer saw and wrote in the comments will be charged out as well.

Every person makes mistakes, and this one is so minor that it is laughable.  Your actions will only guarantee that it will not be dismissed...try it and find out.

Answer 2

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vc.h...

This is the website for the California Vehicle Codes

Answer 3

Ineptness? The court will hardly see a simple mistake as ineptness. You aren't a notary, your signature doesn't seal the ticket in stone. It simply just acknowledges the fact you received the ticket. I don't know about California, but here we can amend a citation as needed after we issue it as long as it doesn't change the major facts of the case. With or without your knowledge.

Anyways, your refusal on the side of the road will be noted and will probably hurt your case with the judge.

Answer 4

Once the officer has delivered a copy of the citation to you, the officer must file the remaining original copies.  It is a criminal offense for the officer to alter or modify the remaining copies of the citation, for any reason, before it is filed pursuant to CVC § 40500(d).  If you had not refused then the officer could have lied and said that was the way he had delivered the citation to you.  There are correct procedures for properly amending citations through the court, and you were right for forcing the officer to follow procedure and obey the law.  Now that the officer will be getting that new citation out to you without him violating the law, hopefully two people will have learned a lesson from this experience.

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