Two tickets from accident ... to fight or not to fight?

Question

I was driving down a highway when my car began to pull to the left towards the median and I attempted to regain control of the car and when i attempted the car completely lost control and spun out onto the side of the road (no cars in other lanes). I noticed a large slash in my back left tire. The cop asked how fast I was driving and I said about 60 (speed limit is 55). He told me that a man who was behind me said he was driving 65 so I wasn't. I told him that I thought I was driving 60 however it could have changed when I couldnt control the car. A week later I got two tickets in the mail. One for safe speed and one for disregard of traffic lane. The cop didn't show up for 28 minutes after 911 calls so clearly he didn't see the accident or what occured. Do you think that it is worth fighting these ticket? because I was at a safe speed there was no bad weather or sharp turns it was just a straight road. And I couldn't control the car I had a slash in the tire

Answer 1

fight it, he didnt clock you and can not prove you were speeding. and the ticketing officer has to show up and provide proof.  he cant go by the word of another civilian, without any other evidence.

Answer 2

ya tell the court you were doing between 55 and 60 they'll have to prove you werent and to do that they'll have to bring in the other witness and get a accident reconstuction crew, which they wont do. Cops are dumb@sses they think everyone should bow down to them well they can eat my browneye

Answer 3

You could fight it since there aren't any witnesses to testify against you.  You'll just have to convince the Judge.

Answer 4

Why would you maintain a speed of 60-65 if your car was acting this way???   Why didn't you reduce your speed and put on your flashers???  How in the world do you think that what you were driving was a safe speed when you weren't able to steer in the right direction??

Answer 5

its worth a try I would . You should also bring in photos of your tire and also subpoena the cop  and the witness because witness's aren't always reliable.

Answer 6

I don't think you deserve either ticket.....number one, you weren't clocked by the cops, number two, if your car went out of control because of a problem with one of the tires, that is viewed as a "no-fault" situation, and in this case didn't even involve another car or result in damage to your own car.  So the tickets are ridiculous, doubly so since they were mailed to you instead of issued on the spot.  I'd think that a reasonable judge would agree that the cop was totally out of line.  However, having said that, the bottom line for me would still have to be weighing the cost of the tickets against the cost of going to court. If a lawyer has to be involved, it probably isn't worth it unless those two tickets are going to threaten your driver's license.

Answer 7

I'll bet your citation was for 'unsafe speed for conditions' and 'fail to operate within lane of traffic'.

If you were unable to control your vehicle, 5 MPH would have been an 'unsafe speed'.  It doesn't matter if the guy behind you said you were at 100 or 10 MPH, you having an accident is evidence that you couldn't control your vehicle.

As to the 'traffic lane' citation, it sounds like a duplication of the first citation. I would fight that one.

Good Luck