Fighting a Suburban Speeding Ticket

THERE IS SOME JUSTICE IN THE WORLD

By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel.com
Detroit Bureau

The first blast of cold winter air hit me squarely in the face as I left the District Court building in Rochester, Michigan, but it couldn’t spoil my mood. The judge had just dismissed a 5-over ticket I’ve been stewing about since summer. I had done my research and submitted an official-looking document titled “Motion to Dismiss” listing all the facts and three good reasons I should not be sanctioned for the alleged misconduct so many months ago.

It all started on a beautiful sunny Tuesday in early August. I was in no hurry driving a beautiful white Cadillac Escalade with 22-inch chrome wheels and lots of bling borrowed from the GM press fleet for evaluation. My destination was a luxurious new hotel on the creek in downtown Rochester where local media were gathering for a lunch-time short-lead press conference preceding the prestigious Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance. The road was eastbound Walton, a four-lane suburban main road with generous extra turn lanes, a beautifully landscaped wide median, few points of access and almost no traffic. I hadn’t seen a speed limit sign, but as I crested a small rise I saw the cop sitting sideways in the median pointing a laser gun right at me.

“Aw s _ _ t!” I murmured as I watched him pull out and follow me for about a half mile. Then, of course, he turned on the overheads. I slowly pulled of on the grassy shoulder. He strode up to my window with a congenial greeting and asked if I knew why he stopped me.

“No. I sure don’t,” I said with some conviction. I could assume, since he was pointing what appeared to be a laser gun at me, that he thought I was speeding but I was driving at a leisurely pace, surrounded by no other traffic. Just as he was walking up to my window I noticed about fifty feet ahead a 45-mph speed limit sign.

“Do you know how fast you were going,” he asked, looking for an admission of guilt.

“No, I sure don’t,” I said, meaning I was not watching my speedometer back when I crested that hill. I don’t normally pay much attention to my speedometer. As far as safe driving technique is concerned the arbitrary number on the speedo is irrelevant. What’s important is surrounding traffic, road conditions and all those external elements.

“I clocked you at 56-mph,” he said sternly.

I did my best to remain cooperative and conciliatory as I gave him my driver’s license and rummaged for the registration and proof of insurance. Wouldn’t you know, this is the first press car I’ve had that did not have its documents in the glove box. I explained that the car belonged to GM and I just had it for a week to evaluate it. He appeared to accept that explanation and went back to his car. I’m thinking he’ll just give me a warning and send me on my way.

No way! With ticket in hand he came back to make my day – in a bad way. He seemed to think I should be pleased that he only wrote it for 5-over instead of the 10-over with which he could have stung me. To his credit Officer Kluwe didn’t say “Have a nice day.”

If you knew me for long you’d know that one of the few things in life that really get my hackles up is a chicken s _ _ t ticket. I’ve been logging better than 30,000 miles a year for more than 30 years now without a radar detector, and I tend to drive mostly with the brisk traffic so I’m always vulnerable. Without equivocation I can say that I always drive at a reasonable, safe and prudent, though sometimes extra-legal, speed. Until recent years almost every speeding stop resulted in a warning rather than a ticket. Now, it seems, every stop is a ticket. Is it government’s desperate grab for revenue? Is it a deterioration in the cop/public relationship? Am I looking more like a surly miscreant in my old age? Or is it something unknowable element at play? I just don’t know.

As a matter of principal I fight them all. If in the end they get my money and slam me with points it’ll cost them more than it does me. By the time I get a couple of postponements, have a couple of hearings, get the cops and the highway officials doing research for my discovery demands, negotiate with the prosecutor and finally spend some time with the judge, the fine will be just a drop in their bucket. If everyone did that these revenue enhancement tickets would go away. The problem is, most people just roll over and take it, so it’s easy to post a speed limit lower than it should be and bust all the good folks who can’t go that slow.

After only one postponement the formal hearing was scheduled nearly six months after the alleged infraction. My research/discovery, in this case, revealed that the County Road Commission did not do a traffic or an engineering study as required by statute before posting the too-slow speed limit. And the city police chief could not come up with any documentation that the officer had the proper training in operating the laser gun. Those two issues were the essence of my motion to dismiss.

I was last in line at the prosecutor’s door but my turn finally came to talk to her before going into the courtroom to face the judge. She read my motion. She commiserated about the difficulty of meeting the State’s requirements for setting limits appropriately and then she got out her form to agree with the dismissal. But it wasn’t my scholarly research or my persuasive arguments that swayed her. Though I think she was impressed.

The case was dismissed because the cop didn’t show up.

The judge rubber-stamped the dismissal and I was out of there, into the cold winter wind, feeling warm and satisfied that somehow the system worked.