What is the name of your state? New Jersey, took place in Virginia
I have a question. While driving home from Florida, my girlfriend was driving through Sussex County, Virginia at about 1 AM. Coming up over a hill, we saw flashing lights on the side of the road on the shoulder about 750 meters in front of us. We continued driving in the right lane, and when we passed we saw the person who was pulled over was a pickup truck who had passed us a few minutes earlier going about a thousand miles an hour or so. There were two squad cars behind the truck.
Approximately 30 seconds later, the second squad car who was behind the truck pulls us over. The officer asked for license, registration, and proof of insurance. My girlfriend hands the information over and the officer informs us that we have been pulled over for "failure to yield to an emergency vehicle on the shoulder".
Apparently in Virginia, it is illegal to be in the immediately neighboring lane of an emergency vehicle. For instance, on a two lane highway with a shoulder on the right, if an officer has someone pulled over, you can't be in the right lane. If you are, you get pulled over.
Now, while I agree with this law and realize it is in place to help keep emergency workers safe, we have never even heard of something like that from where we live, here in Jersey. My girlfriend called to see how much the ticket will cost, and she was told that the law is so new that they don't even have a penalty schedule in place. Her court date is tommorow (she is not required to go back down there for court, she can just plead guilty and pay it) and they have told her that she has 15 days after her court date to pay the fine (which she doesn't even know how much will cost at this point).
Does anyone have any advice that I could relay to her? It doesn't seem fair that she got a ticket for something that isn't a law in our state that we had no idea even existed, and now she can't even know what the fine is until after she is convicted. Do points carry over to NJ from Virginia for something like this? Anyone have any idea how much the fine will be? What can I tell her to do, she is very upset and she didn't even know she was doing anything wrong. What can we do here?
I have a question. While driving home from Florida, my girlfriend was driving through Sussex County, Virginia at about 1 AM. Coming up over a hill, we saw flashing lights on the side of the road on the shoulder about 750 meters in front of us. We continued driving in the right lane, and when we passed we saw the person who was pulled over was a pickup truck who had passed us a few minutes earlier going about a thousand miles an hour or so. There were two squad cars behind the truck.
Approximately 30 seconds later, the second squad car who was behind the truck pulls us over. The officer asked for license, registration, and proof of insurance. My girlfriend hands the information over and the officer informs us that we have been pulled over for "failure to yield to an emergency vehicle on the shoulder".
Apparently in Virginia, it is illegal to be in the immediately neighboring lane of an emergency vehicle. For instance, on a two lane highway with a shoulder on the right, if an officer has someone pulled over, you can't be in the right lane. If you are, you get pulled over.
Now, while I agree with this law and realize it is in place to help keep emergency workers safe, we have never even heard of something like that from where we live, here in Jersey. My girlfriend called to see how much the ticket will cost, and she was told that the law is so new that they don't even have a penalty schedule in place. Her court date is tommorow (she is not required to go back down there for court, she can just plead guilty and pay it) and they have told her that she has 15 days after her court date to pay the fine (which she doesn't even know how much will cost at this point).
Does anyone have any advice that I could relay to her? It doesn't seem fair that she got a ticket for something that isn't a law in our state that we had no idea even existed, and now she can't even know what the fine is until after she is convicted. Do points carry over to NJ from Virginia for something like this? Anyone have any idea how much the fine will be? What can I tell her to do, she is very upset and she didn't even know she was doing anything wrong. What can we do here?
