careless driving and speeding

nazark_18 · #1 10-30-2006, 04:28 PM

This happened in muskegon Michigan.

Me, my brother and some other friend were cruising in Michigan. We had 3 different cars. It was me, then my brother and his friend, and then followed behind him another person. We were going around a corner and my brother decided to see how good his integra could handle the corner. Any ways, he was going to fast and spun out and went over a curb and stopped in someone’s yard. Both my friend and I turned around and went back to the incident seen. The guy that owned the house called the cops. The cop ended up writing my brother two tickets. One was for careless driving the other one was for speeding. My brother is only 18 and has 7 points on his license already so these tickets are not something hes looking forward too.

Obviously he need to fight the ticket in order to save his license. I would like to know if he has any chance of winning and what would be the best way to go about this.

First of all, does any one know if he can get two tickets… speeding and careless driving… wouldn’t careless driving cover all that has happened? And also how can a cop write him a speeding ticket when he didn’t see any of what happened. The only people that seen what happened was me, the person in my brothers car and our friends following us.

Could we all go to court and testify that he wasn’t speeding. Since I was in front and I did the speed limit and the other car we behind us.

Is there any way he can get it reduced to just careless driving or have nothing at all? Or just pay the fine and not get any point on his license?

Please let me know what you think.

cepe10 · #2 10-30-2006, 05:51 PM

Yes he can have you testify for him.

The officer didn't witness the event so the case will have effectively no witnesses for the prosecution...

those two things are going for you.

now if there was oil or dirt on the road at that curve you would really have a case. you might want to check and take some pics etc.

fairisfair · #3 10-30-2006, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cepe10

Yes he can have you testify for him.

The officer didn't witness the event so the case will have effectively no witnesses for the prosecution...

those two things are going for you.

now if there was oil or dirt on the road at that curve you would really have a case. you might want to check and take some pics etc.

Yeah, I imagine he is on his way back to the "incident seen" right now, with a camera. . . . . . . . . and a shovel.

nazark_18 · #4 10-30-2006, 06:19 PM

the cop took alot of pictures, im not sure if he took any focusing just on the corner, but i dont whant to go take pics with dirt on there and have him compare it to his pics when there was nothing on the road.

So what would be the best things to say while in court?

Just tell them that he couldnt have been speeding because i was infront of him and i wasnt... i got throught the courner just fine. so maybe he wasnt paying attention. Or should i just go and take pictures with dirt on there?

cepe10 · #5 10-31-2006, 06:08 AM

one of my inspectors just had a situation like this, unfortunately it was a blind curve and he slid into an oncoming car, a trooper just happened to come along on this back road and issued a ticket. Our department of course handled all the damages to the other car.

The surface of the road had been polished over the years and needed to be scuffed by the highway department, in addition there was evidence of oil spills. The corner was very slick...

This corner was posted at 15 mph but the sign was right at the curve not before it and you couldn't even hardly navigate this sharp curve on those surfaces at 15 mph.

He went to court with his evidence pics and testimony from a inspector riding with him, the case was dropped by the trooper before trial, upon seeing that damages had been paid for.

In your case since there were not even any real damages, I would look further into the surface of the road, the posted speed, lack of any signs before the curve, and your witness testimony as to the speed.

Unless the officer measured skid marks along with the coefficient of friction of the surface and is going to provide an engineering analysis, it is hard to see how he is going to meet his burden of proof.