Ignoring non-existing sign

[JFA]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Virginia

I accelerated hard to merge with traffic from my street's stop sign onto a limited access road. Within 1/2 mile, I crested a hill and was pulled over for speeding.

The officer wrote me up for a lesser "Ignoring a Traffic Sign" violation (though the citation does show in his notes the original reason for the pull-over).

Reviewing the area along that road there are no traffic signs other than those indicating the next exit. Not even merge, exit only lanes, nor speed limit.

Would it be reasonable to challenge this violation with photographs showing that there were no signs to ignore?

jfa

 

[Maestro64]

no, you got what is known as a road side discount. Generally ignoring a traffic control device ticket are the lesser ticket you can get and many time they do not even carry any points, it varies by state. The fact the officer wrote notes on the ticket indicating that you were originally pulled over for something else will tell the judge you were already given a break.

If you want to fight it you have to plan on fighting the original reason you were pulled over since if that was not a valid reason for the stop the entire ticket is invalid. So you have show the the officer was wrong with his initial assessment that you were speeding.

If you plan to fight the speeding ticket, what speed did he indicate you were going, it is hard to write tickets for an on ramp as long as you did not exceed the speed limit of the road you were entering. it is not speeding to not follow the Cautionary yellow speed limit signs, those by definition are not limit sign but caution speed signs. I have seen where some police try to issue tickets to people exceeding the cautionary 25MPH speed for a ramp leading to a 55MPH road. Now he could write you up for too fast for conditions or something similar, but going 55MPH on an on ramp is not forbidden.