Negligent Driving - 2nd Deg - WA

[hooked82]

What is the name of your state? Washington
RCW 46.61.525
Negligent driving — Second degree

So the other morning on my way to work I was pulled over and issued a citation for "Negligent Driving - 2nd Degree".
This is what happened:
I was getting on to the freeway and merged onto it at 70mph, which is the speed limit at this section of the freeway. Once in the right lane, I signaled and moved to the middle lane. Now at the location of the freeway it is normal for drivers to be going slower than the speed limit, around 60mph. I was going to change lanes to the left lane until the vehicle in front of me did so, who was also going less than the speed limit. So I changed lanes back to the right lane as there was a good gap between the vehicle in the middle lane and the vehicle in the right lane. As I was getting to the point of merging into the middle lane to pass the vehicle, the driver in the middle lane sped up to "close the gap".

So now I sped up a little more to get past the driver and merged. Yes I was going over the speed limit, and the merge into the center lane did "cutoff" the driver as he had sped up. I now know that my decision to do this was not good, for the result, though it was a split second decision and I did it.

When the officer pulled me over he stated that the reason I got this ticket is because I didn't signal into the right lane, I got onto the freeway way to fast, I cut the driver off, and I continued to speed after I passed the driver. Now I know I signaled when I changed lanes, I didn't get onto the freeway to fast as I merged at the speed limit, I did cutoff the driver, and I didn't continue to speed after I passed. When I passed, I was going around 80, 10 over the limit, and within an 1/8th mile or so, I was back down to around the speed limit. The officer said that instead of writing me four tickets, that he gave me this one instead.

Another thing is that the officer didn't pull me over until about 1-1/2 miles down the freeway which leads me to believe that he was a ways behind me and not able to see exaclty what I did and can't say exaclty how close the merge was.

My question is, should I have gotten a ticket for Neg. Driving 2nd Deg. I know it wasn't the smartest decision, but is merging to close and speeding considered Negligent? Should I try to contest this as I didn't commit 2-3 of the stated infractions, and who knows how far behind the officer was. This isn't something that is normal for me and I have a pretty good record, with no infractions in at least the last 5 years.

Any help would be great, thanks!

[racer72]

Negligent driving is a nice catch all, instead of writing you up for mulitiple violations you get dinged once. How you fight this is going to depend on your driving record. If your record is less than perfect, negotiating it down to a lesser offense will be real tough. You will want an attorney on your side. If you have a clean record and the prosecuting attorney is in a good mood, it may be possible to get the ticket dropped to a lesser charge and maybe even a deferral. The county you are in will also make a difference. King and Pierce counties are tough on those that get tickets like yours. In some of the smaller counties, the judges will give a little more leeway. This is a serious ticket, at a minimum talk to a local attorney and discuss your options. The distance from when you committed the infraction and when you were pulled over is not unusual. The officer could have been calling in a license check before pulling your over.

[FlyingRon]

Speeding and cutting people off sounds bad. In addition while you may have signalled, you may not have signalled far enough in advance of your lane change to count (highly likely given the rapid sucession of lane changes you admit to having made).