Juvenile fighting ticket.....

[kphutch]

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

My 17 year old son was recently involved in a fender-bender. He was cited (ORC 4511.42) for failure to yield on left turn. He entered a denial plea (same as not guilty) and has a 4/7/10 trial date in juvenile court.

My son plans to fight this due to:

1) It appears he was charged with the wrong statute -- 4511.42, when it should have been 4511.44. (although the prosecutor says he will just get this amended and it won't matter.)

2) We have found legal precedent in Ohio that another driver/vehicle forfeits the right-of-way by proceeding in an unlawful manner. We will provide evidence that the other driver was speeding. This alone (speeding) does not automatically forfeit the right-of-way.....we must also show that the driver's speed was excessive or unreasonable under the circumstances. This will be easy....the other driver was speeding in a school zone at dismissal time.


We have never been through anything like this and would really appreciate it if you experienced folks could send some advice our way....things to be aware of, or potential holes/problems in our case. We have found online that the other driver has plead guilty to two previous speeding offenses (one was in a school zone). From what I've read, we can't bring this up at the trial though.....is that correct?

Thanks in advance for any and all comments!!

 

[JustAPal00]

Was the other driver cited for speeding and if so how fast in what mph zone? If not, what method did you use to determine his speed?

 

[kphutch]

No the other driver was not cited....no witnesses. Police officer was called after the accident.

We will argue that we can determine the other driver's approximate speed. We are able to use exact measurements of the scene using Google Earth. We made 5 test runs.....me with a stop watch and my son driving. As soon as he began to exit the school driveway, I started the stopwatch, and then stopped it each time at the moment he yelled stop (at point of impact). The times were very consistent. Then we determined where the other driver's vehicle was when my son began to exit the driveway. After that, it was easy to calculate how fast the other driver was moving (by using the Google Earth measurements).

In the 5 trials that we did, we were able to calulate that the other driver was travelling in a range between 34.8 mph and 40.5 pmh, a far cry from the 15 mph that he stated he was travelling at. The speed zone in that active "school zone" was 20 mph.

 

[Zigner]

No the other driver was not cited....no witnesses. Police officer was called after the accident.

We will argue that we can determine the other driver's approximate speed. We are able to use exact measurements of the scene using Google Earth. We made 5 test runs.....me with a stop watch and my son driving. As soon as he began to exit the school driveway, I started the stopwatch, and then stopped it each time at the moment he yelled stop (at point of impact). The times were very consistent. Then we determined where the other driver's vehicle was when my son began to exit the driveway. After that, it was easy to calculate how fast the other driver was moving (by using the Google Earth measurements).

In the 5 trials that we did, we were able to calulate that the other driver was travelling in a range between 34.8 mph and 40.5 pmh, a far cry from the 15 mph that he stated he was travelling at. The speed zone in that active "school zone" was 20 mph.

Your non-scientific trials will hold no weight in court.

 

[ecmst12]

You can't prove he was speeding and even if you could, it would NOT be sufficient to remove your son's duty to yield. He is 100% at fault. It's possible he will get out of the ticket for some other reason, but that won't change the fact that the accident was his fault and his insurance will have to pay.

 

[JustAPal00]

Without a witness, you can't prove where the other car was. You can say he was way down there, and the other driver will say he was closer. Besides in order for that defense to work, you would have to prove that the other car was traveling recklessly fast!