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My GF and I were driving to PA on Saturday, we got pulled over where we live (in jersey), she was driving.
Just a note my girlfriend drives very cautiously and very carefully. She has been driving since she was 16, and now is 29, never had points nor a moving violation since she started driving. We were going to a wedding and she was a bridesmaid, she gets very nervous and must of not been thinking or just had a lapse in judgement.
All of a sudden as we are driving we here a siren go off for a sec, and it's a cop behind us. As we get pulled over we are like "what the hell?"
The cop comes up the window and my girlfriend gives her papers and politely asked, what happened?
The cop said that he was behind her for over a mile and that we didn't pull over and she was doing 51 in a 40. I was stunned and just sitting there, I did NOT see a cop behind her at all. I was too busy looking the GPS on the phone. She apologized profusely and was scared as well. The cop took her stuff and said "brb."
He comes back and says "Since you are going to PA I am going to let you go but you are getting three tickets in the mail: Failure to stop, 51 in a 40, and Failure to Maintain lane. He said she went over a double yellow line. I never saw her do that either. We are trying to go through this through our heads and have NO IDEA where she could of done this.
She is crying and she said she was so sorry. And he yelled at her saying "LISTEN! You will get the tickets in the mail, have a nice day." And just walked away. He nearly screamed at her, she didn't' have an attitude, was extremely respectful. I was just sitting there not saying anything, I just didn't want to make it worse.
We just got the tickets a few days ago in the mail and the speeding ticket is now a 51 in a 35, not 40. And we DEFINITELY heard him say 40. The failure to stop ticket (because he said we didn't stop), can face jail time up to 15 days. The tickets in total are over 8 points, and probably over 1000 dollars in fines. My girlfriend has a perfect driving record. And court appearance of course, is required.
My girlfriend is in a panic, this has never happened to her, she never got tickets like this. She is just crying her eyes out. She didn't even mean any malice by this. What makes it worse is that the court date is a month from now, so she has all this great time to think about it.
What I am scared of and she is too, is that I didn't record this. I just was in shock of how this happend. Particularly because we didn't see the cop behind us. It was most likely a combination of her staring straight at the road and me looking down at the GPS. What I don't understand is why he let us KEEP GOING and not put his siren noise on SOONER so we would of known he was behind us. It's like he purposely let us keep going to write her more tickets.
We are both scared that the prosecutor is going to give her the full punishment and accure all 8 points, and most likely huge fines. This is a SMALL TOWN. If people really need the town now, I will post it. but I'd rather not if it's not needed.
We know both right now we aren't going to be able to afford (by the court date) the money for the combination of all three tickets.
He sent us the tickets in the mail, I still have the envelope from the police department. I can't really remember the spot we actually got pulled over in. he said he was following us for a mile. The oinly thing I can do i follow the patch back to the pull over spot, and then go back a mile to see if I can check where he "put his lights on."
Small town? Sure the cop didn't put his siren on, or probably even his lights for the whole time he was following you. He's trying to make money for the town. Welcome to NJ. It's all about the green. Better hope you get some sympathy from the prosecutor, or find a good lawyer at that. At first I thought it was a state trooper until you said small town. I won't ask the town, but what area or county was it?
And with a perfect driving record until now, they will probably just reduce them to a lesser offense and make you pay more money. That is what it is all about. I'm in Middlesex County and that is how small towns in my area like Milltown, Spotswood, Helmetta and Highland Park get their big money. All these towns have Nazi police forces. When you see a police car on the road, do whatever you can to get away from it, LEGALLY. Avoid interaction with them because they are all out of control everywhere now. You saw what happened on Staten Island a month ago when they full-nelsoned the guy to death in Tompkinsville.
Not sure if you got the memo but NJ cops are some of the most corrupt and highest paid. It's sad, but living out of state and not contributing to their salaries is the best alternate.
If you have to show up to court, just be nice to the judge and it will likely get reduced. Being respectful in front of the judge is what really matters.
Got pulled over for doing well over 50 in a 25 but was let go with a warning. I was doing about 40.
Also....got a handicap parking ticket for $350 when there were no other spots left. Long story - fought it and lost...there was nowhere else to park and our work site is not open to the public, no handicap people there etc etc Judge said I broke the law and that was that (mine was first case and whole court groaned)....then the court officer said it was a good thing I had the cash or they would have had to have held me overnight.
I took lunch to work for over a year to make back the $350 x2 btw. I then bought $10k of muni bonds to get some more back from the state.
I went to a court room recently when one of my kids had to appear. The judge just fined everybody $500 plus $33 court costs one after the other. It seemed it did not matter what anyone did whether it was speeding or looking the wrong way or murder, LOL. Just kidding on that one, but it definitely is about the $$.
As far as any facts go I think 99% of the time it never gets to any point where you are facing the actual cop who wrote any tickets. Its basically about okay you are walking in with three tickets,,,maybe hope they drop one, reduce one and maybe pay the "unsafe driving zero points" deal on the third. So the way I see it they drop one ticket, reduce the speeding to 2 points, and make the third a zero points but you have to pay about $485 for that one.
Oh and no matter what, GPS, etc, the driver at least should always be looking around, including behind. You have to stay aware of all around you for many reasons including these revenue traps.
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