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Go to court. Explain what happened. Then accept the judgment of the court.
How hard is that?
There's no vast conspiracy between diabolical prosecutors and judicial cohorts to 'get' you. You're not some innocent victim. You're either someone who wasn't thinking (anyone else notice the tendency of people who use their handles to brag about themselves are usually deficient in precisely the trait around which their boasting revolves?) and you will pay a penalty of some sort, or the LEO is mistaken and you will not.
That's it.
Just act like an adult.
And, hopefully, despite all indications in this thread that you are bound and determined not to... learn something from this.
PS - Per what the other poster noted, the Fairfax County hours for court appearances do indeed begin at 10:00 (not 09:00, as you claimed). How embarrassing for you to make this false claim in the very paragraph in which you accuse that poster of 'talking out of his a**'. Contacts, Hours and Directions*- Fairfax County, Virginia
Just saw a stat on texting while driving. More than 30,000 accidents a years attributed to texting while driving, which is over 80% of all accidents.
I don't think a judge is going to be sympathetic to your case....
In 2009 there were 10.8 million traffic accidents in the US. 30k is FAR less than 80%
Now, your numbers might be right, so far as a specific state, county.. Whatever.. At least the 30k accidents. But for the 80%.. I call put up or shut up on that. Where's that data at? I was going to argue the 26% that someone posted before, but.. that number is at least possible when you expand it to all distracted driving.
This part I am not joking about in the least.. The people here who say that regardless of the law he should be convicted.. Every last one of you needs to be barred from jury duty and have your voting rights suspended until you take a civics class. There is NO difference between what you are saying here and people on juries who convict someone "because they probably did something else"
You don't convict people of crimes they didn't do because you don't like what they did. Nor because they're a-holes. Nor because you don't agree with their politics, lifestyle or anything else. You convict them based on the evidence. The evidence here shows that the officer said the mere act of him holding the phone was why he was ticketed. The LAW says that's not enough.
If the law isn't good enough. Change the law.
The people who argue that he's dumb for not having a lawyer going into this.. Well.. That part I actually concur with.
Fighting it is not going to cause him to get a higher fine. He's got the fine, that's the worst that he does. You can't appeal a speeding ticket and have the charge upped to Murder One.
At the end of the day, based on the law, he SHOULD beat this. However.. I still only give him a 50/50 shot. If it's a jury.. I'd say less.. But, this is a NoVA jury. That will be an eclectic mix. He should also learn from it, as should the Commonwealth, by rewriting the law so that what he did.. Or the person eating in the car, or the person playing angry birds on their phone or any other distracted driver can be prosecuted.
I hope he learns that texting while driving is more dangerous than drunk driving and I would be fine with a strong commitment that he will never do it again.
I tried texting once years ago after I got my first phone with texting ability. At the time it wasn't illegal (years ago as I said) and it scared me so bad I never did it again. Lucky for me I didn't learn it the hard way by killing someone's child, maiming a mother of 3 or killing the breadwinner of a family.
Fighting it is not going to cause him to get a higher fine. He's got the fine, that's the worst that he does. You can't appeal a speeding ticket and have the charge upped to Murder One.
I don't think I ever stated that he would get a higher fine. I understand if he wants to fight for principle but if he does it, he needs to arm himself. He went in alone in the traffic court and saw what the result was. You don't go into an appeal bringing the same argument in the first case where you lost.
As for the higher fine. It's not the specific fine. It's the court cost. It's not a free trial unless he wins. If you are going to fight, don't go in unprepared and go on the Internet and ask for suggestion. That is what this whole post started out as. The very least was consult with an attorney first.
Seeing as texting is the number one cause of auto accidents I hope you have to pay whatever fine they have in place so you learn your lesson. More states, cities, counties need to make this a law. On the way to work every morning the sheer number of people staring into their phones is insane and virtually unsafe. All these adults acting like 14 year olds with ADD, grow up.
Seeing as texting is the number one cause of auto accidents I hope you have to pay whatever fine they have in place so you learn your lesson. More states, cities, counties need to make this a law. On the way to work every morning the sheer number of people staring into their phones is insane and virtually unsafe. All these adults acting like 14 year olds with ADD, grow up.
Argue in court the way you're arguing here and you could end up fined and jailed by the judge.
I doubt the judge is an illiterate bozo with ADHD who can't focus on a simple point brought up to his attention, unlike some of you fine folks!
Thanks for playing!
Speaking of playing, maybe you can download a how-to pay attention to the road app.
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