...apparently if you're 24, cute, and say "I'm sorry", you get out of just about anything with a magistrate:
A 24-year-old hairdresser, cited for allegedly driving 85 miles per hour in a 45 miles-per-hour zone and driving to endanger, tells the magistrate that she's sorry, and gets one of her citations dismissed and her $1,000 fine cut in half.
The story is chock full of idiots using the lamest excuses to get out of traffic tickets: a relative who has cancer is license to speed, a "little toyota with my wife's luggage" is incapable of 61mph, and a schoolteacher who ran a stop light (and ended up in a collision as a result) had her ticket for running a stop sign dismissed because she was "respectful but firm" that she "knows" she didn't do it.
The system is completely set up to reward pathological liars or people in denial- those of us honest enough to admit our mistake are punished for years with increased SDIP charges from our insurance companies. So hey, great news! Wanna stick up a bank? If you get arrested, just tell the judge, firmly and respectfully, that you know you didn't do it.
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Comments
you mean clerks taking a drivers word over a cops?
By Pete Nice
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 11:10am
Thanks for sticking up for the cops here Brett!
I left this part out:
By Brett
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 11:24am
"I think the system is working," said Superintendent Daniel Linskey of the Boston Police Department. "We have a role and a function. We see violations and we write violations that we think are necessary. A person has a right to appeal that. They can go to a clerk magistrate and the clerk's job is to determine whether they're responsible."
So, apparently, everyone is guilty according to Boston Police. And because you have the right of appeal, they shouldn't concern themselves with innocence. Furthering the "write 'em up for everything you can and let the courts sort it out" attitude.
Even when violations are dismissed, Linskey said, he believes motorists are learning a lesson: Break the law and you'll have to take a half-day off work to appeal. That alone, he said, will make people rethink how they drive.
And what about the innocent people who did nothing wrong and are punished by losing half a day's pay? Oh, right- everyone's guilty.
Is it any wonder that our court system is overburdened? Why can't BPD recognize that for every innocent dude they "let the courts sort out", that's another day a hoodlum stays on the streets waiting for his next court date?
well if you were a cop
By Pete Nice
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 11:27am
and pulled someone over for a violation and wrote them a ticket, wouldn't there be a 100% chance that they actually did it? (in your mind anyway?)
sure, for the honest ones
By Brett
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 11:52am
...but given what we've seen in the courts and press, BPD officers have serious problems with honesty. And unlike many municipal and state police departments, BPD refuses to put cameras in cruisers- something that's been done for decades now around the world.
When the technology exists (and is well refined) to document evidence of a civil violation or criminal matter and thus make prosecution of the truly guilty an open-and-shut case...and the police refuse to use it...you have to ask yourself why.
I agree
By Pete Nice
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 12:00pm
they should at least be able to have the option to turn them off and on for speed enforcement so you can actually see how fast someone was or was not going.
Cameras would also work great for drunk drivers (sobriety tests) and other minor violations as well.
But what if what the cop
By bostonguy
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 4:09pm
But what if what the cop thinks you did isn't a ticketable offense? Sorta like the cop in Franklin, MA who pulled me over about a year ago for running a yellow light. I'm just glad he gave me a warning, so I didn't need to try convincing anyone that you can't run a yellow light! (Means as much as running a green light!)
If you're a cop and you SEE the person do it,
By independentminded
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 8:25pm
then there's no way that the person who was caught committing a violation can avoid being pulled over and either being warned or ticketed immediately, depending on his/her overall traffic record, and the kind of violation that the offender committed.
Stop Light Fail
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 11:19am
That one is actually believable around here ... if enforcement is a joke and driver training requirements are laughable, it all pales in comparison to fundamental lack of maintenance of signals.
A cop in Meffuh tried to ticket me last year for running a red light on Fellsway West, but I politely pointed out that it wasn't even yellow when I went through.
In fact, I could see in my mirror that the light was malfunctioning and asked the policeman to look at it - it was solid (as in "stuck") on green to yellow and back to green for the cross street he had been lurking on, while it was showing green for the other direction.
He voided the ticket and radioed for backup while he went back to direct traffic before two people with green lights collided. Otherwise, I was going to step out and record the failed light cycle on my son's cel phone and upload as a huge warning to the local lists.
This article
By Kaz
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 12:53pm
Thanks, Brett. This article just pissed me off to no end. Good thing I'm about to go play some hockey. Someone's eating my wrath today...