At 11:01 AM 6/23/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>My Advice:  Pay the fine.  Justify it as payment for all the times
>you were speeding and didn't get caught.  Is it unfair or untrue?
>Too bad - the legal system is not about what is true or fair,
>only what can be proved to a "reasonable" jury or judge.
>If everyone who claimed that "it was somebody else" could
>try and justify their position by what "they" say in court, no
>one would ever get a ticket.  Only (maybe) good professional
>witnesses could testify for you - a piece of paper that they
>have notorized is probably not sufficient as the
>judge/prosecution can't ask it questions.  What you need
>is either an impartial witness or video tape.  Of course with
>the video, you still need the professional witnesses to tell the
>judge the distance and time you traversed in order to show
>the speed you were really going (maybe one of those
>P.E.'s or P.Eng's :) ).  Not to mention you need a good lawyer
>to represent you.  From your other replies, saying the police
>were liars won't get you anywhere, the judge has heard it
>before and won't like it.  Unless you can show that the
>equipment was out of calibration or reasonably prove that
>the radar actually did and not may have, locked onto the other
>car you're out of luck.  Life ain't fair, cut your losses, pay
>the fine (and traffic school and higher insurance).
>
>Note that I'm not a laywer so the above may be entirely wrong.
>
>Ken

Alternately, he could talk to one of the paralegal types-
here we have "Points" and "X-Copper" (former police officers).

The courts have their own language and principles and really are a dispute
resolution mechanism that has little to do with "justice" per se
and more to do with the maintenance of a framework of rules and
penalties. If you don't argue your case within that set
framework (remember, it's the lawyers and the police who set and
know the rules respectively, and judges are lawyers by training)
you can expect to lose, just like someone arguing an engineering matter
without knowing the language and the basics would never succeed in a room
full of P.E.'s P. Eng's.

The penalties for a ticket and demerit points be quite substantial- not
so much the ticket itself, but the increases in insurance rates.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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