State Troopers Absent, Speeders Walk
- Thread starter jimmnn
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AceWeb
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Thinking this logically, is it really as bad as they make it seem? I do not think so.
1. In 3 years there were 800 cases where cops did not s how up for court for tickets written; that's 266 a year, 0.72/.day. In that window perhaps the officers were better utilized in responding to accidents or writing more tickets. In that 1-2 hour window that would have been wasted driving to court the cops can write many more tickets instead - that 0.72/day ticket was paid for ten-fold I am sure by other tickets. Had the cops been to court every time, we may see a report saying "cops have a slow response to accidents while going to court to generate ticket revenue" story.
2. As for talking to the officer about your ticket, I actually think it's great. Give them your side of the story and if the cop feels that he is right then go to trial if not, don't waste the DA's and Judge's time. When they pull someone over they generally do no want to hear any excuses; they want to write the ticket and get on their marry way. If one had the option of meeting with the cop and explaining yourself, I think that's great.
That's my $0.02 on this.
1. In 3 years there were 800 cases where cops did not s how up for court for tickets written; that's 266 a year, 0.72/.day. In that window perhaps the officers were better utilized in responding to accidents or writing more tickets. In that 1-2 hour window that would have been wasted driving to court the cops can write many more tickets instead - that 0.72/day ticket was paid for ten-fold I am sure by other tickets. Had the cops been to court every time, we may see a report saying "cops have a slow response to accidents while going to court to generate ticket revenue" story.
2. As for talking to the officer about your ticket, I actually think it's great. Give them your side of the story and if the cop feels that he is right then go to trial if not, don't waste the DA's and Judge's time. When they pull someone over they generally do no want to hear any excuses; they want to write the ticket and get on their marry way. If one had the option of meeting with the cop and explaining yourself, I think that's great.
That's my $0.02 on this.
It bothers me that there are SO many tickets written in El Paso County...either the drivers are worse than I thought, or maybe lots of borderline tickets are being written, and that's why so many don't make it into the court room.
I think Channel 7 is scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. Those "investigators" think they are like Mike Wallace or Paula Woodward.
It has been my experience that if you have the time to go down and contest a traffic ticket that you ALWAYS can dicker with a poor schmuck assistant DA and get it knocked down to a 1 point violation. Now with them needing money so bad you will have to pay more $$ though. Only difference here is that the DA's figured out a way to have the fuzz do it for them.
It has been my experience that if you have the time to go down and contest a traffic ticket that you ALWAYS can dicker with a poor schmuck assistant DA and get it knocked down to a 1 point violation. Now with them needing money so bad you will have to pay more $$ though. Only difference here is that the DA's figured out a way to have the fuzz do it for them.
Troop
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For about the last 15 or so years most traffic infractions (civil penalties) in Colorado are not even touched by the DA. The Troopers are either asked by the magistrate to make talk to the violator and work something out as far as a plea, or take it to trial. The only person I can think of that would raise an issue with this is the county, since they are not getting the revnues from dismissed tickets. The big issue with this and the patrol is, we are forbidden to make plea deals with defendants when they dont take advantage of mailing the citation in. So i'm thinking El Paso County is crying the blues on this one...who would be mad about a dropped ticket?...not many people I know!
I think you are right. My experience was mostly in Denver, and was indeed at least 10 years ago. Also the "Assistant DA's" were probably farther down the food chain. Back then my motivation was keeping the points down below 12 more than the money. The tickets sure were a lot cheaper then---
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