it sure feels good to beat a ticket in court.

[dysfunctional press]

i generally always go to court if i get a traffic ticket- most of the time, the cop doesn't show up, and it's dismissed. i once had a court date on a nice summer friday afternoon- the call was for tickets that had been issued on the tollway, and out of 6 state troopers that were supposed to be there that day to be the state's witnesses for the various cases, including mine- exactly ZERO showed up, and the very pissed-off judge had to dismiss ALL the cases.

that didn't happen this time, though. i had been ticketed a couple months ago by a forest preserve cop in a neighboring county for having my dog in an off-leash dog park without a permit.

quick back story- near the corporate headquarters where my wife started working earlier this year is the dog park in question...i was going to be in the area, and i suggested meeting her for lunch- she suggested bringing the dog(black lab 2 years old) to try out the dog park she had been told about by co-workers.

when we got there, there was a sign on the gate by the parking lot entrance: Permit required for use of off-leash area...when we parked the car and headed for the trail(s), there was the same sign at the trailhead we chose. not knowing the park, and seeing no map or anything that indicated what areas were "off-leash" and which were "on-leash", we asked some of the other people there with their dogs, and were told that the off-leash area was over on the other side of the large pond- she said that if we took the trail, we'd come to a fork- and to take the right fork to get to the off-leash area. since we had no permit, we chose to avoid those areas, and when we got to the fork- we went straight instead of turning. we probably went all of 100-150 yards down the path before turning around and going back the car...when we got back to the parking lot, there was a forest preserve cop checking permits- we told her that we hadn't been to the off-leash area, and that we never took our dog's leash off. she told us that everything outside the parking lot was an off-leash area, and a permit was required to use it, whether you took the dog off the leash or not. i got a $75 ticket.

my court date was this past monday at 1pm in the neighboring county where it occured. in the interim, my wife had gone back to the park to take pics of the signage. i explained to the judge that we had tried to ascertain the boundaries of the off-leash area and thought that we had- i also pointed out that the sign at the trailhead should have said permit required 'beyond this point', and that if a permit was required to use any/every area of the park, the sign at the entrance should say: permit required to use this facility...by having signs that say 'permit required in off-leash area- it implies that there is a on-leash area where permits are NOT required.

the judge agreed with me, and it was a ruling "for the defendant". he also told the forest preserve cop that the district would need to re-examine it's signage...

:woohoo:

[cboy4]

1. I woud never attempt to talk anyone out of fighting a ticket they

honestly believe(d) they deserved to receive.

No way in hell.

However, you cite, so to speak, six troopers for failing to show up for work.

The circumstances of cop no-shows are pretty rare, because I can tell you most cops look foward to court!

Why?

Because they're excused from work and they get paid for a whopping minimum of four hours of overtime .. even if they're there for only three minutes ((because the defendent/violator didn't bother to show.)

on edit, typo cuz I'm dozing!

[dysfunctional press]

6. "The circumstances of cop no-shows are pretty rare..."

not around here- out of the last 5 moving violations i've received (over a period of as many years) 4 of them were dismissed because the cops weren't in court.

[cboy4]

7. Wow. I wonder if the agency that wrote you is short-staffed and

couldn't afford to not have the officers working the streets.

California Highway Patrol officers will show up here .. even if they have to walk three miles through the snow barefoot.

[eridani]

2. I'm doing the same. Before I retired, I had more money than time

Now it's the other way around. It's a parking ticket where the relevant sign was knocked over and not visible.

[elleng]

3. Bravo!

.

[Joe the Liberal]

4. Niiiiiiiice.....

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Hippo_Tron]

5. I was worried I was gonna have to do that after tonight

I was driving on the interstate and all of a sudden the blue cop lights appeared behind me. I was going about 5 over (which is usually hard to prove in court) and there was no shoulder at this point for the cop to have been sitting on to use his radar. Of course I was about 2-3 hours away from home and wouldn't have really liked to drive out there to contest it but I feel like it would've been kinda fun. Turns out the cop just turned his lights on so I would pull into the other lane so that he could drive faster because he turned them off as soon as I pulled into the other lane.