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Re: NEED ADVICE ON FIGHTING A TICKET



sthomson@Walden.MO.NET (Steven G. Thomson) wrote:
>How can you complain about being caught, when you knowingly break the 
>law. What possible defense could you use? None.

Did it ever occur to you that if we have 96% noncompliance with a law (as 
was the case when NY had a 55 mph speed limit) that the law is wrong and 
not those violating it?  In fact, NY Gov. Pataki acknowledged as much 
when he said it needed to be repealed.  This is why Prohibition was 
repealed back in the 30's.

In teh case of speed limits, the defense is that the limit is set 
incorrectly and  without regard to traffic engineering standards.  Since 
speed limit signs are a traffic control device just like stop signs, 
right-of-way signs and whatnot, they are subject to the same standards as 
those.  IOW, for the numbers on a speed limit sign to be valid, they have 
to be based on an engineering survey.  Usually though, that reason is 
inconvenient to the local politicans, who lower speed limits to placate 
non-knowing "concerned citizens" who want to slow down "those damn 
speeders who will kill all the children for Pete's sake" (they always 
go to extremes) and, not incidentally, raise revenue for the town without 
raising taxes.  

On average, speed limits are 10-15 mph below what engineers would set 
them at.  They're set at about the 30th percentile when they should be at 
the 85th percentile.

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